Before we talk about Jan van Eyck, let’s start with the paint itself.

A Brief History of Oil Paint

Oil painting has a much longer history than the familiar Renaissance story suggests. Evidence of oil-based paint appears in Northern Europe as early as the 12th century, and artists were experimenting with it well before Jan van Eyck was born.

So why did oil paint matter so much?

The answer is time. Egg tempera dries within minutes, which forces painters to work in quick, deliberate strokes. Oil paint, made by binding pigment with oils such as linseed, walnut, or poppy, dries slowly. That gave artists room to blend colors gradually, soften transitions, and correct mistakes. It also let them build up glazes, thin layers of transparent paint that give a painting its luminous depth.

That one quality changed what painting could do.

“Portrait of Margaret van Eyck” by Jan van Eyck

Artists could create incredibly subtle skin tones, reflective metals, glowing fabrics, luminous skies, and convincing shadows. Rather than simply applying color to a surface, they could build an image layer by layer, as if revealing something hidden beneath.

By the 15th century, painters in the Low Countries were pushing these possibilities to extraordinary heights. Early Netherlandish artists became celebrated for their realism, brilliant color, and meticulous attention to how light and surfaces appear.

Enter Jan van Eyck

This brings us to Jan van Eyck (c. 1390–1441).

You may have heard that van Eyck invented oil painting.

Well… not exactly.

For centuries, van Eyck was credited with inventing oil painting, a story that became especially famous through the 16th-century writings of Italian art historian Giorgio Vasari. Modern scholarship tells a different story: oil painting was already being used in Northern Europe before van Eyck.

But here’s where the story gets really interesting.

Van Eyck was a master of what oil paint could do.

He refined the medium in extraordinary ways, building translucent layers and glazes into luminous surfaces and astonishing realism. The National Gallery notes that this layering helped him create remarkably convincing effects of light and surface.

Look closely at the Arnolfini Portrait, painted in 1434, and you can see why his reputation became legendary. Hair, glass, metal, fabric, skin, and reflected light each seem to have their own physical presence.

“Arnolfini Portrait” by Jan van Eyck

This Northern European mastery of oil painting went on to influence artists far beyond the Low Countries. During the 15th and 16th centuries, oil became increasingly important in Italy and elsewhere in Europe, and it eventually became one of the dominant mediums in Western art.

From Van Eyck to Today

Here’s an important distinction if you’ve seen modern books or demonstrations about oil painting: Van Eyck did not use water-soluble oils.

If you’ve come across a book cover or image suggesting otherwise, that’s a modern interpretation. Water-soluble oils didn’t exist in the 15th century. He created his paintings with traditional oil-based materials and techniques.

Fast-forward several centuries, and oil painting has continued to evolve. One development that makes it especially accessible today is water-soluble oil paint. These modern oils clean up with water rather than traditional solvents, while still offering many of oil painting’s characteristics.

At Pastimes for a Lifetime, founder and instructor Linda Wehrli teaches water-soluble oils exclusively. There’s even a little Pastimes history behind that choice: Linda attended the unveiling of Grumbacher’s new water-soluble oils in 1995 at The Art Store in Studio City, and she still has the original tubes from the sales representatives’ demonstration!

So while Renaissance artists were pushing oil paint to see what it could do, today’s artists have an entirely new generation of materials to explore. That’s one of the things we love about art: the tradition keeps evolving.

The Takeaway

So, did Jan van Eyck invent oil painting?

No.

Did he help change the history of painting by showing just how extraordinary oil could be?

Absolutely.

And maybe that’s the more interesting lesson. You don’t have to invent a medium to transform what people believe is possible with it. Sometimes you simply have to look at an old tool with fresh eyes.

That’s the magic of art history: the past gives us the tools, and what we do with them is up to us.

Sources & Further Reading

• National Gallery, London — Jan van Eyck
• National Gallery, London — Oil Paint Glossary
• The Metropolitan Museum of Art — Painting in Oil in the Low Countries and Its Spread to Southern Europe
• The Metropolitan Museum of Art — Early Netherlandish Painting
• National Gallery — Jan van Eyck: Fifteenth-Century Netherlandish Paintings

Ready to dive into oil painting? Get started today! Reach out to Jessica at jessica@pastimesinc.com and discover the joy of painting with oils.

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Art History 101 profiles artists from different periods, often timed to their birth months, whose work still shapes today’s culture and taste.

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