gesso
Americannoun
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gypsum or plaster of Paris prepared with glue for use as a surface for painting.
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any plasterlike preparation to prepare a surface for painting, gilding, etc.
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a prepared surface of plaster or plasterlike material for painting, gilding, etc.
noun
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a white ground of plaster and size, used esp in the Middle Ages and Renaissance to prepare panels or canvas for painting or gilding
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any white substance, esp plaster of Paris, that forms a ground when mixed with water
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of gesso
1590–1600; < Italian < Latin gypsum gypsum
Explanation
Gesso is a substance similar to white paint that artists use to prepare a surface for painting. Gesso is typically made of glue, chalk, and white pigment. Before you paint a portrait on a square of canvas or a piece of wood, you may want to coat your painting surface with gesso. After it dries, gesso creates an even base that holds paint well — similar to the primer house painters use before applying paint. Gesso means "chalk" or "plaster" in Italian, from the Latin gypsum, also "plaster," and the Greek root gypsos, "chalk."
Vocabulary lists containing gesso
Visual Arts - High School
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Art History
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Visual Arts - Middle School
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Today, painters most often use an acrylic polymer known as gesso, but 200 years ago, artists turned to a motley variety of substances.
From Science Magazine • May 23, 2023
The technique, which he calls “gessography,” combines the age-old methods of engraving with gesso and painting.
From New York Times • Apr. 27, 2022
Where Morris Louis and kindred D.C. artists stained unprimed canvas with diluted acrylic pigments, Berkowitz laid oil-paint glazes over a surface prepared with white gesso to add brightness.
From Washington Post • Mar. 3, 2021
Pittman was interested in the ritual of painting: the stretching of canvas, the application of gesso, the layering of paint.
From Los Angeles Times • Sep. 13, 2019
We spent months experimenting with the methods the old masters used to create real gesso.
From "Salt to the Sea" by Ruta Sepetys
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
