What is texture?

Texture is defined as the tactile quality of the surface of an object--how it feels if touched.  But it is so much more than that.

You wake up in the morning, toss back the crisp cotton sheets. Your bare feet move across the polished wood floor. You get into the shower and feel the warm water spalsh against your skin, the soap slide over your arms. You wrap yourself in a soft terry towel. Your clothes provide you with a whole array of textures: silky, starched, velvety, coarse, elastic. Breakfast provides even more: fluffy scrambled eggs, crisp bacon, melted butter dripping off crunchy toast.

You look  out the window, and even though you can't touch it, you can see the layers of texture in the leaves of the old oak tree and its gnarly bark, the multicolored aging brick on the building across the street, the gleaming polished surface of a car.

Imagine the world without texture.

Touch is one of our senses. Our hands and skin are equipped with sensitive nerves that distinguish texture. In addition to giving us information about the world around us, our sense of touch gives us pleasure. We find sensual joy in the tactile experience of different surfaces.  It is an essential aspect of visual art for the same reason.

Visual art can inspire, provoke, make us think, make us laugh, make us cry, make us see things in ways we never would have. Visual art also gives us pleasure. That is part of what makes texture so important in visual art.

Texture, like any of the elements of art, can also enhance and support the artist's concept behind the work. Some artists use texture as a major influence on our response to the work. In any work of art, however, texture can draw us in so we spend more time with the work.

http://www.sophia.org/tutorials/elements-of-art-texture

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