Art, whatever its style, is a form of communication. It is a series of images, which together have a meaning the artist is attempting to share. The message might be a simple one, such as the beauty of a landscape or of the human form. Or it may be more complicated, for example the conceived suffering in the lot of man, or the heroism and the horror of war.
For many thousands of years humanity has sought to communicate its thoughts through the medium of art. On cave walls paintings have been discovered which were created more than 40,000 years ago. Images line the tombs of ancient Egyptian pharaohs, and the Greeks and Romans decorated their cities with majestic statues - before art took a step back during the dark ages.
Ironically, oil paint will cause the fibres on a sheet of canvas to decay so, prior to painting, the material is coated with gesso (a mixture of chalk and gypsum bound together) to protect the canvas