impasto

American  

[im-pas-toh, -pah-stoh] / ɪmˈpæs toʊ, -ˈpɑ stoʊ /

noun

Painting.

1. the laying on of paint thickly.

2. the paint so laid on.

3. enamel or slip applied to a ceramic object to form a decoration in low relief.

---

impasto British  

/ ɪmˈpæstəʊ /

noun

1. paint applied thickly, so that brush and palette knife marks are evident

2. the technique of applying paint in this way

---

Etymology

Origin of impasto

1775–85; < Italian, noun derivative of impastare to impaste

Example Sentences

On the white underpainting for a composition in progress, she pointed to the turbulent strokes and impasto — a contrast with the discipline of the finished works.

From New York Times • Feb. 10, 2022

“A bird seems to have passed through the impasto with cream-colored screams and bitter claw-marks,” is how the poet and critic Frank O’Hara described the early works.

From New York Times • Nov. 6, 2018

The nets she painted were made from a repetitive singular gesture of impasto in little loops, like interlocking scales; the longest canvases measured 30ft.

From The Guardian • Sep. 23, 2018

“David knew what he looked like from every angle, from the back of his head even,” says the painter Derek Boshier, whose 1980 impasto portrait of the singer appears here.

From Washington Post • Apr. 21, 2017

It is in fact a landscape, done in oils, with the blue water, the purple underpainting, the craggy rocks and windswept raggedy trees and heavy impasto of the twenties and thirties.

From "Cat's Eye" by Margaret Atwood