1844. 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECT'S JOURNAL. 



353 



for general painting, was submitted to some German chemists by Dr.Roux,^* 

 and received, among other statements by him, their written sanction: — 



" Wax is, in chemical language a combination of cerine and myricine. It 

 is a peculiar organic substance, resembing fat, but yet distinct from it. Wax 

 is unaltered Iiy exposure to air. It neither becomes harder or softer, and 

 therefore does not contract like the unctuous oils. Exposed to light, it be- 

 comes whiter. Grund, in his history of ancient painting, relates that he saw 

 in an Italian church two large wax candles , whicli had been presented in 

 the year 1 145, and which he at first took for snow-white marble pillars. 

 On breaking the surface, he found tliem ecpially white internally.^' 



"Colours mixed with wax are entirely saturated by it. Wax and colours 

 form together a more solid, less fusible substance than wax alone. The pig- 

 ments remain closely united with the wax. No skin appears on the surface 

 of the picture, even when the wax has been mixed in abundance with the co- 

 lours. \n under-painting executed with wax colours, has much more 

 brightness than one executed in oil. A second painting on such a prepara- 

 tion appears bright'and clear; on which account a painting in which wax 

 lias been used as the vehicle is always brilliant. When an oil painting at 

 twilight begins to become indistinct to the eye, a wax painting next it is still 

 clearly visible. 



Wax is dissolved in volatile oil, which is also used with the colours. 

 This volatile oil evaporates in a short time, and assists the drying of the 

 colours. 



" Paintings executed with wax colours cannot crack, (?) for the under painting 

 dries quickly from the ground. The ductility and tenacity of the wax pre- 

 vent its cracking. This method of painting has also the advantage, tliat the 

 dissolving power of the volatile oil which is used in the after-painting and 

 finishing produces a union of the upper and under layers, by which means 

 the whole coloured substance becomes intimately united." 



The statement that wax has no tendency to crack is true as regards the 

 substance itself; but a painting thickly executed in wax, and varnished soon 

 after its completion, would very probably crack. The Germans evade this 

 difticulty, and consider resinous varnishes unnecessary to wax painting. The 

 French artists do not exclude a final varnish. If such an addition be desirable, 

 it is of more than ordinary importance to select a resinous solution that has 

 little tendency to crack. The Damara varnish of Lucanas, and the excellent 

 varnish of Soehnce (which seems to be analogous to Field's lac-varnish^'), 

 have this reputation. The latter has also the agreeable quality of lieing per- 

 fectly dry to tlie touch within a few hours after its application, and of re- 

 maining so. It never becomes discoloured. A coat of white paint, having 

 half its surface varnished with this liquid, and the other half with mastic 

 varnish exhibits a great difference of tint in a sliort time ; tlie portion var- 

 nished with the Soehm'-e varnish retaining its first appearance unaltered. Its 

 defect is its want of sufticient body ; there seems also to be a difficulty in 

 removing it from the surface even of an oil picture. The Damara varnish 

 has the same qualities of not changing colour, and never cracking ; it has 

 more body than Soehnee's preparation, but is certainly not so clear. The 

 modes of preparing and removing it are described by Lucanus."'' 



Of the remaining modes of painting on walls, viz.. Fresco and Oil Painting, 

 the papers already published on the former may be sufficient to give an in- 

 sight into its practice. The problems yet to be solved are, the speedier pre- 

 paration of a lime adapted for fresco painting,-*" and the preparation of 

 durable colours of the more florid kind, sucli as lake and crimson. 



Sir Humphry Davy, in his analysis of some of the colours of the ancients, 

 found some vitrified substances, and accordingly expressed his conviction 

 that glass frits would be the most durable of coloured materials, if I hey could 

 be so prepared as to meet the wants of the artist. Dr. Roux is of the same 

 opinion, and suggests that "as a white frit possessed of sufficient opacity is 

 not to he obtained, the oxide of zinc might represent it among the vitrified 

 colours. It is equally unchangeable."'" To these opinions is to be opposed 

 a practical authority of great weight,'- who remarks that these colours, 

 when ground to the degree of fineness necessary to render them applicable 

 to painting, become liable to all the chemical changes and affinities of the 

 substances which compose them. 



The adaptation of oil painting to walls has generally found less favour 

 witli painters than any other method, from the numerous examples of a 

 blackened surface which works so executed present. The process may be 

 less objected to since it has been so ably employed in the Ecole des Beaux 

 Arts at Paris. 



A mode of preparing the wall so as to effectually exclude damp was 

 described in a former paper. "^ The preparations used by Sebastian del 

 Piombo, and recommended by Vasari,'"' might be preferable, as they con- 

 tained little or no oil. 



In this mode of painting, as hitherto practised, all absorption from the 

 ground is cut ofi' by the application of the first coat or hydrofuge preparation ; 



36 lb. Zweites Heft, p. 41). 



3 7 The uutlior elsewhere obaerres that the wax of southern climates is mucli whiter 

 and harder than that whicli is produced in tlie nortli. 



3 8" Field's Chromatography," p. 20!>. See also " Transactions of the Society of Arts,'* 

 vol. 46. This varnish was not unlinown to the Italians ; see the list of recipes at the end 

 of Orlandi's " Abecedario ;" " Vernice di bellissimo lustro," &c. 



30 " Vollstandige Anleitung zur Erhaltung &c. der Geniakle, zur Bereitung der Fir- 

 nisse, &c., von Dr. Fr. G. H. I.ucanus." Halberstadt, 184*2, p. 34-*:.*). 



40 A method communicated by Mr. Dinsdale is now under the consideration of clie- 

 mical professors. 



41 lb. Zweites Heft, p. 61. i- Field, ib. p. 45. 4a Second Report, p. ri*.', 

 *4 Introduzlone, c. 2'i. Compar* Bossi, " Sul Cenacolo di Leonardo da Vinci." 



it is, therefore, essential that the quantity of oil should be diminished in the 

 under painting. For this purpose the half tempera method, which, it appears, 

 was sometimes employed by the northern Italian schools as a preparation for 

 oil painting, would be well adapted. But the application of a composition 

 impenetrable to damp is not incompatible with an absorbent ground for the 

 painting itself. Such a ground could be made to bind firmly to the hydro- 

 fuge by various means ; indeed the same mode which the Italians adopted 

 for panels would quite answer this end. These various methods are, how- 

 ever, so intimately connected with the general question respecting the early 

 practice of Oil-painting, that, to avoid repetition, they may be reserved till 

 that inquiry can receive due attention. 



A method invented byM. Hussenot, called " Peinture al'Huile en Feuilles," 

 consists in the preparation of very thin sheets of oil pigment (for example 

 white lead), which may be rolled like cloth. They may be made of any size, 

 or may be fitted together so as to exhibit no joining. A sheet of paint, so 

 prepared, is fastened in a temporary manner on a panel, or on cloth attached 

 to a stretching-frame, and the artist completes his picture. When dry it is 

 rolled up, carried to the place for which it is destined, and permanently fixed 

 to the wall, being then made to adhere throughout its whole surface, proba- 

 bly by the application of a coat of white lead, to the wall. The objection to 

 this mode (to say nothing of the oil ground) for important paintings, is the 

 extreme danger of accident in the rolling and unrolling. For ordinary pur- 

 poses it offers great facilities, since the application of decorations in oil on 

 the walls of rooms or on shop fronts can be accomplished in a few hours, the 

 work having been prepared without inconvenience in the study of the 

 artist. -t^ 



4 5 See " Peinture h I'Huile en Feuilles, inveiit^e par M. Hussenot, par A. de la Fize- 

 li^ve." Paris, 1843. See also " Rapport de I'Acadeniie Royale de Metz sur les Proc6d^g 

 de Peinture inventus par M. Hussenot." Metz, 23rd November, 1842. 



COMMISSION ON THE FINK ARTS.-CHOICK OF SUBJECTS. 



Considerable surprise has been felt at the award of prize works in the recent 

 cartoon exhibition, and also at the seh'Clion of subjects for the decoration of 

 the House of Lords. On the former we shall not now so strongly dwell ; but 

 we cannot pass over the latter, because, to our minds, it is fraught with mis- 

 chief, not only in its present influence but in its whole bearings, it suggests 

 the fear of sad want of judgment in the individual instance, and the probable 

 want of it on all the future proceedings. We are the more proinpled to take 

 up the question as we have before us the controversy between Mr. Hallam and 

 Lord Mahon, appended to the Commissioners' Report. For the decoration 

 of the House of Lords have been chosen three allegorical subjects, we do not 

 complain of them because they are allegorical, and three historical events. 

 The principle which has guided the Commissioners in the individual selections 

 we cannot understand, clearly the House of Lords cannot be devoted to the 

 sovereign solely, any more than it could be to the House of Commons, it must 

 be treated either as the assembly hall of the whole legislature, or as that of 

 the House of Lords only, and in either case the present arrangement is by no 

 means fitting. It might, however, be decorated with the representations of 

 great constitutional events, but even that is not the case now. We have 

 Religion, Justice, and Chivalry, the latter a very queer constitutional ele- 

 ment, and the Baptism of Elhelbert, Prince Henry acknowledging the 

 authority of Chief Justice Gascoigne, and Edward the Black Prince receiving 

 the garter from Edward III., neither of which latter have any constitutional 

 importance, or bearing upon the functions of the House, while there would 

 have been no difficulty in finding subjects more fitting in amoral and artistical 

 point of view. A Council of ancient English Princes and Chieftains, the germ 

 of the Parliamentary system ; King Alfred submitting his laws to the Witen- 

 agemot ; the Witenagemot recognizing the Accession of King Edward the 

 Confessor; Henry the First restoring the Laws of Edward the Confessor; 

 Henry the Third presiding in his Parliament; Trial of David, Prince of 

 Wales, before the Parliament, 1283; Edward the Third, 1363, consenting to 

 the Statute (36 Edw. III. c. 15) that pleas shall be pleaded in the English 

 tongue ; Edward the Third investing Edward the Black Prince as Duke of 

 Cornwall in full Parliament, 1337. Either of these, we conceive, would be 

 much more fitting for the decoration of a House of Lords, though many 

 other subjects may be found, state trials, &c. and many important historical 

 events must he excluded, as invidious to some branch of the legislature, and 

 others because they are too modern. Certainly no worse choice could be 

 made than that which has been announced, and if such unmeaning decora- 

 tion is to degiade the House of Lords the sooner the paper hanger is called in 

 the better, though there is one consolation that a future age might have more 

 discrimination, remove the proposed fadaises, and put up more significant 

 works. What great idea can indeed be communicated to the spectator by 

 Chivalry and Chief Justice Gascoigne, and what great idea can inspire the 

 artist? Are we reminded of the temple of legislation belonging to a great 

 nation, and of the glorious constitution, which twenty centuries of liberty 

 have fostered to its present growth ? Shall we see anything but gawd and 

 glitter and prettiness, things perhaps not works of art, certainly not-works ol 

 mind ? 



