History of Paint

	Revision 13 . . September 22, 2001 6:43 am by Paul Solomon
	Revision 12 . . September 22, 2001 1:57 am by Rmhermen

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Paint is the general term for a family of products used to protect and add color to the surface of an object by adding a coating of pigment over it.

Paint is the general term for a family of products used to protect and add color to the surface of an object by applying a pigmented coating over it.

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Paint is composed of a pigment?, which provides color, mixed into a medium, which provides a liquid form for application. The combined liquid is applied to a surface using brushes or other methods. The medium evaporates, leaving the pigment behind to provide a color coating. The medium carrying the pigment is generally a type of solvent?. Oil has historically been the solvent base in paint, and is most commonly the kind of paint used on recognized "masterpieces"; oil paint is still common today. However, in the 20th centry, water-based paints, including watercolors and acrylic paints, became very popular with the development of latex and acrylic pigment suspensions. Milk paints (also called casein), where the medium is milk, were popular in the 19th century and are still available today. Egg tempera (where the medium is egg whites) is still in use as well.

Paint is composed of a pigment?, which provides color, mixed into a medium, which provides a liquid form for application. The combined liquid is applied to a surface using brushes or other methods. The medium contains a binder (usually a resinous material or polymer) which coats the pigment particles and eventually coalesces to form the dried paint film. The medium also often contains, or is modified with, a diluent (such as an organic solvent, or water) to make it more readily fluid. The liquid paint eventually hardens, leaving the binder and pigment as a colored coating. Depending on the type of binder, this hardening may be a result of processes such as curing (in oil paint, this takes the form of oxidation of linseed oil to form linoxin), evaporation (most water-based paints are emulsions of solid binders in water; when the diluent evaporates, the molecules of the binder coalesce to form a solid film), cooling (encaustic, or wax, paints are liquid when warm, and harden upon cooling), etc. Since the time of the renaisance, siccative (drying) oil paints, primarily linseed oil, have been the most commonly used kind of paints in fine art applications; oil paint is still common today. However, in the 20th centry, water-based paints, including watercolors and acrylic paints, became very popular with the development of latex and acrylic pigment suspensions. Milk paints (also called casein), where the medium is derived from milk, were popular in the 19th century and are still available today. Egg tempera (where the medium is egg yolk) is still in use as well, as are encaustic wax-based paints.