What Are Easels Used For?

Paint can be applied to nearly any surface, from the walls of your house to the ceiling of a Florentine chapel. When an artist decides to put paint to canvas or panel, she often uses an easel.

An easel is a portable support that holds a canvas steady in front of the artist, allowing him to work freely with both hands. Easels can be made from wood or metal, and most modern-day easels are easily adjustable so you can work sitting or standing at any height. Painting would be a very cumbersome task if you had to hold the canvas with one hand while trying to paint freely with the other.

These days, the use of easels isn't restricted to the art of painting; rather, artists use easels in the production of various types of two-dimensional art, including life drawing. The easel also ensures that the canvas can be positioned so the artist has a clear view of her subject. Portability is also important, so you can travel to your subject if necessary, especially when painting landscapes. Easels can also be used to display paintings, although this is a less commonly recognized use.

Easel painting has a long history, perhaps dating to ancient Egypt. In the first century A.D., Roman scholar Pliny the Elder recorded a reference to a large panel being placed on an easel. However, painting with easels didn't become commonplace until the 13th century, when the canvas or panel painting finally usurped the mural or wall painting as the more popular art form.

During the Renaissance, use of the easel correlated with the new idea of the painter as an individual artist. Painters were no longer restricted to themes suitable to commissioned murals, which were generally depictions of historical or biblical scenes. Using an easel and canvas, artists could now explore more compact themes, like portraits, still-lifes and other genre subjects. Light and atmosphere could now also be explored in painting, something that mural painting didn't really allow for.

Thanks in part to the easel, art lovers can now purchase works of art for their homes, whether as an investment or for personal enjoyment. Before the easel helped make smaller canvas paintings a popular art form, you would have to travel to a church or other public place to enjoy a mural painting.