Canvas - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Canvas is an extremely heavy-duty plain-woven

Plain weave

Plain weave is the most basic of three fundamental types of textile weaves . It is strong and hard-wearing, used for fashion and furnishing fabrics....

fabric used for making sail

Sail

A sail is any type of surface intended to move a vessel, vehicle or rotor by being placed in a wind—in essence a propulsion wing. Sails are used in sailing.-History of sails:...

s, tent

Tent

A tent is a shelter consisting of sheets of fabric or other material draped over or attached to a frame of poles or attached to a supporting rope. While smaller tents may be free-standing or attached to the ground, large tents are usually anchored using guy ropes tied to stakes or tent pegs...

s, marquees, backpack

Backpack

A backpack is, in its simplest form, a cloth sack carried on one's back and secured with two straps that go over the shoulders, but there can be exceptions...

s, and other items for which sturdiness is required. It is also popularly used by artists as a painting surface, typically stretched across a wooden frame. It is also used in such fashion objects as handbags and shoes.

Etymology

The word canvas is derived from the 13th century Anglo-French canevaz and the Old French

Old French

Old French was the Romance dialect continuum spoken in territories that span roughly the northern half of modern France and parts of modern Belgium and Switzerland from the 9th century to the 14th century...

canevas. Both may be derivatives of the Vulgar Latin

Vulgar Latin

Vulgar Latin is any of the nonstandard forms of Latin from which the Romance languages developed. Because of its nonstandard nature, it had no official orthography. All written works used Classical Latin, with very few exceptions...

cannapaceus for "made of hemp

Hemp

Hemp is mostly used as a name for low tetrahydrocannabinol strains of the plant Cannabis sativa, of fiber and/or oilseed varieties. In modern times, hemp has been used for industrial purposes including paper, textiles, biodegradable plastics, construction, health food and fuel with modest...

," originating from the Greek (cannabis

Cannabis

Cannabis is a genus of flowering plants that includes three putative species, Cannabis sativa, Cannabis indica, and Cannabis ruderalis. These three taxa are indigenous to Central Asia, and South Asia. Cannabis has long been used for fibre , for seed and seed oils, for medicinal purposes, and as a...

Physical characteristics

Modern canvas is usually made of cotton

Cotton

Cotton is a soft, fluffy staple fiber that grows in a boll, or protective capsule, around the seeds of cotton plants of the genus Gossypium. The fiber is almost pure cellulose. The botanical purpose of cotton fiber is to aid in seed dispersal....

or linen

Linen

Linen is a textile made from the fibers of the flax plant, Linum usitatissimum. Linen is labor-intensive to manufacture, but when it is made into garments, it is valued for its exceptional coolness and freshness in hot weather....

, although historically it was made from hemp

Hemp

. It differs from other heavy cotton fabrics, such as denim

Denim

Denim is a rugged cotton twill textile, in which the weft passes under two or more warp threads. This produces the familiar diagonal ribbing identifiable on the reverse of the fabric, which distinguishes denim from cotton duck. Denim has been in American usage since the late 18th century...

, in being plain weave

Plain weave

Plain weave is the most basic of three fundamental types of textile weaves . It is strong and hard-wearing, used for fashion and furnishing fabrics....

rather than twill weave. Canvas comes in two basic types: plain and duck

Cotton duck

Cotton duck , also simply duck, sometimes duck cloth or duck canvas, commonly called "canvas" outside the textile industry, is a heavy, plain woven cotton fabric...

. The threads in duck canvas are more tightly woven. The term duck comes from the Dutch

Dutch language

Dutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second...

word for cloth, doek. In the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

, canvas is classified in two ways: by weight (ounces per square yard) and by a graded number system. The numbers run in reverse of the weight so a number 10 canvas is lighter than number 4.

Canvas for painting

Canvas has become the most common support medium for oil painting

Oil painting

Oil painting is the process of painting with pigments that are bound with a medium of drying oil—especially in early modern Europe, linseed oil. Often an oil such as linseed was boiled with a resin such as pine resin or even frankincense; these were called 'varnishes' and were prized for their body...

, replacing wooden panels

Panel painting

A panel painting is a painting made on a flat panel made of wood, either a single piece, or a number of pieces joined together. Until canvas became the more popular support medium in the 16th century, it was the normal form of support for a painting not on a wall or vellum, which was used for...

. One of the earliest surviving oils on canvas is a French Madonna with angels from around 1410 in the Gemäldegalerie, Berlin

Gemäldegalerie, Berlin

The Gemäldegalerie is an art museum in Berlin, Germany. It holds one of the world's leading collections of European art from the 13th to the 18th centuries. It is located on Kulturforum west of Potsdamer Platz. Its collection includes masterpieces from such artists as Albrecht Dürer, Lucas...

. However, panel painting remained more common until the 16th century in Italy

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

and the 17th century in Northern Europe. Mantegna

Andrea Mantegna

Andrea Mantegna was an Italian painter, a student of Roman archeology, and son in law of Jacopo Bellini. Like other artists of the time, Mantegna experimented with perspective, e.g., by lowering the horizon in order to create a sense of greater monumentality...

and Venetian artists were among those leading the change; Venetian sail canvas was readily available and regarded as the best quality.

Canvas is typically stretched across a wooden frame called a stretcher

Stretcher bar

A stretcher bar is used to construct a wooden stretcher frame used by artists to mount their canvases. They are traditionally a wooden framework support on which an artist fastens a piece of canvas...

, and may be coated with gesso

Gesso

Gesso is a white paint mixture consisting of a binder mixed with chalk, gypsum, pigment, or any combination of these...

before it is to be used; this is to prevent oil paint from coming into direct contact with the canvas fibres, which will eventually cause the canvas to decay. A traditional and flexible chalk gesso is composed of lead carbonate and linseed oil, applied over a rabbit skin glue ground; a variation using titanium white pigment and calcium carbonate is rather brittle and susceptible to cracking. As lead-based paint

Lead paint

Lead paint or lead-based paint is paint containing lead, a heavy metal, that is used as pigment, with lead chromate and lead carbonate being the most common. Lead is also added to paint to speed drying, increase durability, retain a fresh appearance, and resist moisture that causes corrosion...

is poisonous, care has to be taken in using it. Various alternative and more flexible canvas primers are commercially available, the most popular being a synthetic latex paint composed of titanium dioxide and calcium carbonate, bound with a thermo-plastic emulsion. Many artists have painted onto unprimed canvas, such as Jackson Pollock

Jackson Pollock

Paul Jackson Pollock , known as Jackson Pollock, was an influential American painter and a major figure in the abstract expressionist movement. During his lifetime, Pollock enjoyed considerable fame and notoriety. He was regarded as a mostly reclusive artist. He had a volatile personality, and...

, Kenneth Noland

Kenneth Noland

Kenneth Noland was an American abstract painter. He was one of the best-known American Color field painters, although in the 1950s he was thought of as an abstract expressionist and in the early 1960s he was thought of as a minimalist painter. Noland helped establish the Washington Color School...

, Francis Bacon

Francis Bacon (painter)

Francis Bacon , was an Irish-born British figurative painter known for his bold, austere, graphic and emotionally raw imagery. Bacon's painterly but abstract figures typically appear isolated in glass or steel geometrical cages set against flat, nondescript backgrounds...

, Helen Frankenthaler

Helen Frankenthaler

Helen Frankenthaler is an American abstract expressionist painter. She is a major contributor to the history of postwar American painting. Having exhibited her work in six decades she has spanned several generations of abstract painters while continuing to produce vital and ever-changing new work...

, Dan Christensen

Dan Christensen

Dan Christensen, the American abstract painter, was born in Cozad, Nebraska on October 6, 1942, he died in Easthampton, New York on January 20, 2007....

, Larry Zox

Larry Zox

Lawrence "Larry" Zox was an American painter and printmaker who is classified as an Abstract expressionist, Color Field painter and a Lyrical Abstractionist, although he did not readily use those categories for his work....

, Ronnie Landfield

Ronnie Landfield

Ronnie Landfield is an American abstract painter. During his early career from the mid-1960s through the 1970s his paintings were associated with Lyrical Abstraction, , and he was represented by the David Whitney Gallery and the André Emmerich Gallery.Landfield is...

, Color Field

Color Field

Color Field painting is a style of abstract painting that emerged in New York City during the 1940s and 1950s. It was inspired by European modernism and closely related to Abstract Expressionism, while many of its notable early proponents were among the pioneering Abstract Expressionists...

painters, Lyrical Abstraction

Lyrical Abstraction

Lyrical Abstraction is either of two related but distinctly separate trends in Post-war Modernist painting, and a third definition is the usage as a descriptive term. It is a descriptive term characterizing a type of abstract painting related to Abstract Expressionism; in use since the 1940s...

ists and others.

Early canvas was made of linen

Linen

, sturdy brownish fabric of considerable strength. Linen

Linen

is particularly suitable for the use of oil paint

Oil paint

Oil paint is a type of slow-drying paint that consists of particles of pigment suspended in a drying oil, commonly linseed oil. The viscosity of the paint may be modified by the addition of a solvent such as turpentine or white spirit, and varnish may be added to increase the glossiness of the...

. In the early 20th century, cotton

Cotton

canvas, often referred to as "cotton duck

Cotton duck

Cotton duck , also simply duck, sometimes duck cloth or duck canvas, commonly called "canvas" outside the textile industry, is a heavy, plain woven cotton fabric...

", came into use. Linen is composed of higher quality material, and remains popular with many professional artists, especially those who work with oil paint

Oil paint

. Cotton duck, which stretches more fully and has an even, mechanical weave, offers a more economical alternative. The advent of acrylic paint

Acrylic paint

Acrylic paint is fast drying paint containing pigment suspension in acrylic polymer emulsion. Acrylic paints can be diluted with water, but become water-resistant when dry...

has greatly increased the popularity and use of cotton duck canvas. Linen and cotton derive from two entirely different plants, the flax

Flax

Flax is a member of the genus Linum in the family Linaceae. It is native to the region extending from the eastern Mediterranean to India and was probably first domesticated in the Fertile Crescent...

plant and the cotton

Cotton

plant.

Gesso-ed canvases on stretchers are also available. These pre-stretched, pre-primed canvases are suitable for all but the most exacting professional standards. They are available in a variety of weights: light-weight is about 4 oz (113.4 g). or 5 oz (141.7 g).; medium-weight is about 7 oz (198.4 g). or 8 oz (226.8 g).; heavy-weight is about 10 oz (283.5 g). or 12 oz (340.2 g). They are prepared with two or three coats of gesso and are ready for use straight away. Artists desiring greater control of their painting surface may add a coat or two of their preferred gesso. Professional artists who wish to work on canvas may prepare their own canvas in the traditional manner.

One of the most outstanding differences between modern painting techniques and those of the Flemish

Flanders

Flanders is the community of the Flemings but also one of the institutions in Belgium, and a geographical region located in parts of present-day Belgium, France and the Netherlands. "Flanders" can also refer to the northern part of Belgium that contains Brussels, Bruges, Ghent and Antwerp...

and Dutch

Netherlands

The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...

Masters is in the preparation of the canvas. "Modern" techniques take advantage of both the canvas texture

Texture (painting)

Texture in painting is the look and feel of the canvas. It is based on the paint, and its application, or the addition of materials such as ribbon, metal, wood, lace, leather and sand. The concept of 'painterliness' also has bearing on texture. The texture stimulates two different senses; sight...

as well as those of the paint

Paint

Paint is any liquid, liquefiable, or mastic composition which after application to a substrate in a thin layer is converted to an opaque solid film. One may also consider the digital mimicry thereof...

itself. Renaissance

Renaissance

The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...

masters took extreme measures to ensure that none of the texture of the canvas came through. This required a painstaking, months-long process of layering the raw canvas with (usually) lead-white paint, then polishing the surface, and then repeating. The final product had little resemblance to fabric, but instead had a glossy, enamel-like finish. This flat surface was crucial in attaining photographic

Photography

Photography is the art, science and practice of creating durable images by recording light or other electromagnetic radiation, either electronically by means of an image sensor or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film...

realism.

With a properly prepared canvas, the painter will find that each subsequent layer of color glides on in a "buttery" manner, and that with the proper consistency of application (fat over lean

Fat over lean

Fat over lean refers to the principle in oil painting of applying paint with a higher oil to pigment ratio over paint with a lower oil to pigment ratio to ensure a stable paint film, since it is believed that the paint with the higher oil content remains more flexible.Oil paint dries at different...

technique), a painting entirely devoid of brush

Brush

A brush is a tool with bristles, wire or other filaments, used for cleaning, grooming hair, make up, painting, surface finishing and for many other purposes. It is one of the most basic and versatile tools known to mankind, and the average household may contain several dozen varieties...

strokes can be achieved. A warm iron

Iron (appliance)

A clothes iron, also referred to as simply an iron, is a small appliance used in ironing to remove wrinkles from fabric.Ironing works by loosening the ties between the long chains of molecules that exist in polymer fiber materials. With the heat and the weight of the ironing plate, the fibers are...

is applied over a piece of wet cotton to flatten the wrinkles.

Canvas can also be printed on using offset

Offset printing

Offset printing is a commonly used printing technique in which the inked image is transferred from a plate to a rubber blanket, then to the printing surface...

or specialist digital printers to create canvas prints. This process of digital inkjet printing is popularly referred to as Giclée

Giclée

Giclée , is a neologism coined in 1991 by printmaker Jack Duganne for fine art digital prints made on ink-jet printers. The name originally applied to fine art prints created on IRIS printers in a process invented in the late 1980s but has since come to mean any high quality ink-jet print and is...

. After printing, the canvas can be wrapped around a stretcher

Stretcher bar

and displayed.

Canvas as a compound agent

From the 13th century onward, canvas was used as a covering layer on Pavise

Pavise

A pavise is a large convex shield of European origin used to protect the entire body. The pavise was also made in a smaller version for hand to hand combat and for wearing on the back of men-at-arms. It is characterized by its prominent central ridge...

shields. The canvas was applied to the wooden surface of the Pavise, covered with multiple layers of gesso

Gesso

Gesso is a white paint mixture consisting of a binder mixed with chalk, gypsum, pigment, or any combination of these...

and often richly painted in tempera

Tempera

Tempera, also known as egg tempera, is a permanent fast-drying painting medium consisting of colored pigment mixed with a water-soluble binder medium . Tempera also refers to the paintings done in this medium. Tempera paintings are very long lasting, and examples from the 1st centuries AD still exist...

technique. Finally, the surface was sealed with a transparent varnish. While the gessoed canvas was a perfect painting surface, the primary purpose of the canvas application may have been the strengthening of the wooden shield corpus in a manner not unlike to modern Glass-reinforced plastic

Glass-reinforced plastic

Fiberglass , is a fiber reinforced polymer made of a plastic matrix reinforced by fine fibers of glass. It is also known as GFK ....

Splined canvas, stretched canvas and canvas boards

Splined canvases differ from traditional side-stapled canvas in that canvas is attached with a spline

Spline

Spline can refer to:* Spline , a mating feature for rotating elements* Spline , a mathematical function used for interpolation or smoothing* Smoothing spline, a method of smoothing using a spline function...

at the rear of the frame. This allows the artist to incorporate painted edges into the artwork itself without staples at the sides, and the artwork can be displayed without a frame. Splined canvas can be restretched by adjusting the spline.

Stapled canvases stay stretched tighter over a longer period of time, but are more difficult to re-stretch when the need arises.

Canvas boards are made of cardboard with canvas stretched over and glued to a cardboard

Paperboard

Paperboard is a thick paper based material. While there is no rigid differentiation between paper and paperboard, paperboard is generally thicker than paper. According to ISO standards, paperboard is a paper with a basis weight above 224 g/m2, but there are exceptions. Paperboard can be single...

backing, and sealed on the backside. The canvas is typically linen primed for a certain type of paint. They are primarily used by artists for quick studies

Study (drawing)

In art, a study is a drawing, sketch or painting done in preparation for a finished piece, or as visual notes. A study can have more impact than a more-elaborately planned work, due to the fresh insights the artist is gaining while exploring his/her subject. The excitement of discovery can give a...

Canvas used for canoes

Wood-and-canvas canoes are made by fastening an external waterproofed canvas shell to a wooden hull formed with white cedar planks and ribs. These canoes evolved directly from birchbark construction. Maine

Maine

Maine is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States, bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the east and south, New Hampshire to the west, and the Canadian provinces of Quebec to the northwest and New Brunswick to the northeast. Maine is both the northernmost and easternmost...

was the location of the development of commercial wood-and-canvas canoes. E. H. Gerrish, of Bangor, is now recognized as the first person to produce wood-and-canvas canoes commercially, but other Maine builders soon followed, including, B. N. Morris, of Veazie, E. M. White, of Old Town, and, of course, the Gray family of the Old Town Canoe Co. In the adjoining Canadian province of New Brunswick, from the late 19th century until being disbanded in 1979, the Chestnut Canoe Company, along with the Old Town Canoe Company in Maine, became the pre-eminent producers of wood-and-canvas canoes. American President Teddy Roosevelt purchased Chestnut canoes for a South American expedition. Wood-and-canvas canoes have undergone a resurgence in recent years, spurred in part by the Wooden Canoe Heritage Association. Builders abound, including Jerry Stelmok, Rollin Thurlow, Ken Solway, Joe Seliga

Joe seliga

Joe Seliga was a master builder of wood-and-canvas canoes in Ely, Minnesota.Joe Seliga was born to Steve and Anna Seliga in Ely, Minnesota and graduated from Ely Memorial High School....

, and many others.

Canvas used for trampolines

Canvas has become a very popular choice of use for trampoline

Trampoline

A trampoline is a device consisting of a piece of taut, strong fabric stretched over a steel frame using many coiled springs. People bounce on trampolines for recreational and competitive purposes....

manufacturers in the last decade. As the number of trampoline sales has increased in the UK, so has the amount of canvas used in order to make them. Cheaper trampolines often substitute a less durable woven fabric in place of canvas, making them more apt to damage when used simultaneously by more than one person. The more expensive canvas can endure multiple-person use.

Non-traditional uses for stretched canvas

It has become popular to use the myriad of stretched canvasses sizes and shapes for unconventional creative expression. Artists can create miniature works on business card sized stretched canvas and use them as trading cards to make connections with other artists. Many artists use canvas for altered art pieces as well as for scrapbook pages—because stretched canvas is available in many sizes, from miniatures to wall size, it is used for decoupage

Decoupage

Decoupage is the art of decorating an object by gluing colored paper cutouts onto it in combination with special paint effects, gold leaf and so on. Commonly an object like a small box or an item of furniture is covered by cutouts from magazines or from purpose-manufactured papers...

and needlework

Needlework

Needlework is a broad term for the handicrafts of decorative sewing and textile arts. Anything that uses a needle for construction can be called needlework...

projects, made into lamps, or painted simply for home decor.

Canvas types

Waterproof canvas
Water-resistant canvas
Fire-proof canvas
Dyed canvas
Stripe canvas
Printed canvas

Canvas products

Canvas tent
Canvas tarpaulins
Canvas bags
Canvas covers
Martial arts uniforms (e.g. Judogi
Judogi
Judogi is the formal Japanese name for the traditional uniform used for Judo practice and competition. It is actually derived from traditional articles of Japanese clothing. Jigoro Kano derived the original judogi from the kimono and other Japanese garments around the turn of the 20th century, and...

)

Etymology

Physical characteristics

Canvas for painting

Canvas as a compound agent

Splined canvas, stretched canvas and canvas boards

Canvas used for canoes

Canvas used for trampolines

Non-traditional uses for stretched canvas

Canvas types

Canvas products

See also