Tempera painting, painting executed with pigment ground in a water-miscible medium. The word tempera originally came from the verb temper, “to bring to a desired consistency.” Dry pigments are made usable by “tempering” them with a binding and adhesive vehicle. 

Tempera is an ancient medium, having been in constant use in most of the world’s cultures until it was gradually superseded by oil paints in Europe, during the Renaissance. Tempera was the original mural medium in the ancient dynasties of Egypt, Babylonia, Mycenaean Greece, and China and was used to decorate the early Christian catacombs. It was employed on a variety of supports, from the stone stelae (or commemorative pillars), mummy cases, and papyrus rolls of ancient Egypt to the wood panels of Byzantine icons and altarpieces and the vellum leaves of medieval illuminated manuscripts. 

Grisaille Underpainting