Paintings & Prints

History of Oil Painting

The oldest Mediterranean civilizations--Greek, Roman and Egyptian--have extensively used painting techniques based on mixtures of encaustic (probably rich in bee wax), mineral pigments (iron, copper, manganese oxides), and tempera. Vegetal oils, such as flax, walnut or poppy seed oil were known to ancient Egyptians, Greeks or Romans, but no precise indication of their use in painting may be found. Tempera is a fluid mixture of binder (organic medium), water, and volatile additives (vegetal essential oils). Organic binders used by Italian artists were proteinaceous materials available from animal sources (whole egg, animal glues or milk).

The painting techniques were probably developed for decorative or functional purposes in the High Middle Ages. Surfaces like shields--both those used in tournaments and those hung as decorations--were more durable when painted in oil-based media than when painted in the traditional tempera paints. Many Renaissance sources credit northern European painters of the 15th century with the 'invention' of painting with oil media on wood panel, with Jan van Eyck often mentioned as the "inventor."

Recent advances in chemistry have produced modern water miscible oil paints that can be used with water, and cleaned up in water. These are still "real" oil-paints in every sense of the meaning. Small alterations in the molecular structure of the oil creates this water miscible property.

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