S78 



THE CIVIL ENGINE[']R AND ARCHITECTS JOURNAL. 



[October, 



THE PRESENT STATE, PROSPECTS, AND THEORY OF 



PAINTING. 



No. 11. 



Tinion may be correct; many a devil of angel's face jhQ]/ have 

 graced the ranks of the Royal Academy, but wliere, good Censor, is 

 the Assembly without one '. Even in the office of this Journal a devil, 

 of no grace at all, called load chargeable instead of " clinngiahle" and 

 made me speak of Aglio, — the spirit embodied of Moovfields immor- 

 tality, — as if a common thing, with a little "a;" when his "Reeol- 

 Icclioiis of Naples," — a really near approach to Claude Lorraine upon 

 plaster — amply demanded the largest pica, — the pearl thi'refore was 

 thrown "unto swine :" and, to the devils of the jjress, — in their slavish 

 servility — we owe the continuance of the evil," but, to return. 



I have said that, oil painting requires only to'place its reliance on 

 the vehicle, not the individual permanence of each colour, and that 

 the vehicle, not the pigment, changes.- I have given one proof in 

 the green skies painted with ultramarine, wherever rather more oil 

 than usual had been used ; I will now give another — let any arlist 

 examine his picture three weeks after painting, by which time the 

 obvious yellowing, skinning, and consequent lowering of tone will have 

 taken place, let him scrape off the skin and there he will find the colour 

 in its pristine state ; hence the chalkiness of a majority of "cleaned 

 nwA restored" pictures, so disgusting to the eye and inimical to the 

 original effect; while, on the contrary, wherever the skies have been 

 painted with less oil and >no;'e turpentine (an analogy of house painters' 

 flatten), — skies which are readily injured, nay rubbed out, by the 

 cleaner's cotton wool, albeit protected by the usual dip of oil, — there, 

 I say, ultramarine never yet was seen green in tone. 



Let us rapidly examine the theory, first of the rising of the oil, 

 secondly of the skin and its yellowing, tor these, ultimately, compre- 

 hend the brownish yellow horn ; whicli, as Sir jiartin Archer Shee 

 observed to me, is "what the experienced artist wishes to avoid alone."-' 

 Let us then trace the cause of the yellowing, and the wisdom or folly 

 of the majority of artists in the use or abuse of dryers ; and that gene- 

 ralization of practice which leads the man, accustomed to paint in 

 England to furnish himself with the same material in preparing for 

 the East Indies; in a word, to forget climate, of which I shall speak 

 again, when John Van Eyck shall be named, merely recording here an 

 assurance of Sir David, then Mr. Wilkie, (in 1S21,) that he had seen 

 Italian artists use olive oil \.o prevent the drying of their pictures, pre- 

 cisely as Rom;ui masons kept their mortar to become carbonated, and 

 thereby weakened, on the surface to adapt it to their atmosphere, and 

 that from sheer necessity, not wisdom or choice. 



Times and circumstLinces change; the artist is no longer his own 

 manipulator; he no longer buys his materials of the apothecary, who, 

 as a man of education, knew his business ; and happily so for us, in 

 some of its consequences; instances of mala praxis are common 

 enough as it is, and might be quadrupled if that learned body the 

 Apothecaries Company had once more to grind Naples yellow and 

 orpiment, arseniate of copper, or red oxide of lead, however qualified 



1 Nothing belter proves this than tne trash vomited ul'len by SL-otdi editors, I tlavc 

 siiy ivith refeience to Wilkie. Timon calls him " timid and selfish," ond Tiraon kiiciv 

 him long,— so did I, and 1 call him paltry, shnfflinB, dirty, nnfeelini; and mean. ) saw 

 him and appealed to him in ISad, at the Manor House, to save from starving a fellow man; 

 one too, who had served, and materially served, his art, and whn, in 1821, was his per- 

 sonal, intimate friend. The e.\alted David, with great difficulty, remembered such a name 

 at all,— buttoned up his well-liued pocket, and retired I Now marl< the difference, wreath 

 the laurel for the worthier head, and ' raemit qui palmam ferat.' BIyrelnrn was post the 

 gate of poor John Varley, the landscape painter, then doubly locked to keep out the 

 baihfls. John heard the case with a genuine mingling of pity and disgust,— emptied his 

 pockets 01 ten shillings and some copper coin, which, with tears in liis eyes, he halverl 

 for his fellow man : I solemnly pledged myself to do justice to both, and such, before my 

 God, I do in the service of man. 



2 This has one exception. Oil painting on plastered walls— in which case the pigment 

 not the vehicle changes ; and to prevent which nothing more is necessary than first, to 

 secure it from damp, as suggested by Mr. Eastlake in the Royal Commission's 2nd report ; 

 secondly, when the plaster, that is tiie intonaco,or last coat, issufficientlydry topainton, 

 to first prepare it with a proper panel ground, for which none are better qualified than a 

 BIr. Wing, of Fording Bridge, in Hampshire, some of whose Flemish grounds I have seen 

 heautituUy prepared; the material should be Cornish porcelain clay (not whiting) finely 

 washed, as used by the repairers of Ger.nan clock dials, if injured in their transit from the 

 Black Forest. But here a caution, ■ en passant,' if some saccharine matter be forgotten 

 parchment or any other size will ultimately crack under subsequent varnish ; painting 

 executed in oil would then change by its vehicle alone— in a word, he on a par with that 

 on panel. Hence, also, arose a similar blackening of some Venetian pictures on Ume or 

 gesso in lieu of aluminous grounds. 



_ 3 And which, as the Secretary of the Commission observed, with equal Justice, has 

 good as well as ' bad' properties ; for as much as, it protects the base, although it depre- 

 ciates the surface during drying, so • perfectly' that, if it could be subsequently cleaned 

 ofi- readily and safely, he would prefer "all his pictures to skin." In fact, one artist I am 

 acquiiinted with, Increases this skin first, to getrid of it byfrictionor scraping afterwards, 

 antl inen, hear it Hibernians, lislen la it Timon, glazes with the same or similar materials, 

 and It mos. be confe^seil he makes durable work, but, notwithstanding, it is a circuilous, 

 ™ h!.LTM''"^i'■ f;"''"(-''li'*«-iiti. and one too, which could never be practised at all 



of nitr^I^.rt ;;.,.''■ '!'' ""*"' '"■'^'1 'if'-'il. ■■"I'l when nitric ether, or sweet spirits 



ot nitie and water, one part to eight, would wash it off. 



to manipulate brass. He buys his materials mixed to his hands, of a 

 hundred (lualities and of a hundred hues, by a motley group of pencil- 

 makers, brushmakers, comb sellers and perfumers, Jews, Christians, 

 and t^uvikers, scarcely one of whom conltl be found reared to, and un- 

 derstanding his trade. He therefore works, like a mole, in the dark ; 

 and even ainong the exceptions where reading, thought and acumen 

 are conspicuously his, many cases of which I know, so strong is the 

 force of habit, so intense the weight of old prejudices, he merits often 

 the Chinese compliment to an European, he has "one eye" truly, and 

 that one constitutes the Cyclops at best; but, enough. 



The rising of the oil is simple and mechanical. The colourman 

 grintls his pigment with nut, poppy, or linseed oil, and, as no precau- 

 tionary measures are taken to prevent if, the gravity of the colour and 

 levity of the oil must be called into play the instant it is placed at rest 

 in the bladder or tube, to which, in the latter case, are added — as a 

 just chastisement for the use of a frippery of the day — chemical and 

 galvanic influence. This half deranged mixture is then as carelessly, 

 loosely, and I have often seen dirtily, blended on the palette, and 

 transferred to the canvas, to rise more efliciently as it dries, and that 

 so obviously it may be seen in cups by an ordinary leus; then comes 

 direct chemical action to complete the painter's infliction ; the value 

 of time and money, anxiety and climate, combine to increase the hue 

 and cry for dryers — metallic oxides and boiled oil, Mac Gellup and 

 gumption, japanner's gold size, ond other expedients are recurred 

 to ; the doom of the modem picture is inevitably sealed, and that in 

 the direct ratio of its smaller size and elaborate finish; and to these, 

 again, are added, as with Wilkie in his later day, asphaltum — 

 lamentable proofs of the effects of which are fast shewing themselves 

 in the cracky tendency of many of his pictures, which one day or 

 other will vie with those of Reynolds. 



Here it may be well to digress a little, at.d call reflection and com- 

 mon sense into play : Reynolds saw, like Merimee, that something 

 similar to varnish was visible in ancient pictures, and thence took up 

 his crotchets, but, unlike the Frenchman, never adhered very long or 

 faithfully to any; neither of them saw the true and simple principle 

 of permanence, and both were deceived by the foolish, yet alluring 

 presumption that such addition of varnish gave effect and beauty, 

 depth and bearing out to the work, an inference as deceptive as it is 

 plausible; for, I assort fearlessly, "there never was, and never will 

 he a varnish made (taking the word in the ordinary sense) which 

 gives half the splendour'^ to any pigment tliat is always given by pure 

 oil alone, nay the addition of wax, which gives a semi-opacity, sur- 

 passes the admixture of the most elegant compound. 



Here we see the rock on which the ban^ue of Sir Joshua struck ; 

 here the fog in which his fine mind foundered, for here is the point 

 where his brain became a mass of curds and whey — his practice an 

 ever vacillating, muddled dash at crude experiment ; for, contrary to 

 the allegation of the person who professes to hold, in his own hand- 

 writing, a diary of practice, very ingeniously woven out of scraps and 

 patches by some keen observer of his habits, he kept no journal, and 

 declared, in the bearing of Sir M. A. Shee and others still living, "I'd 

 give a thousand guineas if I knew how, and with what I painted this, 

 and that, and this." Here M. Merimee, with the true acuteness and 

 brilliance of French theory joined to flimsy practice and extravagant 

 assumption, took his stand. Varnishes obviously produce a certain 

 effect, by preventing the opacity of oil, if properly made and modified ; 

 but, in his opinion, by increasing the gloss and beauty of colours ; and 

 therefore, neck or nothing, helter skelter, varnishes and wax, boiled 

 oil and asphaltum, resin and alcohol, mastic and chio-turpentine, yel- 

 low resin and Mac Gellup, mastic and mummy with the one, and oil 

 copal with the other must be used, not as an auxiliary means, carefully 

 moulded, but the grand panacea, the vis vita of the art, and I appeal 

 to the careful observer of passing events whether every successive 

 follower of either has not failed ? 



M. Merimee was besides perfectly ignorant of the assumed fact on 

 which, as a base, his superstructure was raised ; he was grossly igno- 

 rant of copal and all its attributes! he had never see?i any such as he 

 describes, much less made any ; Theophilus did not, Sarsfield Taylor 

 could not, follow practically his formulary. Merimee, par accident, 

 had used some weak copal and found it a slow dryer, and was delighted 

 with the saddle which fitted the back of his hobby, but he knew ntjt 

 the fact that, ?/ made with linseed oil alone, it would never dry with- 

 out a stove. The translator, I repeat, never saw any, simply because 

 it is never made, and if made would never sell; but I wifl enlighten 

 him — the, so called, oil copal of trade is a compound of boiled oil, 



•1 M, Merimee having taken up this crochet at once fell into another, viz. that Theo- 

 philus, who described a method of turning gumma glassa, or gum fornis, into varnish, 

 must have meant, und did mean, the gum resin copal, without one shade of even pre- 

 sumptive proof; and his trnnslator pledges his honour thHt it is gospel tnitb, whicli re- 

 minds us of Johannah Soutlitote and Shiloli faith ! 



