On The Easel

As a painting technique, chiaroscuro takes advantage of the special qualities of oil paint, which is pigment suspended in linseed oil. It replaced tempera as the medium of choice for painters in Europe during the Renaissance. Tempera paint, usually made with egg yolk, was opaque and acted more like enamel.

It was difficult to model figures to look three dimensional when using tempera. Unlike tempera, oil paint could be easily blended and shaded, built up in layers, or applied in translucent glazes. By applying light tones on top of dark, painters could create the effect of figures emerging from shadow.