Oil Painting, Origin , History and its importance
Oil painting is the most preferred painting style and practiced by most artists around the world.
Oil paint was invented long ago. Oil paints were first used in Asia as early as the 7th century AD. The oldest known oil paintings are
Buddhist murals created almost at 650 AD. The paintings are created by walnut and poppy seed oils. The paintings are located in cave-like rooms carved from the cliffs of
Bamiyan Valley of Afghanistan. Later it was used by most famous artists like
Vincent Van Gogh,
Leonardo da Vinci,
Pablo Picasso.
The oil paint is made by mixing color pigments with drying oils like poppy seed oil, walnut oil, linseed oil, safflower oil etc. The viscosity of the paint may be modified by the addition of a solvent such as turpentine or white spirit, and varnish may be added to increase the glossiness of the dried oil paint film.
Oil paint allows the artist to achieve a broad range of opacity and intensity in their work. It lets you to layer multiple colours and blend them together to produce a stunning piece of artwork. Moreover, due to the slow-drying quality of the oil paint, an artist can develop a painting gradually and can make changes or corrections easily.
It is suitable for both indoor and outdoor application on wood and metal because to its hard wearing characteristics and brilliant hues. It has lately been employed in paint-on-glass animation due to its delayed drying qualities.
Oil paints mix readily, allowing for subtle colour changes as well as the creation of many light and shadow elements. Oil paintings can be thinned using turpentine or other thinning chemicals, allowing painters to layer their work. Oil paints are so expensive as compared to other paints because modern oils paints can have complex chemical compositions, which might impact UV resistance. Colour Pigment and oil are combined together carefully until they create a smooth, ultra-fine paste. This paste is then labelled and placed into jars or metal paint tubes.
Despite the fact that some oil paints are non-toxic, it is not recommended to apply them directly to the skin because some of the pigments could be poisonous. The oil paint could irritate your skin if it gets on it. Similarly, most oil based binders are extracted from animal fats and so some oil paints are not considered as the vegan friendly painting media.