Texture

Texture is the tactile sense we get from the surface of a shape or volume. Smooth, rough, velvety and prickly are examples of texture. Texture comes in two forms:

• Actual: the real surface qualities we perceive by running a hand over an object
•  Visual: an implied sense of texture created by the artist through the manipulation of their materials.

An artwork can include many different visual textures and still feel smooth to the touch. Robert Rauschenberg’s mixed media print Skyway includes rough and smooth visual textures that add layers of perception and animate the work, drawing attention to specific areas within it. A self-portrait by Vincent van Gogh below swirls with actual textures created with brushstrokes loaded with paint. The artist fixes his gaze sternly at the viewer, his spiky red beard and flowing hair rendered so texturally you want to reach out and touch them.


Self Portrait, Vincent van Gogh, 1889, oil on canvas Musee d'Orsay, Paris.

Joan Stuart Ross’s mixed media work On the Spokes (below) incorporates both actual and visual textures. A strong radial composition is enhanced with over one hundred raised paper blocks containing bits of images and text. The surface in relief provides actual texture while our eyes are treated to a complex array of visual textures created by staccato rhythms of colors and patterns.



Joan Stuart Ross, On The Spokes, 2009, mixed media.

Photographs can hold lots of examples of visual texture. A grainy film exposure adds to this effect. Louis Daguerre’s early photograph of his studio below shows many objects with textures jumbled across the smooth photographic paper. These, along with the strong contrast in dark and light tones, enrich the photograph with a sense of drama not necessarily inherent to the objects themselves.

Louis Jacques Mande Daguerre, Still Life in the Artist’s Studio, 1837