Brief History
The history of painting using drying oils goes back as far as the Middle Ages. Before oil paints, artists were painting with egg tempra. Experimenting to create new effects, artists began adding oil to egg tempra until eventually 
removing the egg altogether and using straight oil to create the first oil paints. Oil paints were known to painters of the fourteenth century and earlier. They were not extensively used until
the fifteenth century, but by the middle of the sixteenth century the method was widely utilized. Oils have since remained the standard technique for painting.
Other techniques are practiced for certain advantages they have over oils, but oils still remain the standard because the most painters feel that the advantages outweigh the disadvantages. Also the optical quality that oils have surpasses watercolor, tempra, fresco, acrylic, and pastels.
In looking for a paint for its permanence, there are not many methods of painting that have the "time-tested" merits of oil painting. All methods of painting possess certain areas of defects, which a careful painter must try to minimize. Each presents peculiar difficulties which can be overcome. Materials must be carefully selected for all areas of painting and these materials must be applied and manipulated in a manner to minimize deterioration.
