GROUND, in painting, the coating or preparation put on the surface of the panel, board, or canvas on which a picture is to be painted. Artists attach great importance to the color and texture of the ground, as tending in no small degree to affect the tech nical quality of the work. In forming an opinion on paintings by old masters, the kind of ground used is always taken into consideration, for in different epochs and schools, particular grounds were used. The works of the Italian school preceding and during the time of Raphael were all painted on white grounds, and almost always on panels, even when the works were large, and many pieces had to be joined. The preparation was composed of gesso, plaster of Paris, or chalk mixed with size, and the ground was of course absorbent. Afterwards, when canvas came to be generally used, the works of the Italian and Spanish schools were generally painted on an oil ground of a dull red color; and v7hen this was *not covered by the artist with a thick impasto or body of paint, the picture was apt to become black and heavy, a fault very marked in the works of the school of the Carracci and the Neapolitan and later Roman schools. The works
of the Dutch and Flemish masters, which are distinguished for brilliancy and trans parency, were painted on light grounds, varying from white to gray, and their practice is generally followed in this country and in the modern schools abroad. The term ground is also applied to different parts of a picture, as the foreground, or portion of the picture on which are placed the figures or objects represented as nearest the spectator; background, the part, particularly in portraits, behind or on which it is intended to set off or relieve the head, figure, or group depicted. The portion of a model or carving from which the figures are projected, is styled the ground.