Passage:
In the early Renaissance, Italian artists relied heavily on egg tempera, a fast-drying paint made by mixing powdered pigments with egg yolk. Because tempera dried almost immediately, it had to be applied in thin, precise brushstrokes, preventing artists from blending colors directly on the panel. Consequently, shading was achieved through meticulous hatching, yielding a flat, linear aesthetic. By contrast, Northern European painters popularized oil paint, which utilized slow-drying linseed oil as a binder. This slow drying rate allowed artists to blend colors seamlessly and apply multiple translucent layers (glazes) over a long period. As a result, oil paintings achieved a depth of color and realistic representation of light and shadow that tempera could not match.
According to the passage, which of the following describes a key difference in how artists blended colors using tempera versus oil paint?
- ATempera paint allowed artists to blend colors directly on the panel, whereas oil paint forced artists to rely exclusively on meticulous hatching for shading.
- BTempera required linseed oil to enable rapid blending, whereas oil paint utilized egg yolk to achieve a flat, linear appearance.
- Oil paint permitted seamless color blending due to its slow drying time, whereas tempera's rapid drying rate prevented direct blending and required hatching for shading.Answer
- DOil paint was limited to a single flat layer because of its slow drying speed, whereas tempera allowed artists to build up multiple translucent glazes over time.