Art History of Oil Painting

On this page I would like to give some information on the history of oil painting as documented by various sites such as Art Museums, and other sources which will be listed on the bottom of the page as resources.

In many art books it has been documented that oil painting was brought into popularity by artist in Europe around the 15th century. Prior to this time the use of tempura was used on a greater scale. By adding the oil to the tempura, there was a result of a richer, brighter effect from the paint. The drying time slowed down enabling the artist to work slower and blend more with the new and improved paint medium.

It is interesting to note that the prehistoric cave painting that were discovered by four men in 1940 in the Dordogne region of France came across an impressive array of prehistoric art. There were about 600 paintings in various caverns of the caves. The main cavern holding the most cave paintings. These cave paintings were done with mineral pigments mixed with animal fat in various shades of yellow, red, brown and black. They were dated to the late Aurignacian period (15,000 to 13,000 B.C)

Mannerism

Baroque

Rococo

Neo-Classical

Romanticism

Symbolism

Realism

Impressionism: This is the type of art Vincent Van Gogh, Claud Monet, and Pierre Auguste Renoir created around the 1700 thru the 1800's. It is characterized by the brush stroke technique of "broken colour" There was much less blending of the colours and more "painterly" brush strokes and much more paint texture with thick luscious oil paint piled onto the canvas by the impressionistic painters. At the time of Van Gogh's painting; this impressionistic style was viewed as something very strange and different. Unfortunately most people during that time had a negative opinion of his work therefore he was not a successful artist when he was alive. It was after he died that people finally saw the genious artist skills he had and realized what he had contributed to the art world. More information on some of these artist below.

The images conceived by most ancient peoples were represented as shapes surrounded by a line, with more emphasis on flat silhouettes than on volumes. These images were found on walls of tombs and temples. You will note there was very little depth.

During the Renaissance figures and forms were modeled in tones evenly graduated from one edge to the other. Lines were no longer necessary. Changes in value clearly defined the boundaries of each form.

In the 17th century artists developed new ways of using values with more of a "spotlight" illumination on certain areas of the painting. Some parts of forms were sharply defined, others were obscure or in shadow.

In the centuries that followed the Renaissance, many artists experimented with adding touches of warm and cool colour to forms modeled in values. In the 19th century the Impressionist took the radical step of working directly from almost pure colour. Their method of applying the paint in daubs produced blurred edges which appeared as solid forms only when viewed at a slight distance.

Post-Impressionism combined pictorial elements of today's paintings. Post-Impressionists, Fauves and Expressionists used rhythmic outlines from oriental art and from pre-Renaissance styles.

Luminous realism of the 17th century. At the beginning of the 17th century there was a restlessness among many artists painting the "perfected forms" of the Renaissance. They longed to make some dramatic changes in their art. One artist in Italy pioneered a new method. The church was shocked by paintings of saints who were represented with unkempt faces and dirty feet of peasants. This Italian artist was named Caravaggio. Note the dramatic lighting on the graphic below of the painting called "Boy Bitten by a Lizard"

The impressionists used vibrating daubs of colour for modeling the tones. They used broken strokes of paint. Below is an example of Claude Monet's painting called "La Gare Saint-Lazare"..

Beginning with Van Gogh who was Dutch. He lengthened the Impressionist daubs of colour into ribbon like strokes and outlines in an emotional handwriting. He distorted shapes and colours to express intense feelings. He used colours to convey powerful states of feeling and he put down paint in rhythmic brushstrokes to convey a strong sense of movement. He also applied paint very thickly in a sort of impasto style. He would use the palette knife to model the paint into deep furrows and ridges. He would squeeze the paint directly out of the tube onto his canvas. Below are two examples of Vincent Van Gogh's paintings. "The Starry Night" and "Night Cafe"