8M 



PAINTING 



hy tlif mint faiiioun men. wuiilil npp<-nr to 

 \u till piiniitivc (nun (lie pictorial |M>int of >!,. 

 though it i- ifitain that the ilntuing "' I'"' liguie- 



Would In- i lr;.MIlt alld oWrVailt. Wo lutVC DO 



evidence wh.itever in tin- classical painting- which 

 have come down to u that the ancient- ever 

 mastered the craft of painting in the modem 

 MOM Le. M an art which interpret- truth- f 

 effect and which studies not only the form* hut 

 the apftfiinmm of nature. The pea: 

 painter* iiiuM have been fine linear atBaghtsiiien, 

 and they would colour their drawings caieliilly ; 

 hut all Greek art that i- known to tut hiu a clear 

 and punitive quality inconi|iatihle with the rich- 

 ness, the nivtery, and the subtle vi-.mil truth of 

 painting in it* mi*t advanceil Mage*. With 

 regard to the colon ring of the Grei-ks. Sir .lo-htia 

 Key nold praised them for having u-d only four 

 colour-, and Maid that four are sufficient to make 

 every combination required. Sir Joshua jirolmhly 

 was thinking of flesh-colour only, which li.i- since 

 been paint*! liv Ktty with very few colours. 

 Maclue said of Etty that 'with three colours and 

 white anything approaching to a yellow, a red, 

 and a hlue he could produce a sweetly-coloured 

 picture.' The Greek* in like manner might 

 colour 'sweetly ' with few pigments, hut it i.- not 

 pomiilile to imitate the full OOMriag of (lie natural 

 world without a complete palette. Apellc.s him 

 elf could not paint a primrose with yellow ochre, 

 nor a geranium with red ochre, nor is there any 

 mean* ot mixing hlack arid white xo a* to imitate 

 the azure of a southern sky. It in therefore of 

 the greatest interest to ascertain whether the 

 Greek* had a complete palette or not. Here the 

 difficulty is to know at what date each pigment 

 came into use. The vague expression generally 

 employed is that certain colour* were 'known to 

 the ancient .' Of yellows I 'liny says that I'olvg- 

 notus ami Micon used yellow ochre only. Ver- 

 milion in said to have lieen 'lirM prepared by 

 Kallias the Athenian live hundred years In-fore 

 the flu i.tian era,' and minium (red lead) wax 

 tn-t lifted liy Nn-ias, a painter of Athens in the 

 time of Alexander. It is highly proluihle that 

 in" (iicfkx would lie acquainted with Egyptian 

 colours, and the Egyptians knew the maddci root. 

 The Tyrian purple and Egyptian hlne were tan 

 famous for the Greeks to remain ignonint of them. 

 Yellow and red or|iiment were al-*> known to the 

 ancient world. Klue-hlack made fiiun hurnt wine 

 lee wa* uw-d liy I'olygnotus and Micon. and ivory- 

 black is said to have been employed hy ApelleR. 

 An for vehicles, there u a well-known psjMga in 

 I'liny which Sir Jmdiua Keyiioldd inteipieted a- a 

 description of glazing, that i-, repainting u ith trans 

 pan-lit colour-. ; hut it sei-ms more- prohahle that 

 such accounts as bftveOMM down to u- mean leallv 

 no more than varni-hing. The use of the woril 'alia 

 ni'-ntum ' h\ I'liny M-emn to imply that the varnish 

 ilaikem-d tin- picture, which it would do if it were 

 loiirli~w. It i-> generally In-lien-d now that 

 the work- of the Greek |iinters were execute. i in 

 .li-ten,|.ei nii.l Mirnii-hol afterwni-U. exi-ept their 



1C pic-tutc-., t<-diol|.|y i-xiH-lllitl with melted 

 colour-. l>i-tem|T or teni|H-rn ithe Italian word 

 for the Mime thing | i a kind of painting in which 

 O|MU|III> colour-, ground in water, are mixed with 

 any kind of thin glue or white or yolk of egg with 

 vinegar. We U-lieve that the Qnekl puiamiod 

 oil* anil varni-hc--, hut theie i no eiidenee that 

 they ever pmriim-d what we call oil painting. 

 However, a t<-in|N<ni picture juoti-cted hy a coat 

 o( oil viirm.li i- di-tingiiishahle from nn iiil pnint 

 Ing onlv hy experU. An to their palette, the 

 probability m that tin- extremely ri-tiietl lint of 

 pigment* which ha* been attributed to them wan a 

 matter of choice rather than of necewity for con- 



M'litionally under -coloured work, or they may have 

 liegun their paintings with very few colours, as 

 Titian did afterwards, and finished them with a 



fuller palette. 



For a study of Itoinaii painting our mateiials are 

 much more ahundant. We have no Important 

 works by famous arti-ts, hut there U an ample 

 supply of such ordinary painting an was applied to 

 the decoration of homes and tonilis ; and from this 

 we may infer at leant the technical condition of 

 higher art. The variety of pigments was evidently 

 siiHicient to give a full scale of colouring hy mixture 

 or sii|>erjH>Kiiion, and, a* oils and varnishes were 

 known, it might have been poraihle for oil-painting 

 to arise under the Ctwwire. Everything was ready 

 for it as everything was ready for printing, yet the 

 final step was not taken. The art of tempera or 

 -i/.e painting remained technically much what it 

 had been liefore, except that there may have been 

 greater freedom in execution and in choice of 

 siiliject. Classical taste in painting continued 

 w ith a tradition of old methods for a coiisiderahle 

 time after the introduction of Christianity, and 

 even when the nude figure was no longer a subject 

 of study tempera painting was still practised, 

 though more tiffly than in classic times. The 

 distance from the painters of Pomjieii to medi:eval 

 work is marked hy more than a technical decline. 



In reading histories of painting we may he on 

 our guard against the careless and inaccurate em- 

 ployment of the word ' fresco.' It really means 

 painting on fresh plaster i.e. on plaster that U 

 still wet; but the word is inaccurately used for 

 paintings on dry plaster also. The practice of 

 painting on walls covered with plaster is as old 

 as ancient Assyria, and it has been believed that 

 the ancient Greeks understood true fresco, princi- 

 pally on the .strength of an expression of Plutarch. 

 c{>/t' liiiffreoisziiym/i/icin, ' to paint on a wet ground." 

 \ itruvius, too, speaks of a wet ground, and, al- 

 though he does not directly say that it was painted 

 u|Min trlicn irrt, he says that, so prepared, it was 

 lit for pictures, and that colours on it are perman- 

 ent. This permanence of the colours is tne char- 

 acteristic of true fresco. Unfortunately, 1'lutnrch 

 compares painting on the wet with encaustic as 

 evanescence to permanence. 



Whatever may l- the real antiquity of true 

 fresco, it is certainly a much older process than 

 oil painting. It was understood and practised in 

 Italy in the middle ages, when mural painting in 

 churches was already in great request. The pro- 

 cess U as follows : On the .croud coat of ordinary 

 mortar is spread a coat of line old lime mixed with 

 wcll-Mfted river sand. In a few hours (say from 

 thiee to six. according to temperature) this begins 

 to dry, and the work of iiamling must be com- 

 pleted before the drying liegins, consequently a 

 small surface of jilaster is laid at a time. All 

 honest ami conscientious fresco-painters, such as 

 Antonio Vetie/iano. resisted the temptation to re- 

 touch on the dry planter: hut the careless or the 

 inconi|>ctent coufd not resist, though such retouch- 

 ing is simply cheating, a it is really not in fresco, 

 and not peimanent. 



The technical process of fresco \vas well under- 

 stood in Italy whilst art itself was still in a 

 primitive condition. Cimahue, Taddeo Gaddi, and 

 Giotto, with many less known men, painted in 

 fi.-co as well as in temjiera, so that all the 

 technical part of the craft was a matter of ancient 

 tradition when liaphael ami Michelangelo took it 

 up on their own account, and brought to it far 

 gicntcr powers of mind. To appreciate the pro- 

 jic-s made In-fore thesejfreat men it is necessary 

 only to refer to the stiff and mindless Hyzantin'u 

 art from which that of Cimabue was already a 

 partial emancipation. 



