Art Encyclopedia - Oil Paint

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Oil Paint
Artist oil paint is a slow-drying paint made up from small pigment particles suspended in drying oil. Outside of art, oil paint is most commonly used to paint walls and furniture and is suitable for interiors and exteriors. Oil paint is popularly used because of its hard-wearing properties and luminous colours.

Artists use oil paint in their art work because of its typical properties. Oil paint has a long drying time which allows an artist to work on a painting over several sessions. Oil paint also blends well into surrounding paint, allowing for subtle blending of colours and oil paint also produce vivid colours.

In the 1400's Flemish artists started combining tempera and oil paint and by 1600's paintings in pure oil paint was common. The modern technique of oil painting is believed to have been created around 1410 by Jan van Eyck. Antonella da Messina developed oil paint further by adding litharge or lead oxide to the mixture, creating a honey-like consistency. Leonardo da Vinci took this further by cooking the mixture at a low temperature and adding beeswax which prevented the dramatic darkening of the finished paint. Later Rubens made further improvements by using walnut oil warmed with litharge as well as adding mastic dissolved in turpentine. Today, oils from bladderpod, sandmat, ironweed, and calendula plants are used to increase resistance or to decrease drying time.