Panel painting

technique Antiquity - present Europe North Africa

A panel painting is a painting made on a flat wooden panel, and until the 16th century it was the standard support for Western painting, used whenever the artist was not working on a wall (fresco) or on vellum. Panel painting was prestigious in ancient Greece and Rome, though few examples survive: the painted tablets from Pitsa are the oldest Greek panels, and the Fayum mummy portraits of Roman Egypt make up most of what remains. Wood stayed the normal support for Byzantine icons, and in the 12th century panel painting revived in the West with the first altarpieces - dossals, altar fronts and crucifixes made for the new liturgy. The great Netherlandish and Italian traditions of the 14th-15th centuries were built on panel before canvas took over.

Lamb of God Annunciation
Lamb of God AnnunciationPublic domain (credit: Jan van Eyck / Presumably Hubert van Eyck) · source

Defining characteristics

  • Painted on single or joined wooden planks, usually sealed with a chalk-and-glue (gesso) ground for a smooth working surface
  • Encaustic (wax) and egg tempera in early examples; oil glazing perfected on panel in the 15th-century Netherlands
  • Fine, detailed finish with carefully built-up layers - tempera rewards slow, linear brushwork
  • Small to medium formats dominate early on: portable icons, dossals, altar fronts and crucifixes
  • The support ages visibly: joins, wood grain and warping show through, and paint can crack along the seams
  • Crisp edges and luminous, jewel-like surfaces that canvas's weave rarely matches

Key figures

  • Duccio (c. 1255-1319) — Sienese master whose Maestà set the standard for large painted altarpieces
  • Giotto (c. 1267-1337) — Brought monumental naturalism and weight to figures painted on panel
  • Jan van Eyck (c. 1390-1441) — Perfected oil glazing on panel in the Ghent Altarpiece and beyond

Example works

Sources

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