The impression many people seem to have of egg tempera is that it is a fussy medium that can only be used in one specific style. I think that comes from early 20th century proponents of tempera painting such as Daniel V. Thompson. While his books are an excellent resource, his insistence that tempera should be used just as it was in 14th century Italy gives the impression that the medium is limited to very slow work using small brushes to make laborious hatching strokes.
That’s one way to paint in tempera, and one that every tempera painter should probably familiarize themselves with.
But there are really only three constraints on tempera painting:
- You need to paint on a rigid support, preferrably on traditional gesso.
- You need to get the right ratio of pigment to egg yolk binder when painting (you can then thin it as much as you want with water).
- You can’t paint with thick blobs of impasto.
That’s it. You can use thick bristle brushes if you want. You can use a well-loaded brush, drybrush, or even tilt the panel horizontal and paint with loose washes. Wet paint can be blended. You can apply layer after layer of glazing. You can scrape the paint back, apply it with sponges, paint with your fingers, or rub partially dry paint to create textural effects.
Tempera is not fussy.
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I agree that tempera can be a more spontaneous medium and less rigid in approach than the average person might think. Robert Vickrey was a champion of this idea in both of his books. However, I have always felt when tempera is handled in this manner, the resulting painting has more in common with acrylic or gouache in it’s appearance. There are many valid reasons to choose tempera. One that stands out in my mind is the medium’s opalescence. This optical effect is the result of layering diaphanous passages of translucent paint over slightly darker underlying values. The initial black and white rendering in ink lays the foundation for achieving this quality. Thompson takes pains to describe this effect as a justification for his approach. I think if one chooses a less fussy approach to tempera, they might well sacrifice one of it’s unique characteristics that it doesn’t share with any other medium.
Scott
Scott,
I agree that it’s possible to work with tempera in a manner that wastes its unique characteristics and would be more easily accomplished in gouache or acrylic. What I’m trying to figure out is how to blend various techniques seamlessly in a way that is effective and does something that can only be done well in tempera.
I have not read Vickrey’s books; I’ve been meaning to try to track them down used. Some of his paintings are quite lovely.
Thompson’s use of a very complete ink rendering is based on a misunderstanding of how Italian Renaissance tempera paintings were constructed. Before the use of X-ray and other nondestructive analysis techniques, it seemed quite reasonable that underpaintings were invariably brought to a high degree of finish, and that they were used as an inseparable aspect of the final visual effect of the painting. It has since turned out, however, that Italian painters often used simple outlining, with shading just sketched in with a few basic lines. So they did not use underdrawing systematically to establish values the way that Thompson thought they did. That’s not to say that the method he describes is by any means useless, but rather that it is not so necessary to traditional painting methods as he says it is.