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tempera

Painting medium consisting of colored pigment mixed with a water-soluble binder medium

EntityQ175166

Subclass of: watermedia
, painting material

Overview

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia · Read full article · Text CC BY-SA 4.0

Tempera is a permanent, fast-drying painting medium consisting of pigments mixed with a water-soluble binder medium, usually glutinous material such as egg yolk. There are several types of tempera paint, but the type containing egg yolk is called egg tempera. Tempera paint made from milk protein is called casein paint. If the binder is synthetic PVA, the result is polyvinyl acetate tempera. A distemper paint consisting of pigment and binders such as cornstarch, gum arabic and other gums is called poster paint in certain parts of the world, and it is also often confusingly referred to as "tempera paint", although the binders in this paint are different from traditional egg tempera paints and the visual effect is more like gouache.

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32 statements · 19% with external sources · numbers in brackets are citations

Said to be the same as: distemper
Different from: tempera painting
tempura
Made from material: pigment
water
binder

Data quality

statements

19%

externally sourced

Source last edited June 26, 2026. AIDB refreshes this page daily.

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AIDB. (2026). tempera (Q175166). Retrieved from https://aidb.si/e/tempera-Q175166