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Painting in oil colours, a medium consisting of pigments suspended in drying oils. Oil paint enables both fusion of tones and crisp effects and is unsurpassed for textural variation. The standard consistency of oil paint is a smooth, buttery paste. It is applied with brushes or a thin palette knife, usually onto a stretched linen canvas. Finished oil paintings are often coated with varnish. Oil as a painting medium is recorded as early as the 11th century, though the practice of easel painting with oil colours stems directly from 15th-century techniques of painting with tempera (seetempera painting). In the 16th century oil colour emerged as the basic painting material in Venice; it has been the most widespread medium for easel paintings ever since.
This entry comes from Encyclopædia Britannica Concise. For the full entry on oil painting, visit Britannica.com.