Oil painting
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Oil painting is a painting method involving the procedure of
The oldest known oil paintings were created by
Commonly used drying oils include
Techniques
Traditional oil painting techniques often begin with the artist sketching the subject onto the canvas with charcoal or thinned paint.
There are other media that can be used with the oil, including cold wax, resins, and varnishes. These additional media can aid the painter in adjusting the translucency of the paint, the sheen of the paint, the density or 'body' of the paint, and the ability of the paint to hold or conceal the brushstroke. These aspects of the paint are closely related to the expressive capacity of oil paint.
Traditionally, paint was most often transferred to the painting surface using
History
The earliest known surviving oil paintings are Buddhist murals created c. 650 AD in
Most
Such works were painted on wooden panels, but towards the end of the 15th century canvas began to be used as a support, as it was cheaper, easier to transport, allowed larger works, and did not require complicated preliminary layers of gesso (a fine type of plaster). Venice, where sail-canvas was easily available, was a leader in the move to canvas. Small cabinet paintings were also made on metal, especially copper plates. These supports were more expensive but very firm, allowing intricately fine detail. Often printing plates from printmaking were reused for this purpose. The increasing use of oil spread through Italy from Northern Europe, starting in Venice in the late 15th century. By 1540, the previous method for painting on panel (tempera) had become all but extinct, although Italians continued to use chalk-based fresco for wall paintings, which was less successful and durable in damper northern climates.
Renaissance techniques used a number of thin almost transparent layers or glazes, usually each allowed to dry before the next was added, greatly increasing the time a painting took. The underpainting or ground beneath these was usually white (typically gesso coated with a primer), allowing light to reflect back through the layers. But van Eyck, and Robert Campin a little later, used a wet-on-wet technique in places, painting a second layer soon after the first. Initially the aim was, as with the established techniques of tempera and fresco, to produce a smooth surface when no attention was drawn to the brushstrokes or texture of the painted surface. Among the earliest impasto effects, using a raised or rough texture in the surface of the paint, are those from the later works of the Venetian painter Giovanni Bellini, around 1500.[8]
This became much more common in the 16th century, as may painters began to draw attention to the process of their painting, by leaving individual brushstrokes obvious, and a rough painted surface. Another Venetian, Titian, was a leader in this. In the 17th century some artists, including Rembrandt, began to use dark grounds. Until the mid-19th century there was a division between artists who exploited "effects of handling" in their paintwork, and those who continued to aim at "an even, glassy surface from which all evidences of manipulation had been banished".[9]
Before the 19th century, artists or their apprentices ground pigments and mixed their paints for the range of
Ingredients
The linseed oil itself comes from the flax seed, a common fiber crop. Linen, a "support" for oil painting (see relevant section), also comes from the flax plant. Safflower oil or the walnut or poppyseed oil are sometimes used in formulating lighter colors like white because they "yellow" less on drying than linseed oil, but they have the slight drawback of drying more slowly and may not provide the strongest paint film. Linseed oil tends to dry yellow and can change the hue of the color.
Recent advances in
Supports for oil painting
The earliest oil paintings were almost all
Smaller paintings, with very fine detail, were easier to paint on a very firm surface, and wood panels or copper plates, often reused from printmaking, were often chosen for small cabinet paintings even in the 19th century. Portrait miniatures normally used very firm supports, including ivory, or stiff paper card.
Traditional artists' canvas is made from linen, but less expensive cotton fabric has been used. The artist first prepares a wooden frame called a "stretcher" or "strainer". The difference between the two names is that stretchers are slightly adjustable, while strainers are rigid and lack adjustable corner notches. The canvas is then pulled across the wooden frame and tacked or stapled tightly to the back edge. Then the artist applies a "size" to isolate the canvas from the acidic qualities of the paint. Traditionally, the canvas was coated with a layer of animal glue (modern painters will use rabbit skin glue) as the size and primed with lead white paint, sometimes with added chalk. Panels were prepared with a gesso, a mixture of glue and chalk.
Modern acrylic "gesso" is made of titanium dioxide with an acrylic binder. It is frequently used on canvas, whereas real gesso is not suitable for canvas. The artist might apply several layers of gesso, sanding each smooth after it has dried. Acrylic gesso is very difficult to sand. One manufacturer makes a "sandable" acrylic gesso, but it is intended for panels only and not canvas. It is possible to make the gesso a particular color, but most store-bought gesso is white. The gesso layer, depending on its thickness, will tend to draw the oil paint into the porous surface. Excessive or uneven gesso layers are sometimes visible in the surface of finished paintings as a change that's not from the paint.
Standard sizes for oil paintings were set in France in the 19th century. The standards were used by most artists, not only the French, as it was—and evidently still is—supported by the main suppliers of artists' materials. Size 0 (toile de 0) to size 120 (toile de 120) is divided in separate "runs" for figures (figure), landscapes (paysage) and marines (marine) that more or less preserve the diagonal. Thus a 0 figure corresponds in height with a paysage 1 and a marine 2.[10]
Although surfaces like linoleum, wooden panel, paper, slate, pressed wood, Masonite, and cardboard have been used, the most popular surface since the 16th century has been canvas, although many artists used panel through the 17th century and beyond. Panel is more expensive, heavier, harder to transport, and prone to warp or split in poor conditions. For fine detail, however, the absolute solidity of a wooden panel has an advantage.
Process
Oil paint is made by mixing
A brush is most commonly employed by the artist to apply the paint, often over a sketched outline of their subject (which could be in another medium). Brushes are made from a variety of fibers to create different effects. For example, brushes made with hog bristle might be used for bolder strokes and impasto textures. Fitch hair and mongoose hair brushes are fine and smooth, and thus answer well for portraits and detail work. Even more expensive are red sable brushes (weasel hair). The finest quality brushes are called "kolinsky sable"; these brush fibers are taken from the tail of the Siberian weasel. This hair keeps a superfine point, has smooth handling, and good memory (it returns to its original point when lifted off the canvas), known to artists as a brush's "snap". Floppy fibers with no snap, such as squirrel hair, are generally not used by oil painters.
In the past few decades, many synthetic brushes have been marketed. These are very durable and can be quite good, as well as
Brushes come in multiple sizes and are used for different purposes. The type of brush also makes a difference. For example, a "round" is a pointed brush used for detail work. "Flat" brushes are used to apply broad swaths of color. "Bright" is a flat brush with shorter brush hairs, used for "scrubbing in". "Filbert" is a flat brush with rounded corners. "Egbert" is a very long, and rare, filbert brush. The artist might also apply paint with a palette knife, which is a flat metal blade. A palette knife may also be used to remove paint from the canvas when necessary. A variety of unconventional tools, such as rags, sponges, and cotton swabs, may be used to apply or remove paint. Some artists even paint with their fingers.
Old masters usually applied paint in thin layers known as "glazes" that allow light to penetrate completely through the layer, a method also simply called "indirect painting". This technique is what gives oil paintings their luminous characteristics. This method was first perfected through an adaptation of the
Artists in later periods, such as the
When the image is finished and has dried for up to a year, an artist often seals the work with a layer of varnish that is typically made from
Examples of famous works
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Arnolfini Portrait, Jan van Eyck, 1434 (on panel)
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La donna velata, Raphael, 1516
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The Rape of Europa, Titian, 1562
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The Raising of the Cross, Peter Paul Rubens, 1610–11
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The Milkmaid, Johannes Vermeer, 1658–1660
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The Toilet of Venus, François Boucher, 1751
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The Blue Boy, Thomas Gainsborough, 1770
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Charge in the Somosierra Gorge, Piotr Michałowski, 1837
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The Card Players, Paul Cézanne, 1892
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Le Grand Canal, Venice, Henri Le Sidaner, 1906
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Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, Pablo Picasso, 1907
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The Kiss (Der Kuß), Gustav Klimt, 1907/8
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Composition VII, Wassily Kandinsky, 1913
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Motive from Tartu, Villem Ormisson, 1937
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Nighthawks, Edward Hopper, 1942
Citations
- ^ Osborne, 787
- ^ "World's oldest use of oil paint found in Afghanistan". World Archaeology. 6 July 2008. Retrieved 10 August 2020.
- ^ "Synchrotron light unveils oil in ancient Buddhist paintings from Bamiyan". European Synchrotron Radiation Facility. 21 April 2008. Retrieved 12 April 2020.
- ^ "Afghan caves hold world's first oil paintings: expert". ABC News. 25 January 2008.
- ^ "Earliest Oil Paintings Discovered". Live Science. 22 April 2008.
- ^ Borchert (2008), 92–94
- ^ Osborne, 787, 1132
- ^ Osborne, 787
- ^ Osborne, 787–788
- ^ Haaf, Beatrix (1987). "Industriell vorgrundierte Malleinen. Beiträge zur Entwicklungs-, Handels- und Materialgeschichte". Zeitschrift für Kunsttechnologie und Konservierung. 1: 7–71.
General and cited references
- Borchert, Till-Holger (2008). Van Eyck. London: ISBN 3-8228-5687-8.
- Osborne, Harold, ed. (1970). The Oxford Companion to Art. Oxford University Press. ISBN 019866107X.
Further reading
- Chieffo, Clifford T. (1976). Contemporary Oil Painter's Handbook. Prentice Hall. ISBN 978-0-131-70167-0.
- Mayer, Ralph (1940). The Artist's Handbook of Materials and Techniques. Comprehensive reference book.
External links
- Introduction to Art at Wikibooks
- Media related to Oil paintings at Wikimedia Commons