How many hours of work went into the old master paintings? Do

>>2877991
I don't think it's easy to come up with exact numbers, and it would vary from artist to artist and at different time periods, as well as for the individual pieces. That said, many master works took a lot longer than you might think, and a lot longer than most modern artists spend. They also typically had a lot more prep work involved. It was common for paintings to take months and sometimes even years to complete, but that time is not usually fully spent on the painting as many artists would work on and off or have several paintings worked on simultaneously, and would also take time for things like layers to dry.

An extreme example (although a bit more recent historically than the artists you mentioned) would be Millais working on Ophelia. You can read about it here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ophelia_(painting)#Painting_process

>>2878105
Thank you.

>>2878422
Also
The old masters weren't just artists too.
They were architects, sculptors, and engineers too. So while they were working on a painting, they were probably doing a sculpture here, a cathedral there, etc.

>>2878105
damn. it's like I'm not even trying. 5 months 7 days a week outside in the wind. to do THE BACKGROUND?!?!?!? gotta step it up.

check out 'tim's vermeer' if you haven't seen it, very interesting

>>2880969
Even if Tim's Vermeer is correct, it's in no way an indication of the working practice of the vast majority of old masters. I doubt it's even accurate for Vermeer, when looking at pigment and layers analysis.

>>2877991
To determine how many hours is difficult to say. One can get an idea of how quickly an artist worked by counting the paintings they did in a given year over some years. It should also be noted that some painters had large workshops, while some worked largely on their own. The dimension and type of painting should also be taken into consideration. Some artists do paintings which require thorough preparations in designs, which seemed to be the general trend more than now, though some did work directly on canvas. This accounts for no small difference in rate of completion.