1844.] 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECT'S JOURNAL. 



347 



such persons as have written on the suhject,- although proclaiming 

 themselves in every page ignorant of the first elements of science, — ■ 

 such men, I sjy, under such circumstances, painted for exhibition in- 

 stead of for school. We cannot wonder, then, at the miserable daubs 

 we saw. The best were highly laboured — far too highly laboured 

 fresco — glazed, shall I say? no, blackened by ten times too much 

 tempera linishing for the then approaching exhibition of Bartholomew 

 fair. Alas, what havoc and ruin a sponge and rain-water would 

 achieve on the field of King John's shield, the gorgeous purple of his 

 robes, or the sweet face of Sir Thomas More's daughter in his prison- 

 house, — or aglios less laboured, and dei gratia less savoured recollec- 

 tions of Naples! and how long would the mechanical ni?atness of 

 Maclise's Knight bear it? 



And yet, will fresco be adopted on fixed principles, and with suc- 

 cessful results, by the perseverance of Englishmen. Timon has only 

 to forget all he has read, and use his brains : fresco, though assuredly 

 adapted best to mighty halls and majestic domes, might be used in the 

 niches of a baby-house, and there the theory is simple. If a perma- 

 nent stucco be the sine qua non of fresco — and caustic lime be as ne- 

 cessary to the stucco — caustic lime is also the sine qua non of fresco : 

 nothing, I humbly conceive, can be more palpable ; therefore the pig- 

 ments must be adapted to the lime, not the lime, by deterioration, to 

 them ; and it matters not what the nature of it, whether by marble 

 dust or whiting, or carbonic acid^ from the atmosphere, or from some 

 extra superfine carbonates made by wire-gauze chemistry at peculiar 

 temperatures, in artificiallv ventilated vessels of thermometric con- 

 stitution ; in plain linglish, be the so-called amelioration what it may, 

 it is but the same dead hit at theoretic Salraagundyism I 



Now to incaustic, well enough in its way, but not well enough for 

 US: neither adapted to our smoky atmosphere nor coal-fire warmth, — 

 nor, if Armitage's Fates be a specimen, or the hidian-redism of the 

 Royal Exchange be a proof, worthy of our wasting much space in what 

 Cornelius, in his politiness, declared a " very fine situation," although, 

 when he said so, Benjamin Hawes' chimney vomited, like a second 

 Vesuvius, clouds of alkaline vapour, sulphur, and cockney smoke 1 

 Distemper, or tempera, and oil, are of more worth : in either, or both, 

 shall the talent of this day go down to posterity without a blush from 

 Timon's cheek. 



To the first two, for I am not among the persons who at all identify 

 them, I will merely say, permanence depends wholly and solely on 

 the individual permanence of each pigment in use — nothing nuist be left 

 to, or expected from, the vehicle, be it gum, white of egg, saccharine 

 mucilage, or gelatinous matter from isniglass or size, — but cohesion, 

 bearing-out, and freedom from crack. In oil the case is reversed, — 

 everything depends on the vehicle, of which I give you this proof: 

 lead which is inherently chargeable is, for oil painting, fully equal to, 

 if not surpassing, ultramarine. I do not despise a colour because it is 

 individually permanent, — it is always valuable to have such for oil as 

 well as water ; but it is not, as generally and foolishly imagined, a 

 sine qiui non : every experienced man, among artists as well as con- 

 noiseurs, knows that, in practical effect, ultramarine can and does 

 change ; the oil rises and forms a skin— this skin becomes yellow, and 

 hence the frequently green tone of ultramarine skies; whereas fine 

 flake white, or, what is infinitely better, either sulphate or muriate of 

 lead, in a vehicle which mill 7tol rise — or which prevents the rise of oil 

 — becomes permanent in defiance of ages; hence, many fine old pic- 

 tures painted with inferior pigments to any now used by the common 

 house painter. 



Theoretic writers like Merimee, whose oil copal quackery to 

 "brighten colours without drying them more quickly," amply proves he 

 knew notjiing of the true principles of permanence — for a recent pic- 

 ture is garish enough, and oil copal increases that disposition to skin 

 which ought to be restrained — these writers, I say, vend a mass of 

 twaddle also respecting testing colours by sulphuretted hydrogen, which 

 is little better than nonsense : strip the oldest and best picture in ex- 

 istence of protecting varnish, and this gas will blacken it in twenty 

 seconds, — what value, then, has it as a test of practical worth among 

 pigments? As a vital caution, then, send M'Gellup and boiled oil and 

 gumption with physic to the dogs, as ignes fatui of the art. Paint 

 with fine poppy oil, or, for larger pictures, linseed oil bleached by 

 light, but never rendered more drying by oxides,' for there half the 

 secret lies ; nut oil, for instance, which is deceptive and useless here, 



2 One Weld Taylor published on fresco, and tolls you, for instance, hydrate of lime, 

 that which we make in and by slaking, is a salt indigenous to limestone ' That vermi- 

 lion, which is black sulplmret of mercury " reddened by heat," has a tendency to " blacken 

 by heat," &c. &c. 1 ! 



a M. Vicat and other sheer theorists speak of this carbonic acid as the source of age 

 and hardness in cemunts, whereas it is very obviously the source of pulverulence and 

 decay. 



4 Such a dryer lias been given to the secretary for publication, and at no trifling sacri- 

 fice, by one of my personal (riends. 



except for grinding colours in, rises as soon, and yellows as much, as 

 the commonest linseed. It is, moreover, a bad dryer '^ in this region, 

 and all similar ones, still it would be the best of the three for Italy, 

 South America, or the East Indies; and the picture drying without 

 skin, dries without yellowing, and ultimately without horn; it only 

 then requires three or four months to season and harden, when, after 

 being washed with soft water with a slight dash of gall, a coat of good 

 old mastic varnish will carry it down the stream of time. 



Mastic I prefer, because it can be rubbed oil" by the finger and a little 

 resin powder, and replenished or renewed as often as you please with- 

 out injuring the picture; whereas all varnishes requiring so/«?i/s re- 

 quire such agency as acts on the glazing; hence no man who values 

 his painting trusts it to those empirics who call themselves picture 

 cleaners. 



I must defer to a future period the subject of the Attramentum of 

 Apelles, — the various impostures now happily dying a natural death, 

 under the spurious soubriquets of glass media, silica media, &c. &c. 

 and the errors of Reynolds ; until which, with a smile as well as a tilt 

 for the patriot Timon, 



I am, yours, 



WiLHELM DE WiNTERTON. 



September ICdh, 1844. 



ST. MARGARET'S CHURCH, WESTMINSTER. 



Sir — In your last month's number, I read an article on Saint 

 Margaret's Church, near to Westminster Abbey, which induced me to 

 visit the " venerable temple founded by Saint Edward," fully expect- 

 ing to find that " rebuilt by Edward IV." 



I agree with Mr. Bardwell, that an •'accumulation of buildings" is 

 advantageous to Gothic Architecture, and that the position of Saint 

 Margaret's Church would not injure the eflTect of the Abbey Church ; 

 and 1 would be the last person to advocate the ri'moval of an archi- 

 tectural gem. The Cathedral at York is not injured by its Chapter- 

 house, nearly in the position of St. Margaret's Church, to the north- 

 east of that noble structure, (and I may apply this remark to most of 

 our Cathedrals and Abbeys,) nor were any of the buildings, erected 

 by, and for the several uses of those who worshipped in them, con- 

 structed otherwise than in perfect harmony with, and so as to give 

 the best effect to the exaltations of the temple of the Creator, above 

 the abodes of his creatures. 



Were St. Jllargaret's Church worth preserving, I would not care 

 for the JIbky Church, as by its removal, the desecrations of the 

 splendid north transept would be exposed, vihic\\ viexe perpetrated when 

 the western towers were built by the rebuilder of this " venerable tem- 

 ple " of the Edwards ; why it has not externally one ancient feature ! — 

 its bare unbuttressed walls, its uncusped elliptic windows, and modern 

 builders' square coped parapets; and then its tower — see the octagon 

 buttresses with square sunk panelling, square headed belfry windows, 

 with those winged heads in spandrels, grinning or cryingybr shame of 

 their position — the plain ten of diamonds parapet, and corner pinnacles, 

 which would e'en make Mr. Compo stare. Away with this abortion, 

 this vile deformity, enclose its sacred site, and thus, let us hallow the 

 bones of our forefathers. 



I would rebuild on another site a Church as unlike tliis as possible, 

 for I verily imagine that this was the very church recommended to the 

 modern Compo's as of moderate dimensions, and being within sight 

 of the Church Commissioners' Office, was by them considered a 

 standard or test by which the merits of modern Gothic designs should 

 be tried : hence the Metropolitan Gothic Churches of the last 20 years. 

 I would recommend the inhabitants of Westminster to ask the opinion 

 of the Camden or the Oxford Architectural Societies on the merits of 

 this Church, as they are certainly the best judges of the day, though 

 far from infallible ; as an antiquary and lover of the true principles of 

 architectural composition, 



I remain your friend and old subscriber, 



DiONYSlUS. 

 Walworth Road, Sept. 2, 1844. 



