In his 1550 volume Lives of the Artists, painter and architect Giorgio Vasari snuck in praise for the Flemish artist Jan van Eyck in his chapter on the Italian painter Antonello da Messina. Vasari ...

Oil, the ubiquitous fossil fuel, is not just powering our cars and heating our homes — it's also hiding in plain sight, playing a surprising role in many everyday items you might not expect.

(The Conversation is an independent and nonprofit source of news, analysis and commentary from academic experts.) Curious Kids is a series for children of all ages. If you have a question you’d like ...

Though the term is used interchangeably with oil-based paints for most practical purposes, alkyd paints are actually not oil-based but alkyd resins mixed in some sort of thinner. When most people ...

Do expensive oil paints actually make better art,or is it all marketing? In this experiment, a fine artist compares cheap and ...

Curious Kids is a series for children of all ages. If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, send it to curiouskidsus@theconversation.com. Did you ever mix dirt and water when you were ...