The palette knife is a flat-bladed tool for mixing and applying paint. Learn its history from medieval amassettes to Van Gogh, Courbet, and contemporary impasto painting.
Most painting tools start as painting tools. The palette knife started as a mixing tool and had to fight its way onto the canvas. For centuries, the knife was a humble implement used to scrape paint together on the palette, clean the surface, and apply gesso to panels. No self-respecting academic painter would have used it to apply paint to the visible surface of a painting. That changed in the 19th century, when Gustave Courbet and later Vincent van Gogh picked up the knife and used it the way a mason uses a trowel. Today, the palette knife is a standard tool for applying paint, creating texture, and scraping back layers, and no one thinks twice about using it directly on the canvas.
A palette knife is a blunt tool with a flexible metal blade, used for mixing paint on a palette and for applying or manipulating paint on a painting surface. The blade is typically made of spring steel, and the handle is offset from the blade so the painter's hand stays clear of the wet surface. The term "palette knife" is used generically for both mixing knives and painting knives, though the two are designed for different purposes. Palette knives in the strict sense have straight or gently tapered blades with rounded tips, suited for mixing. Painting knives have diamond, trowel, or rectangular shapes with more flexible blades, suited for applying paint to canvas.
This entry covers the history of the palette knife, the distinction between palette knives and painting knives, how artists have used them, and how to work with one.
The palette knife does two jobs. On the palette, it mixes paint. The flat blade scoops pigment from the edge of the palette, combines it with other colors, and spreads the mixture into a thin film for testing. A knife mixes paint more thoroughly than a brush because it does not absorb the paint, and it can scrape the palette clean between mixings. On the canvas, the knife applies paint in flat, textured strokes that are impossible to achieve with a brush. The blade can spread paint in a thin, even layer, lay it on thick for impasto, or scrape it back to reveal the layer beneath.
The mechanics are simple. The blade is flexible, which lets the painter control the pressure and angle of application. Press hard and the knife lays down a thin, smooth layer. Press lightly and the knife picks up paint, leaving a broken, textured surface. The edge of the blade can create sharp lines. The flat of the blade can cover large areas quickly. The tip can create small marks and details. Because the knife does not have hairs, it does not leave brush marks. Instead, it leaves the smooth, slightly ridged texture of paint pushed by a flat surface.
Painting knives are distinguished from palette knives by their shape and flexibility. Painting knives have a "cranked" or offset handle that lifts the hand above the canvas, and their blades come in diamond, trowel, rectangular, and elongated shapes. The offset handle keeps the painter's knuckles out of wet paint. Palette knives, by contrast, have straighter blades with rounded tips and are less flexible. In practice, many painters use both tools interchangeably, and the technique of applying paint with a knife is always called "palette knife painting" regardless of which tool is used.
The ancestor of the palette knife is the amassette, a tool used in medieval and Renaissance painting workshops to scrape and spread paint on a grinding slab. The name comes from the French "amasser," meaning to gather. Amassettes were made of wood, horn, or ivory, because certain pigments were known to react with copper or iron. They were also used to spread gesso onto canvases, pushing the primer into the weave. Microphotography of Titian's paintings has revealed characteristic ridges in the gesso ground, suggesting it was applied with a palette knife-like tool.
Encaustic painters working in Roman Egypt in the first centuries CE used a bronze tool called a cauterium or cestrum, which was heated and used alongside brushes to apply wax-based paint. Examination of the surface of the Fayum mummy portraits suggests that these tools were used to manipulate the encaustic medium in ways that brushes alone could not. The principle is the same: a flat-bladed tool that can push and spread paint.
As commercially prepared paints and canvases became available in the late 18th and 19th centuries, the knife was freed from its preparatory duties. Painters no longer needed to grind their own pigments or prime their own surfaces, so the knife could be used in the act of painting itself. The forms gradually standardized into the palette and painting knives we recognize today.
Rembrandt used a palette knife alongside brushes and his fingertips as part of his textural impasto technique. Francisco Goya applied paint with a palette knife in his more vigorous works, especially in his series of paintings on the Spanish War of Independence. Gustave Courbet is sometimes credited with inventing the palette knife as a painting tool, though this is debated. What is clear is that Courbet used the knife deliberately and visibly, applying paint in thick, textured strokes that rejected the smooth, "licked" finish of academic painting. His The Sea After a Storm (1869, Musée d'Orsay) shows palette knife work in the foreground rocks and water.
Vincent van Gogh made the palette knife central to his technique. His late paintings from 1888 to 1890, including works in the Saint-Remy series, use the knife to build up thick, directional strokes of pure color. The knife allowed him to apply paint quickly and thickly, creating the textured surfaces that became his signature. Paul Cezanne also used the knife, particularly in his early and middle period, to lay down flat patches of color that built form through juxtaposition rather than blending.
In the 20th century, the palette knife became a standard tool for expressive painting. Marc Chagall and Henri Matisse both used knives. Gerhard Richter uses large squeegees and wide flat implements to pull thick paint across his canvases, extending the palette knife principle to mural scale. Frank Auerbach uses knives alongside brushes to build up his thick, geological paint surfaces. The Jackson's Art blog provides a detailed history of the tool's evolution from the amassette to the modern painting knife.
These have a straight blade with a rounded tip, resembling a small putty knife or icing spatula. They are the traditional mixing knife, designed for combining colors on the palette without damaging the surface beneath. The rounded tip prevents the knife from scratching the palette. These knives are less flexible than painting knives and are not ideal for applying paint to canvas, though many painters use them for both purposes.
These have a cranked handle that lifts the hand above the painting surface, and a blade in a variety of shapes: diamond, trowel, rectangular, or elongated. The offset handle is the key design feature that makes painting with a knife practical. Without it, the painter's knuckles would drag through wet paint. The different blade shapes produce different marks. A diamond-shaped knife creates sharp, angular strokes. A trowel shape creates broad, sweeping strokes. A rectangular blade creates flat, even planes of color.
Serrated palette knives have a notched edge that produces comb-like textures when dragged through wet paint. They are used for specific textural effects, such as depicting grass, water ripples, or fabric patterns. They are a specialized tool, not part of a basic kit.
Palette knife painting rewards confidence and punishes hesitation. The knife limits the number of times you can go over an area. Unlike a brush, which can blend and reblend endlessly, a knife that goes back over the same spot will overmix the colors and create a muddy, homogenized surface. If this happens, the solution is to scrape all the paint off the surface and start again with fresh paint and a clean knife.
Holding the knife at different angles and varying the pressure produces a wide range of marks. Spread the blade flat and press firmly for a thin, smooth layer. Hold the blade at a shallow angle and press lightly for a thick, textured application. Pat the paint with the flat of the blade for a stippled effect. Use the edge of the blade for sharp lines and cuts in thick paint. For thinner application, angle the blade toward the canvas and scrape, removing most of the paint and leaving a thin film.
Palette knife painting works best with paint that has body. Oil paint is the traditional medium because it stays workable for days and holds its shape. Acrylic paint can be used with a palette knife if it has been thickened with a gel medium, since unmodified acrylic dries too fast and too flat to hold texture. Heavy-body acrylics work well without modification.
The knife can also be used for sgraffito effects, scraping through a top layer of wet paint to reveal the color beneath. Applied paint can be scraped off the canvas to leave a trace of color or to partially reveal a lower layer. This technique works on large areas with wide knives or household scrapers, but avoid going back and forth over the same spot, which ruins the effect.
To see palette knife technique at its most expressive, look at Van Gogh's late paintings from 1888 to 1890. The Starry Night (1889, Museum of Modern Art) combines brush and knife work, with the thickest passages laid on with a knife. Wheat Field with Crows (1890, Van Gogh Museum) shows knife work in the sky and field. Courbet's The Sea After a Storm (1869, Musée d'Orsay) demonstrates the knife used for landscape, with foreground rocks built up in thick, textured strokes.
For 20th-century examples, Frank Auerbach's paintings at the Tate in London show the knife used alongside brushes to build surfaces several inches deep. Gerhard Richter's abstract paintings, made with large squeegees rather than traditional knives, extend the technique to mural scale. The ArtWeb guide to palette knives documents how contemporary painters use the tool.
For more on the techniques that palette knives enable, read our entries on impasto and sgraffito. For the surface where palette knives mix paint, see our entry on the palette. And for a deeper dive into textured painting, read our post on oil painting techniques.
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