22 Inquiries into tlic encaustic Painting of tJie Ancients. 



The ancients also distinguished two kinds of ceruse. That 

 which Pliny called cert/ssn cremata or mla, seems to me to be 

 only burnt ochre slaked in vinegar. It was used for painting 

 shadows. The other kind of ceruse, which the Greeks called 

 psynmytkium, and the Latins cerus^a, was obtained by t'ae ac- 

 tion of vinegar on lead. The ladies used it for tlu skin; the 

 painters used it also : but Phny places it in the third rank only 

 among the white colours. 



The black colour or atramentiini of tlie ancient painters was 

 succes«ively the ivory-black of Apelies, the soot-black produced 

 by the combustion of the resins, the charcoal of wood, and China 

 ink. In order to make writing-ink, gum was added, and a fut 

 substance [glatinum) in order to paint on tlie walls. 



The purpurissiim held the first rank among the fine colours. 

 It was a lake which was prepared by absorbing the decoction of 

 madder by means of the earth which Pliny calls cieia argtntarli. 

 1 presume that this earth, which was brought from England, far 

 from being clialk, was a very u hite clay, becuu.-e the chalk would 

 giv6 a vinous lake, and the argil, on the contrary, one of a very 

 fine red. The best pinpurissum is obtained from the first de- 

 coction : by increasing the quantity of water, the qualities were 

 of course varied. 



The ancients formed piirpuiissum also by collecting the frolh 

 which is formed on the solutions or decoctions of purple. 



The armenium was a blue stone, which was long brought from 

 Armenia; but a sand was found in Spain, which rendered thL^ 

 colour more plentiful and cheaper. 



The green earths were also employed a'^ a colouring principle. 



Pliny observed that all the chefs d'a'uure of the ancient 

 painters w-ere comj^osed with four colours ; 1st. The white re-" 

 duced to meUnum alone ; 2(1. Ochre : 8d. The red earth or 

 Pontic sinopis ; 4th. The black atranicntum. — It was, as he says, 

 with those four colours that Apelles, Mclanthus,Nicomachus,coin- 

 ]josed their chpfid'oouvre.'^'a.m], now-a-days," he adds, " that 

 the purple covers our walls, and that India sends us the coloured 

 slime of her rivers, we have mo;e paint and less of true art." 



Hence we find that the ancients employed almost none but 

 natural colours in painting, and these were unalterable in air 

 and water, and as Ave shall pi'e.-,ently show, capable of being 

 preserved without alteration and uithout degradation. But 

 how does it happen that these very colours, nnost of which are 

 used in modern paintings, change their hue on our canvass ? 

 Wherefore are our paintings incapable of preserving their colour 

 even for a few years, while the pictures of the ancients have not 

 lost their lustre after many centuries ? This question, which is 

 very important to the arts, deserves great attention; and I think 



that 



