Impasto

A painting technique in which paint is thickly applied to the canvas, creating a surface texture. This can aid in intensifying the effects of light and shadow or revealing the energetic strokes of the painter. It became prominent in the seventeenth century with Baroque painters such as Rembrandt and Diego Velazquez, and gained popularity throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, exemplified in the works of Vincent Van Gogh and Jackson Pollock.