texture

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texture

art

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July 14, 2026

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Texture refers to the surface characteristics of something, encompassing both visual and tactile qualities. In art, particularly painting, texture is a crucial element of design. It includes the patterns created by lines, shapes, tones, and colors, as well as the tactile qualities of mediums like paint. For example, Pointillism creates a granular texture, while decorative textures can be geometric or representational of natural patterns.12

In literature, texture comprises the concrete elements of prose or poetry, such as metaphor, imagery, meter, and rhyme, which are distinct from the work's structure or argument. Architecture also utilizes texture, where it expresses the quality of materials and influences how light interacts with surfaces. This can range from the natural feel of stone to the visual patterns created by building materials and techniques.34

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architecture
Texture
Texture plays a dual role in architecture: it expresses something of the quality of materials, and it gives a particular quality to light. Although one absorbs both qualities simultaneously by eye, the first has tactile, the second visual associations.
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Texture plays a dual role in architecture: it expresses something of the quality of materials, and it gives a particular quality to light. Although one absorbs both qualities simultaneously by eye, the first has tactile, the second visual associations.
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computer graphics
Shading and texturing
Visual appearance includes more than just shape and color; texture and surface finish (e.g., matte, satin, glossy) also must be accurately modeled. The effects that these attributes have on an object’s appearance depend in turn on the illumination, which may be diffuse, from a…
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Visual appearance includes more than just shape and color; texture and surface finish (e.g., matte, satin, glossy) also must be accurately modeled. The effects that these attributes have on an object’s appearance depend in turn on the illumination, which may be diffuse, from a…
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floral decoration
Elements and principles of design
Texture describes surface quality and can be coarse, as in many-petaled surfaces such as chrysanthemums, or smooth, as in anthuriums, calla lilies, and gladioli. There are many variations between these extremes. Leaves and woody stems also have varied textural qualities.
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Texture describes surface quality and can be coarse, as in many-petaled surfaces such as chrysanthemums, or smooth, as in anthuriums, calla lilies, and gladioli. There are many variations between these extremes. Leaves and woody stems also have varied textural qualities.
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garden and landscape design
Texture
Texture—the smoothness or roughness of surfaces—is another element of landscape design. It is perceived primarily by touch, although through vision one approximates the textures of different surfaces and imagines how they would feel. The surface texture of the earth may vary from fine sand…
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Texture—the smoothness or roughness of surfaces—is another element of landscape design. It is perceived primarily by touch, although through vision one approximates the textures of different surfaces and imagines how they would feel. The surface texture of the earth may vary from fine sand…
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painting
Texture
Pointillism (a term given to the Neo-Impressionist system of representing the shimmer of atmospheric light with spots of colored pigment) produced an overall granular texture. As an element of design, texture includes all areas of a painting enriched or animated by vibrating patterns of…
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Pointillism (a term given to the Neo-Impressionist system of representing the shimmer of atmospheric light with spots of colored pigment) produced an overall granular texture. As an element of design, texture includes all areas of a painting enriched or animated by vibrating patterns of…
Read More