Oil Painting

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"Oil-painting is a developed technique. Why go backwards?"

(Edvard Munch)

Oil painting, painting in oil colours, is a technique that consists of pigments suspended in drying oils. It dries slowly in comparison to other paints and, for this reason, allows the artist to better manipulate the paint. There are many methods used to process the oil and all affect the colour, consistency and drying time of the paint. An artist may use several different oils in the same painting depending on pigments to achieve the desired effects.

Over the years oil painting became one of the principal painting techniques. The transition began in Northern Europe with some Dutch painters and during Renaissance the oil painting technique, used by famous artists such as Jan van Eyck, Raphael, Titian, Rubens and Rembrandt, had almost replaced the use of tempera colours in most of Europe.