Painting by Niccolo Semitecolo (1367)
Tempera on Wood, from the
Pre-Renaissance Era.

Tempera

Tempera (also called egg tempera) was the painting medium that superceded the encaustic method, only to be itself replaced by oil painting. Its name stems from the Latin word temperare, meaning 'to mix in proportion'. Unlike encaustic paints which contain beeswax to bind the pigments, or oil paints which use oils, tempera employs an emulsion of water, egg yolks or whole eggs (occasionally with a little glue, honey or milk).

Prepared Surface

Tempera is typically applied onto a prepared surface. For example, wood panels were prepared with layers of gesso (a mixture of size and chalk) to form a smooth surface. The tempera was then applied (over a prepared drawing or sketch) and built up slowly in a series of thin, transparent layers.

Madonna and Child Enthroned
with Saints (c.1504), by Raphael.
Tempera and Gold on Wood.

Unlike oil paint, tempera cannot be applied too thickly, and thus lack the deep colouration of oils. But tempera colors do not discolour over time, while oil paints tend to darken or lose colour with age.

Tempera Popular In Byzantine, Italian, Greek, Russian Art

The history of art records the use of tempera in both Egyptian and Greek art, and the method was commonly used in Italian Renaissance art, both for panel painting and fresco murals. In addition, tempera was the principal technique for creating illuminated manuscripts in Byzantine art and in medieval Europe. It remains the authentic medium for painting icons of the Orthodox Church in Greece and Russia.

Superceded By Oils

The use of tempera declined in Northern Europe during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, while Italian artists continued using it until the onset of the High Renaissance period at the start of the sixteenth century.

Portrait of a Man and Woman
At a Casement (c.1440), by
Fra Filippo Lippi. Tempera
on Wood.

Thus Leonardo Da Vinci (1452-1519) was one of the first artists in Italy to use oil paints instead of the traditional egg tempera, but made errors along the way; while Michelangelo (1475-1564) who worked during the High Renaissance painted more often in oils (although everyone of his surviving panels is egg tempera). Tempera paint was resorted to during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries by the Social Realists (eg. Paul Cadmus, Jared French, George Tooker, Isabel Bishop, Reginald Marsh and Ben Shahn), as well as other schools of artists, but the laborious layering-technique required has deterred all but the most specific use.

• For facts about painting types, styles and history, see: Fine Art Painting.
• For details of oil, watercolour and acrylic artists in Ireland, see: Guide to Irish Art

• How to Update This Mini Review of Tempera Painting