There were three principal painting techniques during the Renaissance: fresco, tempera, and oils. In all of these techniques, colour was an important part of the painter's armoury, allowing them to create images that would strike a chord of recognition and pull a gasp of awe from the viewer. While many artists were skilled in all three techniques, as the Renaissance wore on, fresco was reserved for ceilings, tempera for small religious panels, and oils for wood panels or canvases, sometimes very large ones. Oils permitted much greater subtlety in execution and became the favoured medium of most late Renaissance masters, a preference that would continue in the following centuries.
This is a companion discussion topic for the original content at https://www.worldhistory.org/article/1628/colour--technique-in-renaissance-painting/.