Oil paint was developed in the early 1400s and has remained the most popular painting medium for the last 500 years. The Flemish artist Jan Van Eyck is often credited with its development. Prior to this, artists of the Middle Ages used tempera paint, which consisted of equal parts of pigment, water and egg yolk. Oil paint was better than tempera in its ability to capture a wide variety of textures. Oil paint may be applied in thin transparent layers, called glazing, or it may be applied thickly, in dabs and sweeps, known as impasto.
