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.

Visual appearance includes more than just shape and colour; 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…

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.

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…

Pointillism (a term given to the Neo-Impressionist system of representing the shimmer of atmospheric light with spots of coloured 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…