Image credit: The National Gallery, London
Canvas is the most common support used for painting, particularly for oils. It is made of strong, unbleached woven cloth which is then fixed to a wooden frame. The earliest surviving canvases date to the fourteenth century, but its use became more widespread from the sixteenth, before which wooden panels were commonly used as a painting support. Unlike the Old Masters, many modern artists experimented with the texture of the canvas itself, as well as the shape.
