Tokyo - Forget Renaissance Europe
The world's first oil paintings
go back nearly 14 centuries to murals in Afghanistan's Bamiyan
caves, a Japanese researcher says.

Buddhist images painted in the central Afghan region, dated to
around 650 AD, are the earliest examples of oil used in art history,
says Yoko Taniguchi, an expert at Japan's National Research
Institute for Cultural Properties.

A group of Japanese, European and US scientists are collaborating to
restore damaged murals in caves in the Bamiyan Valley, famous for
its two gigantic statues of the Buddha which were destroyed by the
Taliban in 2001.

In the murals, thousands of Buddhas in vermilion robes sit cross-
legged, sporting exquisitely knotted hair.

Other motifs show crouching monkeys, men facing one another or palm
leaves delicately intertwined with mythical creatures.

The paintings incorporate a mix of Indian and Chinese influences,
and are most likely to be the works of artists travelling on the
Silk Road, which was the largest trade and cultural route connecting
the East and the West.

The Los Angeles-based Getty Conservation Institute analysed 53
samples extracted from the murals. Using gas chromatography methods,
the researchers found that 19 had oil in the paint.

"Different types of oil were used on the dirt walls with such a
sophisticated technique that I felt I was looking right at a
medieval board painting dating from 14th or 15th century Italy,"
Taniguchi told reporters.

The discovery would reverse common perceptions about the origins of
oil paintings.

The technique is widely believed to have emerged in Europe leading
into the Renaissance, which flowered from 1400 to 1600.

Italian artist and architect Giorgio Vasari first wrote of oil
painting in his book, The Lives Of The Artists, in the mid-16th
century.

Art historians, however, argue that 15th-century Flemish painter Jan
van Eyck may have known of the technique because he had developed a
stable varnish, although he kept it secret until his death.

"It was very impressive to discover that such advanced methods were
used in murals in central Asia," Taniguchi said.

"My European colleagues were shocked because they always believed
oil paintings were invented in Europe. They couldn't believe such
techniques could exist in some Buddhist cave deep in the
countryside," she added.

Painters of the Buddhist murals used organic substances - including
natural resin, plant gum, dry oil and animal protein - as a binder,
which even today is an important element in paint.

A binder keeps pigment particles together in a cohesive film and
allows the paint to resist decay.

The researchers are trying to restore the murals amid international
efforts to salvage what is left of Bamiyan.

The Taliban, ignoring global protests, dynamited the two 1 500-year-
old statues, the world's biggest representations of the Buddha, in
March 2001, branding them un-Islamic idolatry.

The regime was ousted later that year in a US-led military campaign
after the September 11 attacks on the United States.

Although oil was used in ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome, there
currently exist no examples of their use in painting. The oil was
used for medicine, cosmetics or to coat boats, Taniguchi said.

Taniguchi hopes the advanced techniques used to analyse the murals
would be put to use in ruins of other ancient civilisations.

Other early civilisations including those in current-day Iran,
China, Turkey, Pakistan and India may have used similar techniques
as well but their ruins have not been subject to advanced, extensive
research, she said.

"In analysing old murals throughout Europe and Central Asia, I look
forward to throwing light on the roots of oil paintings," she said.

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