DrawingAcademy

Article from Chris Crombé

When did the history of art start? The simplest answer is: the moment people started to create art.

It has been assumed for a long time that the earliest form of art is only 45.000 years old and dated from the time of the Homo sapiens. These modern men came from Africa and were able to express themselves in images and symbols, witness the many figurative and abstract art forms from the late paleolithicum (40.000-10.000 BC)

Due to the traditional view that art should be a representation of nature and could only be created by modern man, we overlooked for a long time the art of older mankind…

Article from Slater Smith

Tempera painting was once the primary way of applying pigment on canvas, its only rival being fresco painting. Every Old Master made tempera from scratch in their workshop, along with the apprentices that gathered to learn what it took to be an artist. Mixing tempera was a very delicate procedure, admitting much room for error. Despite this, tempera reigned during the early Renaissance and for centuries prior, dating back into Egyptian times. With the advent of oil painting, the beautiful medium slowly died out.

Artists had to mix tempera themselves, as needed. The pigments, also ground from raw material, were combined with the binder, egg yolk, and distilled water. It was essential to get the proportions accurate, which slightly varies depending on the pigment. It dried quickly, sometimes on the brush itself, much like common-day acrylics. Too much paint would leave leftovers that could not be stored; only discarded. On the opposite end of the spectrum, not making enough tempera paint, would like lead to color inconsistency, as a second batch rarely matched the first…