Oil pAINT
" Walnut oil, poppy oil, hempseed oil, castor oil, and linseed oil as varnishes to seal pictures and protect them from water. Adequately thickened, they became resinous in and of themselves and therefore worked as varnishes quite well. Later on, yellow pigments were added to the oil and it was spread over tin foil to mimic the look of gold leaf, but at less cost. And as early as the thirteenth century oil was used for painting details over tempera pictures. Cennini describes the preparation and use of oils in painting on all surfaces.
Oils were purified and bleached in the sun, and drying time was decreased by the addition of metallic oxides such as Litharge or White Lead. Other methods of preparing oil by boiling and mixing with various substances is recorded throughout the middle ages, into the Renaissance, and beyond. The procedures involved in making a usefully fluid medium with which to paint entire pictures in great detail were perfected by the brothers Van Eyck in the first half of the fifteenth century. From these Flemish artists and their students it is rumored that the new methods were spread to Italy by Antonella da Messina where, "once adapted to Italian taste, subjects, and dimensions, (the new way of painting) was received with enthusiasm." [7] |
Types of oil
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Types of oil paintings
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