Painting, meant exactly, is the practice of applying color to a surface (support) such as, e.g. paper, canvas, wood, glass, lacquer or concrete. However, when used in an artistic sense, the term "painting" means the use of this activity in mixture with drawing, composition and other aesthetic considerations in order to manifest the animated and conceptual intention of the practitioner.

Painting is used as a mode of representing, documenting and expressing all the varied intents and subjects that are as various as there are practitioners of the craft. Paintings can be naturalistic and representational (as in a still life or landscape painting), photographic, conceptual, be loaded with narrative content, symbolism, emotion or be political in nature. A large portion of the history of painting is dominated by spiritual motifs and ideas; sites of this kind of painting variety from artwork depicting mythological figures on pottery to biblical scenes rendered on the interior walls and ceiling of The Sistine Chapel to depictions of the human body itself as a devout subject.