Conservation & Heritage Issue 49 October 2025 - Flipbook - Page 40
Nature Knows Best
Architect Kevin Davies provides some insight into the benefits of using traditional
Swedish linseed oil paint.
Part 1
Above, Field of Flax in flower
Introduction
Confused…in our world of information saturation, social
media and now artificial intelligence, it’s no surprise that
accessing accurate information underpinned by diligent
research is no easy task. You have found the right place
if you are reading this. Paint, or ‘surface coatings’ as they
are often referred as, have been with us for millennia.
These have evolved as knowledge and history shape us, as
culture changes, knowledge broadens, and history informs
us. We can learn valuable lessons from the distant and
recent past, lest we forget. Your great grandparents may
remember when, circa 1912, 38% of vehicles in the USA
were electric (Henry Ford was tipped in favour of the
combustion engine – the world could have been a very
different place), for the over 50’s milk was delivered in
the UK, in re-usable glass bottles, by an electric milk float
with an amusing single headlight and the jolly milkman.
We may not know our distant ancestors but as technology
advances, we have incredible insight into the past. Early
cave paintings, hieroglyphics, adornments and decorations
give our historians, archaeologists, anthropologists and
sociologists much to work with. We have thousands of years
of evidence for the use of flax and its derivatives, hundreds
of years of using linseed oil as a binder for various pigments
(traditional linseed oil paint) and more than enough years
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to understand why artificial oil (alkyd) and plastic paints
(acrylic) have let us down.
Linseed Oil Paint
The humble flax plant.
The cultivation of Flax (Linum usitatissimum, Linaceae) dates
back several thousands of years. Flax seeds and woven cloth
have been found in Egyptian tombs. The Bible mentions
‘fine linen’, this was spun from Flax. Today you may have
linoleum covering the kitchen floor which is made from
solidified linseed oil (linoxyn) or fed the birds some flax
seed or taken a drop yourself for nutritional purposes. Flax
contains the highest level of omega-3 fatty acids among all
vegetable oils. If you play cricket, you have no doubt applied
linseed oil to protect your beautiful willow bat, you have
done this because everyone knows linseed oil is good for
wood, don’t they?
Aside from using the flax plant for making cloth, sails, lamp
wicks, cord, lino, for medicinal & nutritional purposes etc
linseed oil has been pressed from the flax seed and used
to protect timber for thousands of years. The ‘chemistry’
may not have been understood, as it is today, but it’s
performance as a protective and extremely durable coating is
not disputed.
Conservation & Heritage Journal
38
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