PO eae On Painting in Oil 
the quantity of ill-defined light that may be admitted. 
Thus we fee (if I may venture to mention fo notorious 4 
truifm), that fhadows are nothing real; they only feem to 
exift in the abfence of light, and give to objeéts an ill-defined 
appearance, diftinét from, though in fome inftances mixed 
with, light and colours in different degrees: but as the 
painter muft reprefent this appearance by fomething real, he 
choofes the colours moft analogous, viz. browns, and the 
moft tranfparent of their clafs, to reprefent this tranfparent, 
but imperfectly defined appearance in nature. 
It has been fuppofed that the Venetian painters had fome 
peculiarly rich and tranfparent brown colour, which is feen 
to pervade all the works of that fchool; the effect of which 
no modern artift has been able to imitate, and which there- 
fore is fuppofed to have been loft. It is not very probable 
that a colour fo common, as to pervade the works of the 
worlt as well as of the beft artifts of that fchool, fhould be 
fo unaccountably loft; and, as the effect attributed to it may 
be eafily produced by the mode of painting I have defcribed, 
it is not unreafonable to conclude that this rauch-lamented: 
colour has never exifted. ’ 
It is well known that chalk, and other earths of the fame 
kind, lofe; when wetted, much of their whitenefs, and 
become femi-tranfparent: it is equally certain, that if 
umber or other earths are mixed with chalk, and faturated 
with varnith after they are laid in the cloth, they in like 
manner become diaphanous, and are infinitely more bril- 
liant than the fame colours can be when mixed with white 
lead and oil. This feems, on good grounds, to have been 
the-bafis of the Venetian method of painting, and all its pe- 
culiar effects; at leaft if I may draw any conclufion from 
the numerous experiments I have made. But if artifts, 
whofe talents will enable them to repeat thofe experiments 
to the beft advantage, fhould be induced to do fo, the fac 
will be determined in the moft fatisfactory manner, 
9 T may 
