Who is credited with the development of oil paint?

Answer 1

I was talking to someone not too long ago about how toxic oil paints are. No wonder so many artists are crazy! Here is a site about how oil paints began in Egyptian times and then since progressed until now each civilization adding different techniques. Good question!

Answer 2

You are probably thinking of Jan van Eyck a flemish man who painted the 'Arnolfini marriage ' . The picture of the couple getting married . She in a green dress and a mirror behind and a little dog in the forground all symbals and well worth looking up on google for all the whole story.
van Eyck probably didn't invent oil painting like so many things the invention happens slowly with loads of setbacks etc . But van Eyck was the first artist to use it to such perfection and his paintings became so reknowned that lots of Italians (who had been using frescos and tempora and mediums that cover a large area) came piling up the the north to see how these small detailed paintings were done and to take the tecnique back to Italy. A book which is absolutely fascinating is Secret Knowledge by David Hockney . In it he explains how as he puts it 'people could suddenly paint better' and this was done by using the lens like a reflecting glass called a camera obscura.Also some extraordinary explanations when this tecnique went too far.
Oil painting was perfect too as when using the camera obscura one needs a very detailed medium and something suitable for painting on a smalll scale.

Answer 3

The technique of mixing oil and pigment was used and developed in Northern Europe during the Renaissance. At this time the Italians were still using tempera and fresco techniques.

Jan van Eyck is generally credited with the invention/development of oil painting. Which makes sense if you consider that Northern painters, like Jan van Eyck, were dedicated to depicting accurate and life-like details in their paintings. It only makes sense that they would develop the medium that would deliver the best results.

Italians who were merchants and bankers spread all throughout Europe during this period; this opened up the possibility for exchange that brought this medium to Italy.

Answer 4

The slow-drying properties of organic oils were commonly known to early painters. However, the difficulty in acquiring and working the materials meant that they were rarely used. As public preference for realism increased, however, the quick-drying tempera paints became insufficient. Flemish artists combined tempera and oil painting during the 1400s, but by the 1600s easel painting in pure oils was common, using much the same techniques and materials found today.

Though the ancient Mediterranean civilizations of Greece, Rome, and Egypt were familiar with vegetal oils, there is little evidence to indicate their use as media in painting. Indeed, linseed oil was long rejected as a medium because of its tendency to dry slowly, darken, and crack, unlike mastic and wax.

However, Greek writers such as Aetius Amidenus recorded recipes involving the use of oils for drying, such as walnut, poppy, hempseed, pine nut, castor, and linseed. When thickened, the oils became resinous and could be used as varnish to seal and protect paintings from water. Additionally, when yellow pigment was added to oil, it could be spread over tin foil as a less expensive alternative to gold leaf. Early Christian monks maintained these records and used the techniques in their own artworks. Theophilus Presbyter, a 12th century German monk, recommended linseed oil from the Baltic Sea area, but advocated against the use of olive oil due to its excessively long drying time.

As early as the 13th century, oil was used to add details to tempera paintings. In the 14th century, Cennino Cennini presented a painting technique utilizing tempera painting covered by light layers of oil.

The modern technique of oil painting was created circa 1410 by Jan van Eyck. Though van Eyck was not the first artist to use oil paint, he was the first who is known to have produced a stable siccative oil mixture which could be used to bind mineral pigments. Van Eyck’s mixture probably consisted of piled glass, calcined bones, and mineral pigments boiled in linseed oil until reaching a viscous state.

Antonello da Messina later introduced another improvement to oil paint: he added litharge, or lead oxide, to the mixture. The new mixture had a honey-like consistency and increased siccative properties. This medium was known as oglio cotto—"cooked oil."

Leonardo da Vinci improved the technique even further by cooking the mixture at a low temperature and adding 5 to 10% beeswax, which prevented dramatic darkening of the finished paint. Giorgione, Titian, and Tintoretto each slightly altered this recipe for their own purposes.

During his stay in Italy, Rubens studied the Italian oil paint mixture. He later made his own improvement, using walnut oil warmed with litharge and adding mastic dissolved in turpentine.

Since that time, experiments to improve paint and coatings have been conducted with other oils. Today, oils from bladderpod, sandmat, ironweed, and calendula plants are used to increase resistance or to decrease drying time.