siccative

Oil paint dries at different rates due to the differing siccative properties of the constituent pigment.

Such oils are called siccative, or drying, oils, and are characterized by high levels of polyunsaturated fatty acids.

As such, the old masters found ways of extending the natural advantages of its emulsion to create lean, siccative, smoothly transitional, semi transparent layers of paint.

One common measure of the "siccative" (drying) property of oils is iodine number, which is an indicator of the number of double bonds in the oil.

Though van Eyck was not the first to use oil paint, he was the first artist to make a siccative oil mixture that could be used to combine mineral pigments.

Since the time of the Renaissance, 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.