ANCIENT PAINTING AS AMONG THE LOST ARTS. 229 



that is, the wood was made in some way by heat to absorb the 

 color vehicle, thus blending the colors and softening the outlines, 

 producing what from all accounts must be conceded to be a 

 marvelous attainment in painting. But this art, whatever it may 

 have been, has never been rediscovered. There was also, without 

 doubt, a method of painting on canvas. The colors, dissolved in 

 water, were thickened with glue and put on with brushes. When 

 the painting was dry it was heavily varnished with a mixture of 

 warm Punic wax and oil. This was called "distemper." 



Mural paintings were in part, like those of modern times, in 

 fresco. That is, water-colors were used on fresh walls, or on a 

 coating of mortar not yet dry, the plaster thus taking up the 

 paint and rendering it very permanent. But as lime destroys 

 many colors, which consequently cannot be used in fresco, the 

 ancients adopted another and a peculiar practice for wall paint- 

 ings. As fast as the picture was made on any dry wall, with 

 water colors mixed with some kind of gum or glue, it was 

 varnished with Punic wax and oil, heated by fire from a chafing 

 dish "usque ad sudorem," up to a sweat, when it was rubbed 

 with wax candles and polished with white napkins. In this 

 way the wall paintings had all the beauty of finish, the har- 

 mony and tone of amalgamated outlines, and the splendid 

 varieties of coloring, of the tabular pictures ; and more than all, 

 they were as enduring as the walls themselves. The frescoes of 

 Pompeii are mostly, if not all, of the kind we have just des- 

 cribed. None others would have lasted as they have done, 

 preserving their freshness of color and distinctness of outline 

 through a burial of nearly eighteen hundred years in damp and 

 destructive earths. This method of painting is also another 

 instance of ancient discoveries passing forever from the role of 

 the Arts. 



With these remarks on the materials and processes, we can 

 now relate what were the accomplishments of ancient art. Five 

 hundred years before Christ, painting was in a very rude and 

 primitive state in Greece. According to one author, it was the 

 custom as well as a. necessity for an artist to write under his pro- 

 ductions: "This is a bull;" "This is a horse;" "This is a 



