Oil paintings, fine art, art prints & paintings, featured artists, art books, greetings cards & much more...

Oil Painting

In recent decades there has been an amazing proliferation of new materials for artists and designers, so much so that a visit to one of the larger artists' suppliers can leave an uninitiated person feeling confused and bewildered. There are pencils, pens, crayons and' pastels in every colour of the rainbow; there are acrylic paints, both in tubes and in pots; there are watercolours in tubes, pans and boxes; there are gouaches and poster paints; there are even special paints for fabrics and ceramics. Indeed, special materials are now available for almost any surface that could conceivably be painted or decorated. And, often tucked away unobtrusively in one corner, there are oil paints.

Why, then, are oil paints still so popular with professional artists and 'Sunday painters' alike? There are two main reasons for this, the first being that oil paint is the most versatile of all the painting media, and can be used in any number of ways to suit all styles, subjects and sizes of work. The second is that it is the easiest medium for a beginner to use. Which is not to .say, of course, that a novice will automatically be able to create a masterpiece at first try -that is most un- likely. But because oil paint can be manipulated, scraped off and overpainted, built up and then scraped down once again, it enables you to learn by trial and error, uninhibited by the thought of having 'to start all over again', or waste expensive materials. This is not true of any other medium: acrylic, for example, cannot be moved at all once it has been laid down, and watercolour -a lovely medium but a tricky once ~ quickly loses all its qualities of freshness and translucence if overworked. Of course, an overworked oil painting will not be a perfect picture, but it may at least be a creditable one, if only because of the know- ledge gained in painting it.

Oil paint, though regarded as a 'traditional' painting medium, is actually quite young in terms of art history. In Europe, before the invention of oil paint in the 15th century, artists painted with tempera, which is colour pigment bound with egg yolk. This was a difficult medium to use as it dried very fast, and thus called for a deliberate and meticulous approach.
The Flemish painter Jan van Eyck (c.1390-1441) was the first to experiment with raw pigments bound with an oil mixture, when he found that one of his tempera paintings had split while drying in the sun. Not only did the oil paints dry without cracking, but, as van Eyck discovered, they could be applied in thin, transparent layers which gave the colours a depth and luminosity hitherto unknown.

The early painters in oil, like van Eyck, used the paint thinly, with delicate brushstrokes that are almost invisible to the eye. But the full potential of oil paint was not really exploited until it was taken up by the Italian painters of the 15th and 16th centuries, notably Giorgione (1475-1510) and Titian (c.1487- 1576).
In Titian's hands, and later in those of the great Dutch painter Rembrandt (1606-69), oil paint was at last used with a feeling for its own inherent qualities. Both artists combined delicately painted areas of glazing (thin paint applied in layers over one another) with thick brushstrokes in which the actual marks of the brush became a feature rather than something to be disguised. Rembrandt's later paintings must have seemed quite shocking to a public accustomed to the
smooth, satin finish of other contemporary Dutch
paintings -a common complaint was that they looked unfinished.

The English landscape painter John Constable (1776-1837), and the French Impressionists later in the 19th century, took the freedom of painting to even greater lengths by using oil as a quick sketching medium, often working out of doors. In Constable's day the camera had yet to be invented, and artists had of necessity to make a great many sketches as references for their finished works. Constable's wonderful sky and landscape studies, made rapidly, often on scraps of paper and cardboard, were never intended as finished works of art; but to our eyes they are much more pleasing, and infinitely more exciting, than his large polished studio paintings, because they have the quality of immediacy that landscape painting seems to demand.

The Impressionists, who drew inspiration from Constable, applied their paint in thick dabs and strokes of broken colour to depict what was their main preoccupation -the ever-changing effects of light on the landscape. Vincent van Gogh (1853-90), who was not an Impressionist but is sometimes grouped with them because he was working at much the same time, used both the colour and the texture of the paint to express his emotions and to define forms, treating the paint almost as a modelling medium. We are so familiar with van Gogh's paintings through countless reproductions that it is hard to appreciate how strange, indeed even offensive, those great, thick, swirling brushstrokes must have looked to his con- temporaries (van Gogh sold only one painting during his entire lifetime).

The very diversity of painting techniques in the past has had the effect of freeing us from any preconceptions about the medium. It is what you want it to be; there is no 'right' or 'wrong' way of doing an oil painting. Today's painters use oil paint in so many different ways that it is often hard to believe that the same medium has been used. Interestingly, the art of tempera painting is now undergoing a revival, and some artists working in oil use a similar technique, applying thin layers of transparent glazes to produce a luminous, light-filled quality. Other artists apply paint thickly with a knife, building it up on the surface of the canvas so that it resembles a relief sculpture.

New painting mediums -oils, varnishes and extenders are constantly being developed in recognition of these different needs; for example, you choose one type of medium if you want to build up delicate glazes, another if you want to achieve a thick textured surface using the impasto technique.

Internet Marketing - Website Promotion
Drive targeted traffic to YOUR business!
Search Engine Optimisation - Search Engine Promotion















Spanish Property and property in Spain. For Spain Property - consult the experts

Work at Home UK
Run your own home based business from within the UK.

Remortgage
Mortgages and remortgages for UK based customers

VPN
Internet security and network security training. Includes firewalls, tcp/ip, PKI, etc.

Weight Loss
Weight loss is something achievable for you in a natural way using our range of Herbalife herbal weight loss products.

Work at home uk
Work from home with your own home based business.

Tyre Sealant
Better than tyre repair is tyre prevention - tyre sealant.

LPG
Change to an alternative fuel with an LPG conversion

Diet
The heathly way to lose weight

Home Based Business
Run your own business.

UK Flowers
Order flowers online for UK and worldwide.

Printed Carrier Bags
Printed Carrier Bags

Your business opportunity and chance to work from home uk with your own Telco mlm home based business

Camping UK
UK Camping website

Fine Art Gallery
Fine art gallery, limited edition prints etc.

Work from home. We'll help you with your own home business opportunity so you can work at home Chinese Paintings
Chinese paintings gallery