Traditional oil painting techniques often begin with the artist sketching the subject onto the canvas with charcoal or thinned paint. Oil paint i…

The earliest known surviving oil paintings are Buddhist murals created c. 650 AD in Bamiyan, Afghanistan. Bamiyan is a historic settlement along the Silk Road and is famous for the Bamiyan Buddhas, a series of giant statues, behind which roo…

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 or Castor Oil are sometimes used in formula…

The earliest oil paintings were almost all panel paintings on wood, which had been seasoned and prepared in a complicated and rather expensive process with the panel constructed from several pieces of wood, although such support tends to wa…

Oil paint is made by mixing pigments of colors with an oil medium. Since the 19th century the different main colors are purchased in paint tubes pre-prepared before painting begins, further shades of color are usually obtained by mixing smal…

Oil painters such as Claude Monet and Vincent van Gogh revolutionized the medium in ways that profoundly shaped the evolution of modern art. Their groundbreaking innovations in technique, color, and form redefined traditional oil pa…

• Borchert, Till-Holger (2008). Van Eyck. London: Taschen. ISBN 3-8228-5687-8.
• Osborne, Harold, ed. (1970). The Oxford Companion to Art. Oxford University Press. ISBN 019866107X.…