Tempera in the context of "Palazzo Schifanoia"

An icon (from Ancient Greek εἰκών (eikṓn) 'image, resemblance') is a religious work of art, most commonly a painting, in the cultures of the Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Catholic, and Lutheran churches. The most common subjects include Jesus, Mary, saints, and angels. Although especially associated with portrait-style images concentrating on one or two main figures, the term also covers most of the religious images in a variety of artistic media produced by Eastern Christianity, including narrative scenes, usually from the Bible or the lives of saints.

Icons are most commonly painted on wood panels with egg tempera, but they may also be cast in metal or carved in stone or embroidered on cloth or done in mosaic or fresco work or printed on paper or metal, etc. Comparable images from Western Christianity may be classified as "icons", although "iconic" may also be used to describe the static style of a devotional image. In the Greek language, the term for icon painting uses the same word as for "writing", and Orthodox sources often translate it into English as icon writing.

The Last Supper (Italian: Il Cenacolo [il tʃeˈnaːkolo] or L'Ultima Cena [ˈlultima ˈtʃeːna]) is a mural painting by the Italian High Renaissance artist Leonardo da Vinci, dated to c. 1495–1498, housed in the refectory of the Convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan, Italy. The painting represents the scene of the Last Supper of Jesus with the Twelve Apostles, as it is told in the Gospel of John – specifically the moment after Jesus announces that one of his apostles will betray him. Its handling of space, mastery of perspective, treatment of motion and complex display of human emotion has made it one of the Western world's most recognizable paintings and among Leonardo's most celebrated works. Some commentators consider it pivotal in inaugurating the transition into what is now termed the High Renaissance.

The work was commissioned as part of a plan of renovations to the church and its convent buildings by Leonardo's patron Ludovico Sforza, Duke of Milan. In order to permit his inconsistent painting schedule and frequent revisions, it is painted with materials that allowed for regular alterations: tempera on gesso, pitch, and mastic. Due to the methods used, a variety of environmental factors, and intentional damage, little of the original painting remains today despite numerous restoration attempts, the last being completed in 1999. The Last Supper is Leonardo's largest work, aside from the Sala delle Asse.

Silence is the absence of ambient audible sound, the emission of sounds of such low intensity that they do not draw attention to themselves, or the state of having ceased to produce sounds; this latter sense can be extended to apply to the cessation or absence of any form of communication, whether through speech or other medium. Remaining mute can be a symptom of mental illness.

Sometimes speakers fall silent when they hesitate in searching for a word, or interrupt themselves before correcting themselves. Discourse analysis shows that people use brief silences to mark the boundaries of prosodic units, in turn-taking, or as reactive tokens, for example, as a sign of displeasure, disagreement, embarrassment, desire to think, confusion, and the like. Relatively prolonged intervals of silence can be used in rituals; in some religious disciplines, people maintain silence for protracted periods, or even for the rest of their lives, as an ascetic means of spiritual transformation.

The Birth of Venus (Italian: Nascita di Venere [ˈnaʃʃita di ˈvɛːnere]) is a painting by the Italian artist Sandro Botticelli, probably executed in the mid-1480s. It depicts the goddess Venus arriving at the shore after her birth, when she had emerged from the sea fully-grown (called Venus Anadyomene and often depicted in art). The painting is in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, Italy.

Although the two are not a pair, the painting is inevitably discussed with Botticelli's other very large mythological painting, the Primavera, also in the Uffizi. They are among the most famous paintings in the world, and icons of Italian Renaissance painting; of the two, the Birth is better known than the Primavera. As depictions of subjects from classical mythology on a very large scale they were virtually unprecedented in Western art since classical antiquity, as was the size and prominence of a nude female figure in the Birth. It used to be thought that they were both commissioned by the same member of the Medici family, but this is now uncertain.

Watercolor (American English) or watercolour (Commonwealth English; see spelling differences), also aquarelle (French: [akwaʁɛl]; from Italian diminutive of Latin aqua 'water'), is a painting method in which the paints are made of pigments suspended in a water-based solution. Watercolor refers to both the medium and the resulting artwork.

The conventional and most common support—material to which the paint is applied—for watercolor paintings is paper, usually special types of watercolor paper. Other supports or substrates include stone, ivory, silk, reed, papyrus, bark papers, plastics, vellum, leather, fabric, wood, and watercolor canvas (coated with a gesso that is specially formulated for use with watercolors). Watercolor paper is often made entirely or partially with cotton. This gives the surface the appropriate texture and minimizes distortion when wet. Watercolor papers are usually cold-pressed papers that provide better texture and appearance. Transparency is the main characteristic of watercolors. "It consists of a mixture of pigments, binders such as gum arabic and humectants such as glycerin, which together with other components, allow the color pigment to join and form the paint paste, which we know as watercolor. With regard to the colors, the quality of the pigments and their degree of concentration, it is what determines how good the watercolor is and also its price. A paint that has a high concentration of pigment, professional type, allows us to use it with a large amount of water without losing the intensity of color." Watercolors can also be made opaque by adding Chinese white. In the 19th century this could be controversial, and not regarded as "true watercolor" in the English tradition, but by about 1880 this dispute was over.

The Sala delle Asse (In English: 'room of the wooden planks'), is a large room in the Castello Sforzesco in Milan, the location of a painting in tempera on plaster by Leonardo da Vinci, dating from about 1498. Its walls and vaulted ceiling are decorated with "intertwining plants with fruits and monochromes of roots and rocks" and a canopy created by sixteen trees.

The walls and ceiling are painted with a trompe-l'œil scheme depicting trunks, leaves, fruits, and knots, as if it was in the open air and not within a castle. Art historian Rocky Ruggiero describes the decoration of the square, fifteen-by-fifteen-meters room as creating the effect of a natural pergola as an architectural feature. Ruggiero suggests that Leonardo drew upon all of his scientific research into natural systems as he painted the masterful illusion that resembles a grove of mulberry trees.

The Annunciation is a painting by the Italian Renaissance artist Leonardo da Vinci, dated to c. 1472–1476. Leonardo's earliest extant major work, it was completed in Florence while he was an apprentice in the studio of Andrea del Verrocchio. The painting was made using oil and tempera on a large poplar panel and depicts the Annunciation, a popular biblical subject in 15th-century Florence. Since 1867 it has been housed in the Uffizi in Florence, the city where it was created. Though the work has been criticized for inaccuracies in its composition, it is among the best-known portrayals of the Annunciation in Christian art.
Cite error: There are <ref group=n> tags on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist|group=n}} template (see the help page).

The Portrait of a Musician is an unfinished painting by the Italian Renaissance artist Leonardo da Vinci, dated to c. 1483–1487. Produced while Leonardo was in Milan, the work is painted in oils, and perhaps tempera, on a small panel of walnut wood. It is his only known male portrait painting, and the identity of its sitter has been closely debated among scholars.

Perhaps influenced by Antonello da Messina's introduction of the Early Netherlandish style of portrait painting to Italy, the work marks a dramatic shift from the profile portraiture that predominated in 15th-century Milan. It shares many similarities with other paintings Leonardo executed there, such as the Louvre Virgin of the Rocks and the Lady with an Ermine, but the Portrait of a Musician is his only panel painting remaining in the city, where it has been in the Pinacoteca Ambrosiana since at least 1672. One of Leonardo's best preserved paintings, there are no extant contemporary records of the commission. Based on stylistic resemblances to other works by Leonardo, virtually all current scholarship attributes at least the sitter's face to him. Uncertainty over the rest of the painting arises from the stiff and rigid qualities of the body, which are uncharacteristic of Leonardo's work. While this may be explained by the painting's unfinished state, some scholars believe that Leonardo was assisted by one of his students.