Canvas: The Most Classic Carrier of Oil Painting

Canvas is the most mainstream and classic carrier of oil painting, and its popularization has greatly promoted the development and popularization of oil painting art. In the early days of oil painting development, painters mostly used wood boards as the carrier. Wooden boards were heavy, easy to deform and crack, and limited the size and preservation of works. In the 16th century, European artists began to widely use linen canvas instead of wood boards. Linen canvas has tough texture, good flexibility, strong tensile resistance, and is not easy to deform. It can adapt to various sizes of paintings, from small exquisite sketches to large-scale monumental works. Before creation, the canvas needs to be carefully primed with gypsum and glue to fill the fiber gaps, prevent oil penetration, and ensure the flatness of the painting surface. The textured fiber of the canvas itself can form a unique grain texture with the oil pigments, increasing the three-dimensional sense and artistic texture of the work. Different densities and textures of canvas will bring different artistic effects: fine canvas is suitable for realistic fine depiction, while coarse canvas is more suitable for free and unrestrained impressionist and abstract creation. After centuries of development, canvas has become an indispensable part of oil painting art. It carries the artist’s creativity, bears the precipitation of time, and forms an indissoluble artistic bond with oil pigments.