Chronology of oil paintings

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zlax
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Chronology of oil paintings

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reader52017@lj wrote:

Renaissance painters. Chronological statistics.

The site [www.artcyclopedia.com] features painters with prices starting at $ 20,000.
Lists of painters are given with dates of life and are easy to process.
The reliability of the site database was checked against the existing Wikipedia statistics.

Russian artists.

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Artcyclopedia.com statistics for the decades 1300-1950 (Russian painters); green line - born, black - dead; X-axis - year, Y-axis - number of historical figures

Lists of Russian painters on Wikipedia

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Russian Wikipedia statistics for the decades 1600-1900 (Russian painters)

Both graphs are similar. Painters appeared in Russia in the 18th century. Before that, there are names of several icon painters.

English painters.

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Artcyclopedia.com statistics for the decades 1300-1950 (English painters)
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Russian Wikipedia statistics for the decades 1600-1800 (English painters)

There are a small number of painters in the 16th and 17th centuries. A sharp increase in numbers begins in the 18th century.
Thus, statistics on painters in Russia and England correlate well with the historical statistics of Wikipedia we have considered. The exponential growth of historical information and real history dates back to the 18th century.
Also in the 18th century, painters from Ireland, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland appeared.

Dutch painters.

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Artcyclopedia.com statistics for the decades 1300-1950 (Dutch painters)
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Russian Wikipedia statistics for the decades 1600-1800 (Dutch painters)

It seems close to England, but the heyday of Dutch painting falls on the golden 17th century. Then the Dutch painters practically "die out".
During the golden age of Dutch painting, according to the English Wikipedia statistics, 70% of Holland's historical figures are painters.

Italian painters.

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Artcyclopedia.com statistics for the decades 1200-1950 (Italian painters)

The peak of Italian painting falls on the 16th century.

Spanish painters.

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Artcyclopedia.com statistics for the decades 1300-1950 (Spanish painters)

The peak of artistic activity in Spain came, as in Holland, in the 17th century. We remember the Spanish Netherlands.
Then Spanish artists disappear for 50 years, from 1655 to 1705 not a single Spanish artist was born. Well, in the 18th century, interest in painting reappears.

French painters.

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Artcyclopedia.com statistics for the decades 1300-1950 (French painters)

There is a small number of French painters in the 14th and 16th centuries, followed by a slight increase in the number in the 17th century and a significant increase from the 18th century.

German painters.

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Artcyclopedia.com statistics for the decades 1300-1950 (German painters)

Peak in the 15-16th century and steady growth in the 18-19th centuries.

Thus, all these sudden peaks of artistic activity in different countries look illogical and unnatural. Apparently, oil painting was actually invented in the 18th century. All paintings dated before the 18th century were painted in the 18-20th centuries. That is, the paintings of the 13-17 centuries are incorrectly dated.
The small presence of Dutch, Italian and Spanish great painters in the 18th and 19th centuries is explained by the fact that at this time they were busy painting paintings of the past centuries by Titian, Michelangelo, Raphael, Leonardo and other greats.
What are the possible reasons for the incorrect dating of the paintings?
1. Economic. It is enough to put an ancient date on the work and the price will automatically increase by orders of magnitude, even if the painter is not professional.
2. Historical. Historians need corroborating artifacts when writing a long story.
3. Calendar. Before the agreement of calendars at the end of the 19th century, each region (country) could have its own calendar with its own reference point.

Source: https://reader52017.livejournal.com/4610.html
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Re: Chronology of oil paintings

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According to some revisionists, oil painting was invented only about 300 years ago. So, many oil masterpieces of an earlier period were deliberately incorrectly dated to meet the interests of artists (ancient paintings are sold more expensive than modern ones) and their customers (as the creation and transposition of the history of religions and powerful families into the deep past, usually to justify certain territorial claims).
This is confirmed by statistics on the use of the very concepts of "oil painting" in English:
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The first two red peaks of "oil painting" are erroneously dated modern editions. And the earliest mention of these phrases, among all the English-language books scanned and recognized by Google, appeared only about 330 years ago in this handbook , written by a certain C.K: "Art's Master-piece: Or, A Companion for the Ingenious of either Sex. Containing The Art of Limning and Painting in Oil, etc. In all particulars, viz. Drawing and Painting Faces, Bodies, Garments, Landskip, Preparing and Laying on Colours, also colcuring Mazzotinto Prints, Gilding On Wood, Metals and Leather. The newest Experiment in Japaning, to imitate the Indian way, Plain and in Speakles, Rock-work, Figures, etc."
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See page 14 for guidelines for making oil paints, listing suitable colors:
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Many of these colors first began to be mentioned in English literature less than half a century before this handbook was written:
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For clarity, you can compare the mention of "oil painting" with the mention of the concepts of "engraving" and "tempera", regularly encountered in English literature for the last 5 centuries.
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In Spanish, the phrases "oil painting", "oil on canvas" and "oil portrait" begin to be mentioned for the first time just about 250 years ago:
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At the same time, it is believed that many Spanish artists of the Renaissance and the Golden Age (such as Hernando de los Llanos, El Greco, Diego Velázquez and many others) successfully painted in oil several centuries before these first mentions, not counting the prevalence of oil painting in the Spanish Netherlands.
Again, for comparison, mentions of an earlier technique, tempera, in Spanish literature:
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In Italian, the phrases "oil painting", "oil portrait" begin to be evenly mentioned about 250 years ago:
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At the same time, there are several cases of mentioning these concepts more than 300 years ago. As, for example, in the book "Biographies of painters, sculptors and architects" by Giovanni Baglione and "Memoir by Signor Gaspare Celio on the Habits of Christ. On the names of the painters of the paintings in some churches, facades, and palaces of Rome" by Gaspare Celio. But both of these books use suspiciously modern fonts and formatting (indentation before paragraphs, the way of page numbering, and the like), and the names of the authors of these books, minor Roman artists, began to be mentioned in Italian literature only about 250 years ago. But even if we assume the likelihood that these books were dated correctly, and not deliberately dated to an earlier time, "oil painting" first begins to be mentioned in Italian literature more than a century after the creation of oil masterpieces by Raphael and other early Italian painters.

Of course, in support of conventional views about oil painting, we can assume that Google, when scanning old books in libraries around the world, had some artistic preference, and they skipped old books with mentions of oil painting, preferring them to old mentions of egg yolk and water painting, tempera. But apart from the frequency of references to thematic words in European languages, the oil paintings of the great Renaissance masters are characterised by their use of volume, perspective and detail, reaching an almost photographic quality. Such a high quality of images, uncharacteristic of their era, is put down to the genius of the masters of the past, although such artwork violates the logical principle of "from the simple to the complex". That said, if one takes the reliability of the dating of Renaissance oil paintings at face value, the portraits of many respectable people made in a later period may seem like mockery or childish scribbles, compared to earlier oil masterpieces:
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"Thomas Bacon (1711 – 1768) was an Episcopal clergyman, musician, poet, publisher and author. Considered the most learned man in Maryland of his day."
If we allow for the possibility that oil portraiture only originated some 300 years ago and that many masterpieces were deliberately transported back in time by the will of churches and aristocrats, then the early portraits of respected figures, in the spirit of this depiction by Thomas Bacon, no longer seem naive, but may well be seen as important historical artefacts that meet the standards of their time.
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