Oil paints freed artists like Jan van Eyck, Raphael, and Leonardo to raise the bar. Around 1500, painters in Flanders mastered the use of oil-based paints rather than the standard of the day tempera ...

In his 1550 volume Lives of the Artists, painter and architect Giorgio Vasari snuck in praise for the Flemish artist Jan van Eyck in his chapter on the Italian painter Antonello da Messina. Vasari ...

The 15th century represents an important transition in art history, as oil paints gradually replaced egg-based tempera paints as the painting medium of choice. During the transition period, artists ...

Tempera is a painting medium that has been used to decorate everything from early Egyptian sarcophagi to India's rock-cut temples. The medium was particularly popular with medieval and early ...

Lettered on cover: Museum of fine arts, Boston. The oil paintings illustrated. "This volume of reproductions in half tone is intended as a supplement to the catalogue ...

For thousands of years, artists have used a surprising ingredient in their paints: egg yolk. This type of paint, called egg tempera, has been found in ancient Egyptian mummy portraits, medieval ...