“Turpentine”

The word tur­pen­tine orig­nally meant sap from cer­tain con­nif­er­ous trees (nowa­days we refer to these saps as bal­sams). So Venice tur­pen­tine, for exam­ple, is a thick, sticky sap from larch trees. If you dis­till a tur­pen­tine, you get a thin sub­stance that makes an excel­lent sol­vent: spir­its of tur­pen­tine. Over time, as real tur­pen­tines fell into dis­use and spir­its of tur­pen­tine became a com­mon house­hold item, peo­ple started using the word “tur­pen­tine” incor­rectly to refer to the sol­vent, not the sap.

That’s con­fus­ing when you are try­ing to talk about artist’s mate­ri­als, how­ever, because bal­sams such as Venice tur­pen­tine, Stras­bourg tur­pen­tine, and Canada bal­sam are still in use. And, of course, spir­its of tur­pen­tine are com­monly used to thin paint. I try to use “spir­its of tur­pen­tine” or “turps” to refer to the solvent.

Venice tur­pen­tine, by the way, isn’t named after the city. It’s a cor­rup­tion of “ver­nice tur­pen­tine.” “Ver­nice” is an old way of spelling “var­nish.” So Venice tur­pen­tine is a bal­sam that was com­monly used in varnishes.

The Venice tur­pen­tine you can get in art stores is very expen­sive. It’s also used in the care of horse’s hooves, and you can get it much more cheaply from a tack shop.

Aren’t I full of mar­gin­ally use­ful information?