The process of oil painting varies from artist to artist, but often includes certain steps. First, the artist prepares the surface. Although surfaces like linoleum, wooden panel, paper, slate, pressed wood, and cardboard have been used, the most popular surface since the 16th century has been canvas, although many artists used panel through the 17th century and beyond. Before that it was panel, which is more expensive, heavier, less easy to transport, and prone to warp or split in poor conditions. For fine detail, however, the absolute solidity of a wooden panel gives an advantage.

The artist might sketch an outline of their subject prior to applying pigment to the surface. "Pigment" may be any number of natural substances with color, such as sulphur for yellow or cobalt for blue. The pigment is mixed with oil, usually linseed oil but other oils may be used as well. The various oils dry differently creating assorted effects.

Traditionally, an artist mixed his or her own paints for each project. Handling and mixing the raw pigments and mediums was prohibitive to transportation. This changed in the late 1800's, when oil paint in tubes became widely available. Artists could mix colors quickly and easily without having to grind their own pigments. Also, the portability of tube paints allowed for plein air, or outdoor painting (common to French Impressionism).

The artist most often uses a brush to apply the paint. Brushes are made from a variety of fibers to create different effects. For example, brushes made with hog's bristle might be used for bolder strokes. Brushes made from miniver, which is squirrel fur, might be used for finer details. Sizes of brushes also create different effects. For example, a "round" is a pointed brush used for detail work. "Bright" brushes are used to apply broad swaths of color. The artist might also apply paint with a palette knife, which is a flat, metal blade. A palette knife may also be used to remove paint from the canvas when necessary. A variety of unconventional tools, such as rags, sponges, and cotton swabs, may be used. Some artists even paint with their fingers.

Most artists paint in layers, a method first perfected in the Egg tempera painting technique, and adapted in Northern Europe for use with linseed oil paints. The first coat or "underpainting" is laid down first, painted normally with turpentine thinned paint. This layer helps to "tone" the canvas, and cover the white of the gesso. Many artists use this layer to sketch out the composition. This layer can be adjusted before moving forward, which is an advantage over the 'cartooning' method used in Fresco technique. After this layer dries, one way the artist might then proceed is by painting a "mosaic" of color swatches, working from darkest to lightest. The borders of the colors are blended together when the "mosaic" is completed. This layer is then left to dry before applying details. The artist may apply several layers of details, using a technique called 'fat over lean.' This means that each additional layer of paint is a bit oilier than the layer below, to allow proper drying. As a painting gets additional layers, the paint must get oilier (leaner to fatter) or the final painting will crack and peel. After it is dry, the artist will apply "glaze" to the painting, which is a thin, transparent layer to seal the surface. A classical work might take weeks or even months to layer the paint, but the most skilled early artists, such as Jan van Eyck, also used Wet-on-wet painting for some details. Artists in later periods such as the impressionist era often used this more widely, blending the wet paint on the canvas without following the Renaissance layering and glazing method. This method is also called "Alla Prima." When the image is finished and dried for up to a year, an artist would often seal the work with a layer of varnish typically made from damar gum crystals dissolved in turpentine. Contemporary artists increasingly resist the varnishing of their work, preferring that the surfaces remain varnish-free indefinitely.

Oil and gold on canvas, 180 x 180 cm, Osterreichische Galerie, Vienna Description: Man leaning over and kissing kneeling woman. All shrouded in symbolically patterned gold. A bed of flowers below them.

The Kiss is a fascinating icon of the loss of self that lovers experience. Only the faces and hands of this couple are visible; all the rest is great swirl of gold, studded with colored rectangles as if to express visually the emotional and physical explosion of erotic love.

Biographical Information Art Cistic on Klimt: The Nouveau Art movement in Austria was called the Secession. Gustav Klimt was its founder and president from 1897 to 1905. His painting The Kiss is a symbol of Vienna Secession.

Gustav Klimt's style is highly ornamental. The Art Nouveau movement favored organic lines and contours. Klimt used a lot of gold and silver colors in his art work - certainly an heritage from his father's profession as a gold and silver engraver.

Klimt's works of art were a scandal at his time because of the display of nudity and the subtle sexuality and eroticism. His best know painting The Kiss, was first exhibited in 1908. As everything coming out of Klimt's hands, it was highly controversial and admired at the same time.

Vincent van Gogh, for whom color was the chief symbol of expression, was born in Groot-Zundest, Holland. The son of a pastor, brought up in a religious and cultured atmosphere, Vincent was highly emotional and lacked self-confidence. Between 1860 and 1880, when he finally decided to become an artist, van Gogh had had two unsuitable and unhappy romances and had worked unsuccessfully as a clerk in a bookstore, an art salesman, and a preacher in the Borinage (a dreary mining district in Belgium), where he was dismissed for overzealousness. He remained in Belgium to study art, determined to give happiness by creating beauty. The works of his early Dutch period are somber-toned, sharply lit, genre paintings of which the most famous is "The Potato Eaters" (1885). In that year van Gogh went to Antwerp where he discovered the works of Rubens and purchased many Japanese prints.

In 1886 he went to Paris to join his brother Th?¨|o, the manager of Goupil's gallery. In Paris, van Gogh studied with Cormon, inevitably met Pissarro, Monet, and Gauguin, and began to lighten his very dark palette and to paint in the short brushstrokes of the Impressionists. His nervous temperament made him a difficult companion and night-long discussions combined with painting all day undermined his health. He decided to go south to Arles where he hoped his friends would join him and help found a school of art. Gauguin did join him but with disastrous results. In a fit of epilepsy, van Gogh pursued his friend with an open razor, was stopped by Gauguin, but ended up cutting his own ear off. Van Gogh then began to alternate between fits of madness and lucidity and was sent to the asylum in Saint-Remy for treatment.

In May of 1890, he seemed much better and went to live in Auvers-sur-Oise under the watchful eye of Dr. Gachet. Two months later he was dead, having shot himself "for the good of all." During his brief career he had sold one painting. Van Gogh's finest works were produced in less than three years in a technique that grew more and more impassioned in brushstroke, in symbolic and intense color, in surface tension, and in the movement and vibration of form and line. Van Gogh's inimitable fusion of form and content is powerful; dramatic, lyrically rhythmic, imaginative, and emotional, for the artist was completely absorbed in the effort to explain either his struggle against madness or his comprehension of the spiritual essence of man and nature.

Leonardo da Vinci was a celebrated Italian Renaissance architect, inventor, engineer, sculptor and painter. He can be seen as the archetype of the Renaissance Man and has been defined as a genius. His life was described in Giorgio Vasari's "Vite". Leonardo was born on April 15, 1452 in Vinci, Italy. This was before modern naming conventions developed in Europe. Therefore, his full name was 'Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci,' which means "Leonardo, son of Piero, from Vinci". Leonardo himself simply signed his works "Leonardo" or "Io, Leonardo" ("I, Leonardo"). Presumably he did not use his father's name because he was an illegitimate child. The son of a wealthy landowner and a peasant girl, Leonardo grew up with his father in Florence. He became a painter's apprentice and later an independent painter in Florence. From 1482 to 1499 he worked for the Duke of Milan and maintained his own workshop with apprentices there. He returned to Florence, entered the services of Cesare Borgia (also called "Duca Valentino" and son of Pope Alexander VI) as military architect and engineer, and eventually (1506) returned to Milan. From 1513 to 1516 he lived in Rome, where painters like Raphael and Michelangelo were active at the time; he did not have much contact with these artists however. In 1516, he entered the services of king Francois I of France at the Royal Chateau at Amboise. He died on May 2, 1519 in Cloux, France and is buried in the Chapel of St. Hubert in the castle of Amboise. Leonardo appears to never have had intimate relations with women. In 1476 he was anonymously accused of homosexual contact with a 17-year-old model, Jacopo Saltarelli, a notorious prostitute. He was, together with three other young men, charged with homosexual conduct and acquitted because of lack of evidence. For a time Leonardo and the others were under the watchful eye of Florence's "Officers of the Night" - a kind of renaissance vice squad.

Leonardo is well known for his paintings, such as Mona Lisa (La Gioconda, now at the Louvre in Paris, France) and the Last Supper (Ultima Cena or Cenacolo, in Milan). Only seventeen of his paintings, and none of his statues, survive. He spent many years making plans and models for a monumental 8m high horse statue in bronze, to be erected in Milan. Because of war with France, the project was never finished. Based on private initiative, a similar statue was completed according to his plans in 1999 in New York, given to Milan and erected there. Maybe even more impressive than his artistic work are his detailed studies in anatomy, engineering, bird flight and many other areas. He recorded his results in detailed notebooks which combine art and science. He was left-handed and used mirror writing, indicating that his notes were intended for his own reference. His approach to science was an observatory one: he tried to understand a phenomenon by describing and depicting it in utmost detail and did not emphasize experiments or theoretical explanations. Throughout his life, he planned a grand encyclopedia based on detailed drawings of everything. His notebooks contain drawings of several innovative machines, among them various flying machines, machine guns and a cog-wheeled device that has been interpreted as a mechanical calculator. Leonardo did not publish or otherwise distribute the contents of these notebooks. The notebooks remained obscure until the 19th century, and were not directly of value to the development of science and technology until that time. On this basis, L. Sprague de Camp, in his book, The Ancient Engineers, considered Leonardo not the first modern engineer, but "the last of the ancient ones", pointing out that after Leonardo's time the practice of disseminating and publishing scientific discoveries began in earnest. In 1994, one of da Vinci's notebooks was purchased by American entrepreneur, Bill Gates, Chairman of Microsoft Corporation, for US$25 million.

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