306 - On Painting i in Oil 
~ The artift will remark that, in deferibing the ahi of. © 
the Venetian method of painting, I have fuid nothing of the ¢ 
manner of producing thofe demi-tints whith conduce fo 
much to the brilliancy of a pifture, which are fo difficult fo 
execute,’and in which he moft frequently fails. Thofe tines 
até, in the ordittary modes of painting, produced by the 
niixture of black, erey, blue, or brown (according to the 
judgment of the artift), with the local colours of the ob-’ 
jects. tis thefe tints which, from their being made with 
fuch colours, tt is dificult to get clear, and which never are 
fo clear im any other as in the Venetian, and in fome of the 
Flemiih pictures, which are painted upon analogous princi- 
ples. The fact is, that thofe painters produced all fuch tints 
without the admixture of any colour to reprefent them, and 
by amethod fo like that by which they are produced in 
nature, that this circumftance alone enfures a degree of 
brichtnefs to their colours, and of harmony to their fhadows, 
that it is perhaps impoffible to produce, in an equal degree, 
by any other mode of painting. 
al | isa finewlar fact, which I have not fkill in phyfics to’ 
be able to account for, though by numerous experiments I 
have afcertained adit contradiction, that if upon any de- 
gree of brown, between the deepeft and the lighteft brown 
yellow, we paint pure white, m gradations, from the fold 
body to the lighteft tint that can be laid on, all the tints 
betrveen the folid whtie and the ground will appear to be 
GREY, intenfe m proportion to the depth of the ¢round, and 
the thinnefs of the white laid upon it. But in every cafe all 
the tints laid upon one ground will harmonize with each» 
other, and form one connected chain (if T may ufe the ex- 
preflion), which will perfectly unite the higheft light with 
the darkett fhade. x - 
‘Tf then we examine the component fubftances of a Vene=) 
tian picture, we fhall find the lichter parts confit only of 
white, to reprefent the light; and ofthe local colours of the | 
oh jects it reprefents, the demi-tints are imitated “by an ap=" 
otha - pearance 
