History of Oil Painting and its Artists

Oil paint itself is slow-drying, and is made up of small particles of pigment that are suspended in drying oil. Early painters understood the slow drying properties of organic oils, but as they were hard to acquire and use, oil painting did not become widely popular in Europe until the 15th century. Realism in portraiture especially was in high demand during this time, and tempera paints simply did not meet the standards set for the heavy detail work required.

The oldest Mediterranean civilizations extensively used painting techniques based on mixtures of encaustic (probably rich in bee wax), mineral pigments (iron, copper, manganese oxides) and tempera. Tempera is a fluid mixture of binder (organic medium), water and essential oils. Organic binders used by Italian artists were protein materials available from animal sources (whole egg, animal glues or milk).

At the end of the Roman empire and up to the Renaissance period (15th century), this ancient technique was lost and replaced by oil paint and/or tempera the techniques probably brought from western Afghanistan sometime between the 5th and 9th Centuries. By the height of the Rennaisance oil painting techniques had almost completely replaced tempera paints in the majority of Europe.

The modern technique of oil painting, as used till now with few technical modifications, was invented or re-invented in Europe around 1410 by Jan van Eyck (1390 -1441). This Flemish painter was not the first to use oil paint, but it was he who developed a stable varnish based on linseed oil as the binder of mineral pigments. Other great inventors would add substantially to the recipe created by Van Eyck. Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519), and added bee wax to the mixture along with a varying temperature to make the oil less dark. The use of beeswax, however, was kept secret for nearly three centuries, and ensured European dominance in art.

In recent years developments have been made to provide water soluble oil paints. That is not to say that these paintings have the qualities of watercolor / watercolour paints. Oil paint along with gouache and acrylic is an opaque mediums and has the advantage that correction of errors is possible. It also can be a long lasting medium.