One of the oldest mediums that were used commonly by the artists were tempera and oil paint. Although these materials are used to paint very photo-realistic images, they have many differences. Tempera is mostly used to create a very opaque painting that needs to be made fairly quickly. This painting medium is consists of colored pigments mixed with a binding agent, an egg yolk. Tempera is an incredibly fast drying material and acts as an extremely long lasting method of painting.
There are many famous works that were created with Tempera paint. This medium was found to be used during the ancient dynasty of Egyptian time, Babylonia, Mycenaean Greece, and China and was used to decorate the early Christian catacombs. …show more content…
As more artists started to move away from painting on the walls of a church or a chapel, the use of fresco declined. The wealthy private patrons started wanting smaller and more portable artworks, particularly for more domestic settings. For example, Venus of Urbino by Titian was commissioned by Duke of Urbino Guidobaldo II Della Rovere, and Portrait of Baldassare Castiglione by Raphael was commissioned by Castiglione. Artists started to favor using oil paint rather than tempera because of not only it didn’t dry as fast as tempera but also oil can be mixed to create an unlimited range of values and colors richer. “Oil is so different. Not only did it allow for glazing, but it also stayed wet and that meant that you could rework the …show more content…
He found a perfect oil to mix with that allowed his work to dry in the perfect amount of time, which allowed him to go back into his work. Jan van Eyck developed a stable varnish based on a siccative oil as the binder of mineral pigments. His “secret was a mixture of piled glass, calcined bones and mineral pigments in linseed oil maintained a long time up to a viscous state at boiling temperature.”(Denofamonica) His technique spread and inspired many artists around the Northern Europe. One of his work, The Wedding Portrait of Giovanni Arnolfini and his wife shows the best example of the new technique. The way that Van Eyck painted in detail is exquisite and his style of brush strokes to create different textures are astonishing. For example, each brush strokes of hairs on Arnolfini's coat to the blending of colors to create a photorealistic drapery of Giovanna Cenami is incredible. And on top of his talented skills, he added symbolism and meanings to show not only the wealth of Giovanni Arnolfini but also his technical skills. Using oil paint helped him to put the real world into the