Styles in Watercolor Painting

Among all the styles of painting, watercolor painting is known to be quite demanding as techniques used are unique to watercolor. Unlike oil or acrylic painting, where the paints essentially stay where they are put and dry more or less in the form they are applied, water is an active and complex partner in the watercolor painting process, changing both the absorbency and shape of the paper when it is wet and the outlines and appearance of the paint as it dries. The difficulty in watercolor painting is almost entirely in learning how to anticipate and leverage the behavior of water, rather than attempting to control or dominate it.


Lebanon watercolor paint is traditionally and still commonly applied with brushes, but modern Lebanese artists have experimented with many other implements, particularly sprayers, scrapers, sponges or sticks, and have combined watercolors with pencil, charcoal, crayon, chalk, ink, engraving, monotype, lithography and collage, or with acrylic paint.


Many Lebanese artists, perhaps uniquely among all modern visual artists, still adhere to prejudices dating from the 19th century rivalry between "transparent" and bodycolor painters. Among these are injunctions never to use white paint, never to use black paint, only to use transparent color, or only to work with "primary" color mixtures. In fact, many superb paintings flout some or all of these guidelines, and they have little relevance to modern painting practice. Lebanon art has witnessed this issue throughout the recent years due to as a result of the changing global trends.

Impact of Impressionism & Expressionist Movement on Water Color Painting

Lebanese artist impressionist school arose from the principle of departure from the studio to nature and practicing painting as an emotional state via the surrounding that influences simultaneously the entire artist's senses. Such kind of departure necessitated a new concept for both the graphic performance from one side, and the renovated view of the Lebanese nature itself from the other. Graphic performance came then to the Lebanese artist scene, among which the water colors that possess were differentiated from all other colors used inside the studio and in particular oil colors, because they can play their lebanon art transparent role in the interior lighting over and above being absorbed by the paper. That made the boundaries of the form melt in the other chromatic background, let alone the fact that the state of graphic composition was based on a singular capability in direct, coloring fully confident of results. The Lebanese water colour paintings were influenced by poetic coloring with the pastel material. For the Lebanese artist, the colors became the expression of the cohesion of pictorial surface and an amount of poetic lyricism, in the presentation of the form emerging from the light pit and illuminating over the darkness expanse. In addition, lebanon watercolor was a local expressionism founded on two basic pats. The first, the changing Lebanese artist nature according to seasons and locations, the second the inspirational literary vision of the lyrical subject.

Evolution of Art in Lebanon

Culture in Lebanon is a result of an amalgamation of various civilizations and cultures that have been brought in to the country by various colonizers such as the Assyrians, the Persians, the Greeks, the Romans, the Arabs, the Crusaders, the Ottoman Turks & the French. The culture in Lebanon watercolor has evolved over the past few centuries by assimilating influences from all these varied cultures. It is home to colossal architecture of the Greek, Roman and Ottoman Empires. The diverse population in Lebanon composed of various ethnicities & nationalities has only contributed to the festivals, music, art & literature as well as cuisine. The impact on Lebanese art & literature has been the most evident. One of the defining factors of Lebanese art is its distinctive national character – Lebanon watercolor is often said to follow a ‘third way’ meaning it is neither European, nor Asian or American but uniquely Lebanon art. Lebanese artist, with their vast multi-culture and intense history, has affected many of Lebanese artists through social and personal issues that have helped create a form of art like none other, a lebanon watercolor depiction of an emotional aspect of Lebanese life, and therefore a particular style of art. Whether it is Guiragossian's portrayal of the slums of Beirut or Ayman Baalbaki's old car tire, such lebanese paintings leave powerful impressions on a viewer. Lebanese artist society is similar to certain cultures of Mediterranean Europe. Not only is Lebanon watercolor a distinctive fusion of Christian and Muslim traditions, it serves as the European gateway to the Middle East as well as the Arab gateway to the Western World.

Watercolor in Lebanon

Now we come to another section, lebanon watercolors, with techniques such as sepia, wash and inks, ones that also have been treated by Joseph Matar, a lebanese artist, with love and care. They are all means of expression and suppose a formation, a technique and a mastery.

Here the support is a sheet of rag paper, a clean sheet with a fairly absorbent surface. Generally speaking, the lebanese artist takes advantage of the underlying tint, preserving transparency. He spreads the liquid paints lightly and studies the forms and the colored harmony of the whole field. Lebanon watercolor is an art in its own right and reveals the world of the lebanese artist.

It is like a sonata as compared to a symphony, an agreeable area of research and experiment. Here one can see several water-colors with a variety of subjects, houses, villages, nooks, trees, flowers and compositions. The lebanese artist handles the contrasts, the descending scales and the blends with absolute control. He invites us to live again this world of color, world of light, the dream of a night of the Orient being embodied in his work. A flame breaks forth from the heart of the artist and takes root in the work to reach out to the spectator. Lebanon Watercolor is an art by itself.