First of all, it is apparent that the practice

First of all, it is apparent that the practice of painting, though strictly forbidden by the earliest Fathers of the Church, was used by the faithful in the Eastern churches for purposes of decoration, and was introduced into Italy—we may safely say Tuscany—for the same purpose.
Second, that being transplanted into this new soil, it put forth such wonderful blossoms that it came to be cultivated with much more regard; and from being merely a necessary or conventional ornament of certain portions of the church, was soon accounted its greatest glory. oil painting for sale
Third, that it was accorded popular acclamation.
Fourth, that its most attractive feature in the eyes of beholders was its life-like representation of the human form and other natural objects.
Prosaic as these considerations may appear, they are nevertheless the fundamental principles that underlie the whole of the subsequent development of painting;8 and unless every picture in the world were destroyed, and the art of painting wholly lost for at least a thousand years, there could not be another picture produced which would not refer back through continuous tradition to one or every one of them. First, the basis of religion. Second, the development peculiar to the soil. Third, the imitation of nature. Fourth, the approbation of the public—there we have the four cardinal points in the chart of painting. art oil paintings online
It would be easy enough to contend that painting had nothing whatever to do with religion—if only by reference to the godless efforts of some of the modernists; but such a contention could only be based on the imperfect recognition of what religion actually means. In Italy in the thirteenth century, as in Spain in the seventeenth, it meant the Church of Rome. In Germany of the sixteenth, as in England in the eighteenth, it meant something totally different. To put it a little differently, all painting that is worth so calling has been done to the glory of God; and after making due allowance for human frailties of every variety, it is hard to say that among all the hundreds of great and good painters there has ever been one who was not a good man. frames for oil paintings

As for the influence of environment, or nationality, this is so universally recognised that the term "school" more often means locality than tuition. We talk generally of the French, English, or Dutch schools, and more particularly of the Paduan, Venetian, or Florentine. It is only when we hesitate to call our national treasure a Botticelli or a Bellini that we add the words "school of" to the name of the master who is fondly supposed to have inspired its author. The difference between a wood block of the early eighteenth century executed in9England and Japan respectively may be cited as an extreme instance of the effect of locality on idea, when the method is identical. still life oil paintings