oil paint

oil paint Paint in which drying oils are used as the medium; linseed oil is the best known, but others that have been used in painting include poppy oil and walnut oil. It was long believed that oil painting was invented by Jan van Eyck in the early 15th century, but it is now known that its origins are older and obscurer (the treatise of Theophilus, written probably in the 12th century, describes ‘grinding colours with oil’). There is no doubt, however, that van Eyck revolutionized the technique and brought it to a sudden peak of perfection. He showed the medium's flexibility, its rich and dense colour, its wide range from light to dark, and its ability to achieve both minute detail and subtle blending of tones. Other painters soon took up his innovations—first in northern Europe, then in Italy—and from the 16th century oil colour has been the dominant medium in Europe for serious painting (other than for murals, in which fresco continued to be the norm). Its success has been largely on account of its versatility and ability to show an artist's personal ‘handwriting’, for it can attain any variety of surface from porcelain smoothness to violent impasto. Its versatility was increased still further in the 19th century with the invention of the collapsible metal tube (devised in 1841), which made it convenient to work out of doors. In the 20th century, however, acrylic became a serious rival to oil paint.