What is Impasto

IMPASTO is a style of painting in which the paint is applied very heavily quite often with a palette knife.  The brush or kinfe strokes are usually visible. The result is that the finished canvas can have a great deal of texture to it.  The texture affects the way light hits the canvas and adds expressiveness to the painting.  It can - if used heavily enough - transform a painting into a three dimensional almost sculptural presentation.   Many of the impressionist painters such as Vincent Van Gogh painted in this fashion. 

Because of the slow drying time and thickness of the paint, oil is the perfect medium for doing this type of painting.  The word "impasto" is Italian in origin and in Italian it means dough or mixture and the verb form can translate as to knead or to paste. 

In the first painting below which is titled Woodshed in Autumn  the stone wall and the leaves on the ground in the foreground are done in a medium impasto style and the leaves on the trees are also done impasto with a palette knife which gives additional texture to the painting.

In this second painting which is titled Tranquility the texture of the snow is applied very heavily in a more evident impasto technique which adds to the impression of mounds of snow in the foreground.

Both of these paintings can be seen in greater detail at my site at Fine Art America and in the better detail the impasto technique will be more evident

This is just one technique used by artists and  many paintings actually are comprised of a variety of techniques.  Both of the paintings above are done partly by brush and partly by palette knife.  Can you tell by looking at them where the brush and palette knife were used?