Ground (art)

In visual arts, the ground (sometimes called a primer) is a prepared surface that covers the support of the picture (e.g., a canvas or a panel) and underlies the actual painting (the colors are overlaid onto the ground). Occasionally the term is also used in a broad sense to designate any surface used for painting, for example, paper for watercolor or plaster for fresco.

For other uses, see Ground (disambiguation).

The main purposes of the ground are to block chemical interactions between the paint and the support and to provide desired texture for painting or drawing.

The ground is also used to highlight the colors, and its color and tone affect the appearance of paint levels above, therefore the painters might have individual preferences for the color of the ground: 19th century artists, especially the impressionists, preferred the white ground (first used by J. M. W. Turner), while Rembrandt preferred brownish tones and Poussin the red ones. The oil painting becomes more transparent with age, so to avoid a gradual brightening of the picture, a pale beige color of ground is considered neutral. White ground provides the greatest freedom of choice for colors, while colored grounds reduce the color range and force the use of more opaque paint application.

For paintings on panels, gesso is typically used as a ground; on canvas the ground can be yet another (inert) paint layer. Two layers are occasionally applied, forming a double ground. On canvas, the ground is typically applied after sizing (typically rabbit-skin glue). Although it is possible to paint on the sized canvas directly, without any ground at all, size is not a replacement for ground, as it is not intended to form a level surface for painting, its purpose is to simply fill pores and isolate the canvas from the overlaying paint.

Oxford Companion to Art lists the following requirements for the good ground:

  • durability and resistance to flaking off or cracking;
  • consistency and even tone across the surface;
  • not being too smooth, so it can hold the pigments;
  • not being too rough, so it does not impede the painting process;
  • luminosity and reflectivity are needed for painting with most pigments, except the very opaque ones;
  • low absorbance;
  • the ground must be lean.
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