Oil Painting
Tuesday, March 15th, 2011
Oil painting is the process of painting with pigments that are bound with a medium of drying oil — especially in early modern Europe, linseed oil.
Although oil paint was first used for the Buddhist Paintings by Indian and Chinese painters in western Afghanistan sometime between the fifth and ninth centuries, it did not gain popularity until the 15th century. Its practice may have migrated westward during the Middle Ages.
Traditional oil painting techniques often begin with the artist sketching the subject onto the canvas with charcoal or thinned paint. Oil paint is usually mixed with linseed oil, artist grade mineral spirits or other solvents to create a thinner, faster or slower drying paint.
Although the history of tempera and related media in Europe indicates that oil painting was discovered there independently, there is evidence that oil painting was used earlier in Afghanistan.