You choose a canvas once. Paint can be scraped off, varnish removed, a frame replaced — the support under a finished painting cannot be swapped. That is why the question comes up at the very beginning, and the answer depends mostly on one thing: on size.
The difference is in the fibre. Linen fibre is longer, thicker and less regular, so the weave has a visible, uneven character with distinct slubs. Cotton is shorter and more uniform, which makes a smoother, more even fabric. You can see it on raw canvas with the naked eye, and it stays visible under the paint — especially where the layer is thin.
The second difference matters more, although you cannot see it: linen reacts far less to moisture. Cotton takes up water from the air, swells and goes slack, then tightens again when the air dries. The canvas works along with the weather in the room, and the paint layer, which has no wish to work at all, is left to deal with it.
At small and medium sizes, hardly at all. Well primed and properly stretched cotton will last for decades and nobody will tell from the painting what it was made on. Trouble begins as the area grows: the larger the rectangle, the longer the unsupported edge and the harder the canvas pulls on itself under its own weight. On works approaching two metres, linen stops being a matter of taste.
A rule of thumb: up to roughly a metre cotton causes no problems; above that, linen forgives more. At the largest sizes a cross bar in the stretcher matters too, because even the best canvas will not replace a rigid structure underneath.
A great deal — enough that badly primed linen gives a worse result than well primed cotton. The ground separates paint from fibre. Without it the oil sinks into the fabric, binder escapes downwards from the paint layer, colour loses depth and goes matt, and the fibre itself grows brittle over time from the acids in the oil. Ready-made canvas usually comes factory primed; that layer is correct but thin, so one extra coat of ground is rarely a mistake.
The coarse, pronounced weave of linen helps where paint goes on thickly. The texture of the fabric adds to the texture of the layer, the painting catches light in points and the whole thing becomes livelier — which works in your favour with impasto. The opposite is true of thin, transparent layers: a glaze laid over a strongly visible weave collects in the hollows and gives an uneven bloom instead of an even, glowing film. For fine transitions and smooth tones a smoother fabric is better, cotton included.
There is a symmetry worth noticing. In watercolour you also choose between cotton and cellulose, and there cotton is the better side — because it holds water and lets you lift and blend. In oil, cotton is the cheaper and weaker side, and the role of the noble material goes to linen. The same word, two opposite meanings, depending on what has to happen on the surface.
My oil paintings reach 140 × 200 cm, and at that scale the support stops being a detail — a large canvas has to hold its shape for years, not months. With smaller works the matter is far more relaxed. If you are considering a particular painting and want to know what it was made on, simply ask: it is information I supply together with the certificate of authenticity.
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