PAINTING 



shading to give form ; and the 

 astounding genius of Masaccio 

 In u/ In forth the masterpiece of 

 the Expulsion of Adam and Eve 

 from Paradise, in which light and 

 dark are massed. Then came 

 Uccello (1397-1475) and others, 

 " delirious with enthusiasm " over 

 the creation of perspective. Then 

 we find Mantegna creating the fore- 

 shortening of figures. Next a 

 vogue for painting in grisaille or 

 monochrome gave a marked im- 

 petus to the employment of light 

 and shade (chiaroscuro). Masaccio' s 

 frescoes marked a prodigious ad- 

 vance in painting, and became the 

 model for the giants of the Renais- 

 sance. 



With the cast shadow began the 

 painter's troubles an enormous 

 complexity was added to the craft 

 of painting ; for the early painters 

 had simply concentrated on colour 

 and line and form which had all 

 compelled fine draughtsmanship, 

 and the rapidity of the drying of 

 fresco, with the inability to correct 

 or repaint, had increased that need 

 for consummate draughtsmanship. 

 Masaccio had brought out the relief 

 of light and dark. Leonardo da 

 Vinci advanced the craft and 

 gamut of painting by seeking to 

 show objects in the round through 

 modelling by shading, and bathed 

 in the atmosphere which surrounds 

 them, abolishing the line for their 

 edge in other words, to show 

 objects on the flat canvas or wall 

 as if they were raised in relief and 

 he thundered against the old 

 limitations of flat Italian painting. 

 Introduction of Oil-painting 



Suddenly oil-painting comes into 

 Italy over the Alps. The mixing of 

 colours with oil had been at- 

 tempted in antique days. In the 

 10th century Eraclius, and in the 

 12th century Theophilus, describe 

 its making ; though Theophilus de- 

 plores the tediousness of having to 

 let the first painting dry before 

 you can paint over it as " too slow 

 and wearisome." In the 14th 

 century Cennino Cennini writes of 

 painting in oil as in use among 

 the Germans he had heard of 

 things beyond the Alps. As a 

 matter of fact, the more moist air 

 of the north made fresco useless, 

 and oils inevitable. 



Oil-painting came into Italy as 

 coloured glazes to be painted over 

 a painted tempera (egg painted) 

 foundation until, so legend has it, 

 Antonello da Messina brought oil- 

 painting from the Van Eycks into 

 practice. But in England, as far 

 back as Edward I's day, we have 

 in contracts charges for " coals to 

 dry the oil-paintiug on the walls of 

 the queen's bedchamber." 



For a long time in Italy, down 



5823 



to Perugino, transparent oil colour 

 was used over a solidly painted 

 tempera. Artists kept their 

 " mysteries " very secret ; and that 

 of the Van Eycks died with them. 

 But Pollaiuolo, Perugino, Verroc- 

 < In. . ( ihirlandaio, and da Vinci, all 

 painted in oils ; and in spite of 

 Michelangelo's scorn and thunders 

 against it as an art " fit only for 

 women," its use rapidly increased. 

 Oils could be retouched and alter- 

 ations made with ease, giving this 

 huge advantage over fresco which 

 cannot. Oil-painting rapidly came 

 into its own. But in Italy it was 

 the Venetians, with their moist 

 sea-climate, who adopted oils with 

 enthusiasm, appreciating its more 

 manageable handling and the pro- 

 digious advantage of being able to 

 paint on canvas in their own 

 studios. Tintoretto and Veronese 

 were painting vast surfaces rid of 

 the tedious business of having to 

 lay fresh plasterforeach day's work. 

 Flemish and Florentine Methods 



Two craftsmanships in oils pre- 

 vailed : the Flemish method of a 

 monochrome painting in brown and 

 white on a white ground, over 

 which the colour-scheme was 

 painted in an even smooth im- 

 pasto, solid layers of paint for the 

 lights being laid over transparent 

 " lay-in " for the darks to keep 

 luminosity in the darks was 

 followed by the Florentines ; the 

 other method was to underpaint 

 in a full solid impasto of oil-colours 

 direct, and then to glaze over it with 

 transparent oil-colours this was 

 the method of the Venetians, but 

 too often on a dark red ground. 



Rubens followed the Flemish 

 tradition, but increased it, painting 

 the darks very transparent, and 

 then heavily loading the brush 

 with solid paint for the lights. 



The Florentine Italians fell into 

 academic mimicry of their great 

 dead after the passing of Michel- 

 angelo ; and living art passed to 

 Naples, where Caravaggio and the 

 Spaniard Ribera were developing 

 the vast increase of power to utter 

 dramatic emotions, yielded by great 

 shadows. These Tenebroai painted 

 solid, straight and direct on the 

 canvas, without glazes at " first 

 stroke." This great advance went 

 to Spain and Holland, and brought 

 forth the mighty genius of Vel- 

 azquez, Rembrandt, and Frans 

 Hals. Titian and Tintoretto with 

 them stood off the objects, figures, 

 and landscapes, and saw them in 

 the large conflicting details de- 

 part, leaving the broad masses to 

 impress the eye. Titian painted in 

 tempera in solid monochrome of 

 massed light and dark, then he 

 painted his superb colour over all 

 in oils. Velazquez painted " first 



PAINTING 



stroke," without glazes, employing 

 light and shade in mans with as- 

 tounding power. Frans Hals also 

 so wrought. Rembrandt thrust the 

 massing of light and shade still 

 farther, and came to the rev. 

 of character and to dramatic 

 power in sublime fashion he 

 followed the method of solid 

 direct painting, enhancing it with 

 rich colour glazes. 



Influence of Oil* 



Oils, allowing repainting and 

 needing no tedious preparation, 

 opened the gate for the painter to 

 go direct to his inspiration and 

 record it forthwith, as the Vene- 

 tians and Dutch proved ; and it 

 was to give tongue to the greatest 

 modem colour-song. Rubens, to a 

 considerable extent, and Rem- 

 brandt, Frans Hals, and Velazquez, 

 were at once intrigued with the 

 " march of the brush," the hand- 

 ling of the loaded paint which 

 showed the brush-marks. 



Painting in France arose in 

 academic mimicry of the Flemings, 

 and was soon aping the Italians, 

 but the portrait-painters saved it. 

 Nicolas Largilliere (165&-1746) 

 headed the revolution, keenly in- 

 terested in " values," the change 

 of tone that comes to the colour of 

 objects due to the distance where- 

 by they become bathed in volume 

 of atmosphere. And with the 

 Frenchman's innate love of crafts- 

 manship there rapidly arose an 

 intense interest in the handling 

 of the paint itself, and " the agility 

 of the brush " became the aim of 

 the fine 18th century outburst into 

 national colour-song. The glamour 

 of the brush-stroke became a 

 delirium with Watteau, Chardin, 

 Boucher, and Fragonard. Chardin, 

 turning to pastels, and at once 

 robbed of his glowing glazes, gets 

 tone by breaking up the tone and 

 setting the strokes of its primary 

 colours side by side to create it 

 he " breaks colour " and thereby 

 becomes forerunner of the next 

 great advance in the range of 

 painting to utter the emotions 

 whereby Turner bursts into " col- 

 our-orchestration.' ' 



In England, Hogarth had brush- 

 ed aside the " black old masters " 

 and painted the life of the day as he 

 saw it ; while the fine portrait- 

 painters, headed by Reynolds, were 

 trying to rediscover the magic of 

 the great dead, when Turner arose. 

 Turner set up as his standard of 

 painting each of the supreme 

 masters in turn, and beat them. 

 Yet, majestic as was his achieve- 

 ment, he could not utter the sun- 

 light, and the play of light on ob- 

 jects that gives them their whole 

 significance to the eye. He fiung 

 aside all tradition, which had 



