737 



WATER-COLOUR PAINTING. 



WATER AND WATERCOURSES. 



133 



comparatively recent introduction. It is true that the Italian, Dutch 

 and Flemish painters of the best period often executed their cartoons 

 and finished sketches with water-colours, as may be seen in the car- 

 toons of Raffaelle and of Mantegna at Hampton Court, which are painted 

 on paper with opaque water-colours (or tempera), and in some of the 

 sketches and drawings executed in transparent water-colours by leading 

 Dutch and Flemish painters, of which examples are exhibited in the 

 King's. Library at the British Museum : these, however, were not 

 completed pictures, but only the drawings from which fresco or oil- 

 paintings, or tapestry hangings, were to be executed. The art of 

 water-colour painting, in which the completed work is itself executed, 

 with all the skill and care of the artist, in water colours on paper, is a 

 product of this country. It appears to have gradually grown out of 

 the methods employed by miniature painters, and the earlier examples 

 were rather a kind of tempera than what would now be called water- 

 colour painting, the colours being all rendered opaque by the admix- 

 ture of white. Many of the early works of Paul Sandby [SAXDBY, 

 PAUL, in BIOG. Div.], who perhaps has the fairest claim to be regarded 

 as the founder of the English school of water-colour painting, are 

 wholly executed in solid opaque colour. The new method, from which 

 was directly derived the present process of water-colours, grew into 

 vogue in the latter part of the last century, and was at first known as 

 " stained drawing," a term by which pictures of this kind are described 

 in the catalogues of the early exhibitions of the Royal Academy. The 

 entire drawing was first carefully made out in light and shadow by 

 means of washes of Indian ink, or of a gray or what was termed a 

 neutral tint, and over this the respective local colours were passed in 

 thin washes of transparent colours much of the effect being due to 

 the neutral tint appearing through and modifying the harshness of the 

 superposed colours. The sharp- markings, minuter details, &c., were put 

 in with a reed-pen either immediately before or subsequently to the 

 laying on of the local colours. The older works in this manner have 

 generally a cold, gray, feeble appearance, but sometimes very pleasing 

 atmospheric effects were obtained ; and in the hands of Cozens, and 

 still more of Turner, Girtin, and Prout, whose earlier drawings were 

 all commenced with a monotint, pictures of great power and even 

 grandeur were produced. 



The improved method, and that which, in principle at least, is still 

 practised, consisted in abandoning the preparatory neutral ground tint, 

 and painting-in every object in the first instance in i ts proper local colour, 

 leaving it to subsequent shades and tints, either laid in thin washes of 

 transparent colour, or with a kind of hatching stroke (the distinctive 

 " touch " of the artist), to modify the crudity of the first painting, and to 

 impart the character and aspect which every part should assume from 

 its place in the picture and the atmospheric influences under which it 

 is seen. This method originated, there can be little doubt, in the 

 adoption by the younger landscape painters, Turner, Girtin, and their 

 compeers, of the practice of making out-of-doors sketches and studies 

 of scenery in colours, for which purpose the old method of employing 

 a preparatory monotint would be found loo tedious, and for representing 

 evanescent atmospheric phenomena impracticable ; while the striking 

 effects that were produced in sketching by painting-in the local colours 

 at once would soon lead to the adoption of a like method for more 

 finished works. Yet even Turner and Prout continued to lay-in the 

 larger masses of shadow with a monotint, long after they employed 

 loca} colour in the first instance in the lights and middle-tints. When 

 once the new method came to be generally adopted, the progress of the 

 art was very rapid ; water-colour painting acquired a remarkable degree 

 of popularity, and its professors became very numerous. In 1805 the 

 most distinguished practitioners of this branch of art formed them- 

 selves into a " Society of Painters in Water-Colours," which has ever 

 since continued to hold an annual exhibition of the works of its 

 members at their rooms in Pall Mall East. In 1832 the younger 

 practitioners, feeling that they were unable to bring their works fairly 

 before the public, established another society under the title of " The 

 New Society of Painters in Water Colours," and they have in like 

 manner their annual exhibition. But both exhibitions are exclusively 

 confined to the productions of the members. At the Manchester 

 Art-Treasures Exhibition of 1857, a very instructive collection of 

 paintings in water-colours was brought together with a view to illus- 

 trate the growth of the art, and it may be anticipated that a much 

 more complete collection of a similar kind will be shown at the Inter- 

 national Exhibition of 1862. The want of a permanent national 

 collection of paintings in this essentially British branch of art has 

 however long been felt, and though it has not yet been supplied, the 

 nucleus of such a collection has, mainly by the spirit and munificence 

 of private individuals, been at length formed. [SOUTH KENSINGTON 

 MUSEUM.] 



The practice of water-colour painting as at present pursued in this 



country differs so much according to the habits of individual artists, 



and so little guidance could be given in a brief description of any 



particular method, that it will be best to confine ourselves to a few 



i, r ' j neral remarks. The paper employed is usually of a hard substance, 



and more or less granulat,.-l ncronling to the ixe and character of the 



i", and still more the manner of the artist: some using paper 



with only a fine and others with an exceedingly coarse grain or tnotk. 



again prefer an absorbent paper, or paper of a peculiar tint, 



HOIK produce a peculiar texture by rubbing, sponging, or other 



ABTS AND SCI. DIV. VOL. VIII. 



manipulative process : some of the moat remarkable effects in their 

 pictures (as in the case of Turner and Copley Fielding for instance) 

 being to a great extent due to some such procedure. The pigments 

 employed are of the ordinary kind, prepared in cakes by the admixture 

 of a little gum, or " moist " by the addition of honey or some other 

 saccharine material. The colours, as we have said, are paiuted-in of their 

 proper local hue, and subsequently modified till the objects acquire the 

 intended appearance. This was by the older painters usually effected 

 with transparent colours only ; but Turner, Harding, and others began, 

 at first cautiously, and then with more freedom, to mix white with 

 their colours, and this has been carried so far that now opaque (or 

 body) colours often form, as of old, the substance of the water-colour 

 paintings of some of our most admired artists. Another innovation is 

 that of using gum, or some other vehicle of a like quality (water-glass 

 has been tried), to give depth to the shadows. These are however 

 objected to by many as not legitimate materials for the water-colour 

 painter ; but the majority of painters consider that it is lawful to use 

 any means by which they can best convey the impression they desire 

 to produce ; and, supposing that equal truth and permanency as well 

 as brilliancy can be so obtained, there can be little doubt that they 

 are right It must, however, be admitted that in many of the more 

 elaborate recent pictures, something of the exquisite freshness and 

 transparency of the earlier water-colour paintings has been lost in the 

 attempt to reach the force and depth of oil. 



AVATER, COMPRESSIBILITY OF. [ELASTICITY, col. 773.] 



WATER AND WATERCOURSES. The right of conducting 

 water through one piece of land for the use of another is an incor- 

 poreal hereditament of the class of easements, and was known in the 

 Roman law by the name of the sen-itus aqua ductits. The right of 

 taking water out of the well or pond belonging to another person is 

 an incorporeal hereditament of the class of profits called in the Roman 

 law the serrittis aqua haustus. These rights, in our law, must be either 

 derived from a grant or established by prescription. [PRESCRIPTION.] 



It is the law of England that water flowing in a stream is originally 

 ;</<//>/' juris, that is to say, a thing the property of which belongs to no 

 individual, but the use to all. The legal presumption is that the pro- 

 prietor of each bank of a stream is the proprietor of one-half of the 

 land covered by the stream, but there is no property in the water. 

 Every proprietor has an equal right to use the water which flows in 

 the stream, and consequently no one can have the right to use the 

 water to the prejudice of any other without his consent. No pro- 

 prietor can either diminish the quantity of water which would other- 

 wise descend upon the proprietors below, nor throw back the water , 

 upon the proprietors above, so as to overflow or injure their lands. 

 For the same reason, no proprietor has a right to use the water of a 

 stream so as to injure its quality to the detriment of other proprietors. 



The only modes in which a right to the uae of running water, in a 

 manner inconsistent with the common law rights of others can be 

 established, are either proof of an actual grant or licence from the 

 persons whose rights are affected, or proof of an uninterrupted enjoyment 

 of such a privilege for such a period as the law considers sufficient to 

 constitute a right by prescription. The period of twenty years had 

 been generally fixed upon by the courts of law and equity for this 

 purpose, and the same period has been adopted in the Prescription Act 

 (2 & 3 Will. IV., c. 71, s. 2). [PRESCRIPTION.] But if water has not 

 been appropriated, it seems that the person who first appropriates and 

 renders it useful acquires a right, and for a violation of such right an 

 action may be maintained on an enjoyment of less than twenty years. 



The privilege of a watercourse is not confined to private individuals. 

 It may be vested in a corporation, or may be claimed by the inhabit- 

 ants of a township or parish. If land with a run of water upon it be 

 sold, the water primd facie passes with the land ; but it is laid down 

 by Coke that if a person grants aquam suam, the soil will not pass, 

 but only a right of fishing in that water ; for the proper words in that 

 case to pass the soil would be, so many acres of land aqud coopertas : 

 whereas the word staynum, or pool, will pass both water and land. 

 (1 ' Inst./ 4, b.) The exclusive right to a flow of water once acquired 

 can only pass by grant as an incorporeal hereditament, and a licence, 

 by parol or otherwise, to use or take the water at any place, may be 

 revoked even without an express power of revocation being reserved, 

 unless works have been constructed and expenses incurred upon the 

 faith of it. 



When the owners of property have, by long enjoyment, acquired 

 special rights to the use of water in its natural state, as it was accus- 

 tomed to flow, and not merely a use, which is common to all the king's 

 subjects, an action may be maintained for a disturbance of the enjoy- 

 ment ; but where the injury, if any, is to all the king's subjects, the 

 only remedy is by indictment. The mere obstruction of water which 

 has been accustomed to flow through a person's lauds does not in itself 

 afford a ground of action. The plaintiff in such an action must be 

 enabled to show, either that some benefit arose to him from the water 

 going through his lands, of which he has been deprived, or at least that 

 some deterioration was occasioned to the premises by the subtraction 

 of the water; but where the proprietor of the lauds can prove that he 

 is injured by the diversion of the water, it is no answer to his action 

 to show that the defendant was the first person who appropriated tho 

 water to his own use, unless he has had twenty years' undisturbed 

 enjoyment of it in its altered course. If the injury occasioned by th 



3? 



