73x118 Elite Pau A/P Portrait Linen 1-1/2" Deep #EP-73118

True Golden Mean Proportion - 73x118 Size

This 73x118 size is one of our Golden Mean sizes, considered the most pleasing shape to the eye!

The Golden Ratio, also known as the Golden Mean or Divine Proportion, is considered the most aesthetically pleasing proportion to the human eye. This proportion has been used in art and architecture for thousands of years, and countless examples can be found in nature, plant life, galaxies, and the human body. The Golden Mean can also be used as a guide to arrange your subjects on the canvas in concert with other Golden Mean shapes like an ellipse, star, triangle, and spiral, resulting in intriguing compositions. Many famous artists, such as Michelangelo, Da Vinci, Mondrian, Botticelli, Dali, and Seurat, have used this proportion in their art, and many contemporary artists continue to use it exclusively. The Golden Ratio can even produce some mathematically intriguing relationships that relate directly to art, architecture, science, and human intrigue. If you're looking for a challenge and inspiration, consider using a canvas in the proportion of the Golden Mean to create a composition that will come alive in the most intriguing ways!

Explore other sizes in this same 118:73 aspect ratio:

12x19 • 15x24 • 16x26 • 18x29 • 20x32 • 23x37 • 26x42 • 28x45 • 30x48 • 31x50 • 33x53 • 36x58 • 37x60 • 39x63 • 42x68 • 46x74 • 47x76 • 50x81 • 52x84 • 60x96 • 60x97 • 63x102 • 68x110 • 71x115

Explore Related Products to this 73x118 Size:

• Acrylic Primed Linen Elite™: Grenoble™
• Oil Primed Linen Elite™: Isola™ • Poitiers™

Pau™ Portriat Smooth Acrylic Primed Artfix Linen

Our smoothest acrylic primed linen canvas. It is a heavy weight linen with a luxurious heavy white ground. It has a bright white tone.

• 100% Belgian Linen 6.1 oz; Primed Weight 14.0 oz per square yard
• Medium Heavy Weight, Fine Weave, Portrait Smooth Texture
• Double Sized and Quadruple Primed with acid-free archival quality acrylic gesso
• Impenetrable ground prevents oil paint from leaching through and harming the canvas
• For acrylics, oils, alkyds, and water miscible oil paints
• Linen has natural oils that prevent disintegration over time

Titanium Dioxide (TiO₂) Primer Pigment

Our primer is made with the highest-quality Titanium Dioxide white pigment, which is an excellent pigment for acrylic primed grounds, providing superior whiteness and maintaining excellent flexibility over time. Unlike some other common pigments, such as zinc dioxide, TiO₂ doesn't become brittle as it ages, helping to ensure that your painting will stand the test of time.

Pau™ Portrait Smooth Belgian Linen offers a luxurious surface, ideal for highly detailed work. Preferred by portrait artists because it is so smooth for linen. Due to the nature of how flax plants are turned into linen textiles, there may be variations in yarn thickness thereby creating fabric that is individual in nature and has character. There can be infrequent naturally occurring nubs in the linen which may yield small slight bumps where the linen is a little thicker than the rest of the strand. This is normal and part of what gives linen its character.

73x118 Frame Kit B2 Super Heavy Frame Offers the Ultimate Canvas Support!

• Drawing depicts the exact frame construction, not the proportion
• Precision Machined keyable Super Strong Stretcher Bars (1.5" deep by 2-1/4" wide) allow you to increase the canvas tension
• Each corner has a diagonal oriented Diamond Brace that interlocks with the Stretcher Bars and superior support and rigidity to help keep the frame square
• Four Super Strong Keyable Braces and Two Cross Braces Included (3/4" x 3.25")
• The Bars have a clever utility groove on the inside perimeter of the frame to attach the cross braces and Diamond Braces
• Unique Keyable Cross Braces allow you to tension the canvas in the middle, where it's needed the most
• Cross braces are glued and stapled at the 'cross' for maximum support and rigidity
• Both corner keys and brace keys are pre-installed

Elite™ Professional 1.5" Deep B2 Bar • 1/2" Canvas Clearance

A Canvas Clearance of 1/2" is the space between the Bar and the canvas. Generally speaking, more clearance reduces the risk of the canvas touching the wood and creating unsightly lines during painting. Our design provides the optimal clearance so as not to impact your painting, but still leaving enough wood to the maximize strength of the Stretcher Bar.

No Finger Joints!

Solid Wood is far superior to finger jointed wood, which is many small pieces glued together, each with varying grain densities that absorb and shed moisture at varying rates, expanding and contracting non-uniformly as environmental conditions change, and causing the wood to bow and the finger joints to eventually fail.

A single homogeneous kiln-dried solid wood Stretcher Bar outperforms and outlasts a finger jointed Bar whose sole purpose is to save the manufacturer cost, not contribute to the archival value of artwork intended to last a millennium. As a manufacturer, Masterpiece® does its part to conserve as much wood as possible, and still provide a quality product that will out-perform any other in the marketplace.

Cross Braces Make it Tighter

A tightly stretched canvas on an un-braced frame overpowers the Stretcher Bars causing them to bow inward and thereby lose tension. Sometimes that bow can expose a space in picture frames.

When we stretch a canvas on a properly supported frame, the cross-braces prevent the Bars from bowing thereby achieving maximum canvas tension. To increase the canvas tension even more, simply tap the corner and brace keys further in their slots. Properly supported frames provide you with the control over the canvas tension of your canvas and painting.

Forests need People, and People Need Forests

Using lumber from sustainably managed forests is a way to support the health and well-being of our planet and its inhabitants. By choosing products made with sustainably sourced lumber, we can help to protect the environment, support local communities, and ensure a sustainable future for generations to come.

Specially Dried and Heat Treated Lumber

We source our wood from a select group of top-tier environmentally conscious lumber mills in the Pacific Northwest. These mills specially dry and heat-treat the lumber to our specifications, resulting in about half the moisture content compared to wood from typical home improvement centers or lumber yards. This process makes the wood stronger, reducing the likelihood of cracking, splitting, or warping. While the wood we use comes at a higher cost, it ensures a more dimensionally stable end product. This stability is crucial for crafting fine professional canvases that support your invaluable art over time.

Canvas Tension is in Your Control

In dry climates or air conditioned environments, the lack of moisture in the air causes wood frames to shrink and the canvas fibers to narrow and elongate making the canvas more slack and resulting in a loss of canvas tension. In some instances, the canvas could have waves on the surface resulting in an unsightly viewing experience.

Our Elite™ professional frames provide the functionality for you to slightly expand the size of the frame in the corners and the middle of the canvas, thereby increasing canvas tension all across the surface. The difference between a loose canvas and a tight canvas is just 1/8" of an inch, so a small adjustment using our corner and brace keys makes an important difference in canvas tension.

• Helps to prevent waves that occur in a loose canvas
• Increase canvas tension by tapping-in the corner and brace keys
• True professional class canvases make it possible for you to adjust the canvas tension

MuseumWrap™ Stretching Technique

With more than a half a century of American engineering, Masterpiece® designs and builds its own proprietary stretching equipment that enables us to produce the finest and most tightly-stretched canvas on the market.

• Drum-tight stretch!
• Up to 50% tighter than other methods
• Balanced tension across the surface
• Uncut folded corners make it possible to remove and re-stretch canvas on the same size frame
• Usually the corner folds are on the long sides

Tight'n'Up™ Liquid Canvas Retensioner

While all of our Masterpiece® Pro canvases are stretched very tightly and our frames have a built-in method to increase tension, we have another method to add canvas tension. Tight'n'Up™ Liquid Canvas Retensioner (sold separately) can be sprayed on the back of a canvas to repair most canvas tension issues.

With Tight'n'Up™, you can add tension to just a small area, or a large area. Simply spray it lightly on the back and brush it into the canvas, and within seconds, your canvas becomes tighter and stays tighter. The more you use, the tighter it gets.

When you hold a Masterpiece® Elite™ canvas in your hand, you can immediately sense the quality materials, workmanship and design of this very fine canvas, as will those who will ultimately acquire your art. The colors and canvas you select becomes the foundation of your painting. Your reputation depends upon the quality of your artwork and the integrity of your material choices. Savvy art buyers and art enthusiasts place a higher value on artwork made with quality materials because they expect their investment in your art will last hundreds, if not a thousand years. Using the best materials is a great investment in your own legacy and your brand.

There are two types of artists: those who paint to sell, and those who paint because they cannot do otherwise. ♦ Paul Gauguin

Paul Gauguin's life was a testament to the tug-of-war between the need for commercial success and the burning desire to create from an inner compulsion. Leaving behind the traditional European art scene, Gauguin sought authenticity in the far-flung corners of Tahiti. The pull of the unfamiliar, the allure of the untouched, drove him to abandon convention and seek a deeper truth in his art.

Artists often find themselves at a crossroads, balancing the demands of the marketplace with their intrinsic need to express. But Gauguin reminds us that, at the core of every true artist, there exists an irrepressible force that compels creation, regardless of external pressures or rewards. While there is no shame in painting with an audience or market in mind, it's vital for us to also nurture and honor that internal drive. By doing so, we stay connected to the essence of why we embarked on our artistic path in the first place, ensuring that our work remains a genuine reflection of our soul's desires.

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Creativity is the heart of what we both do. So we've curated this empowering quote and some background. And, in our own act of creation, we provide this unique portrayal we made of Paul Gauguin.