If you are looking for something to liven up the bare walls in your home, you should consider taking a look at some of the Antique Paintings for sale. Antique paintings are advertised for sale in many venues, such as auction houses, antique dealers, and numerous classified adverts everywhere.
Old items of art, whether paintings or sculpture or any of the other forms of art, fascinate us. Put simply, they give us a direct view of the past through the eyes of the artist. We can then feel more connected to that particular time when our ancestors lived. History books can give us factual accounts, but paintings help to provide a deeper insight.
In general, any object which is one hundred years old or more is considered an antique. However in art, there is some heated debate about that. One definition of antique art is to work produced during the Greek and Roman Empires. A different definition states that antique art must be dated prior to 1900. As a result of this, there is not a universal acceptance that any painting that is one hundred years old is antique.
Paint is usually water-based or oil-based, and oil is the most popular. Antique oil paintings suffer less from yellowing as they get older. It was during the 15th century that oil paint began to be commonly used among artists. Normally linseed oil was used to manufacture the paint, with various pigments added to provide the different colours. Thinners such as turpentine were added to dilute the oil when necessary.
The techniques differ greatly between watercolour painting and oil painting. Oil paint is very slow to dry, and this means that artists might have to wait several days after applying a coat of paint, before they could proceed with the next layer of the painting. Care had to be taken to ensure that subsequent layers of paint had extra oil content, to prevent peeling or cracking. Finished paintings could then be varnished to help preserve them, and add a sheen to the overall surface.
Watercolour paint is much faster to dry, but different skills are required. Because water is the solvent for the paint, when it is applied it tends to run or seep into the paper. The artist had to learn to anticipate this and allow for it. This is unlike oil paint, where generally the paint remains where it is applied. Normally, oil paintings are much more valuable.
Most often, artists used a brush to apply the paint to the canvas, but not always. Other items such as knives, rags, and even fingers were used.
Among the most famous works of art of all time are the Mona Lisa and The Last Supper, both painted by Leonardo da Vinci. Da Vinci lived from 1452 to 1519 and was very famous in his time. He was and is regarded as a polymath, meaning someone whose expertise spans across a wide range of areas. Even though Leonardo da Vinci is considered as one of the greatest artists of all time, the quantity of his paintings that survived is relatively low, only fifteen. He constantly experimented with different painting techniques, and many of them had disastrous results.