18-15.] 



THK CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECTS JOURNAL 



the animus of his assertion, therefore, tn abler he.ids. I can e.isilv 

 conceive the mere cxclaui.xtion of Reyiiukls, thai he would give "u 

 thousand guineas to know this and that," vvoiilJ be more readily made 

 by the iiian atcustoined to kei-j), and therefore lo rely upon, a diary, 

 than by persons wlio keep none and exercise inenioiy ; iinci, while I 

 abstain from any uncourteous language, I do say, if Sir Martin lotre 

 ignorant of the cxi^tenc^' and .luthentieity of these four copies, on the 

 one hand, or knowing and feeling the fact, could fail to appreciate the 

 worth of what may justly be compared to the in iriner's compass in 

 its applications to painting, few, very few could envy his head or 

 heart; and it is witli genuine sorrow 1 confess an error arising out of 

 a natural and manly reliance on his word. 



The instant 1 discovered the fact I suggested to a friend an imme- 

 diate hint to Mr. Eastlake, in his public capacity, that cither the Royal 

 Academy or the British Museum ought to possess the Diarv, if " it 

 could be bought;" and I am happy one satisfaction, at least, arises out 

 of the business, — a shabby attempt to put it down ends in fixing irre- 

 vocably its unquestionable truth. 



Mr. Haydon, in speaking of me, Wilhclin de Winlerton, says, an 

 "intelligent correspondent" — does ho consider this a compliment? 

 It is, I confess,.! wee bit something, as Wilkie might have said, higher 

 on the easel of creation than the animals he describes so boldly ; but, 

 while new [irint dresses and tyro scribes are the creatures for common- 

 place, my poor tatterdemalion vest, after thirty years' hard wear, 

 would have been more appropriately spoken of, and to, by a free 

 comment on anything I may have written respecting his Art. 

 I am, SiQ., 



WlLHEL.M DE WlNIEUTO.N. 



December U)lh, 1S14. 



ON THE OILS HITHERTO USED IN PAINTING; 



AND THE NATURAL A3 WELL AS REQUIRED PROPERTIES OF ALL 



OILS FOR ITS USES. 



No. I. 



Sir — Nearly thirty years devoted to this subject have taught me 

 that the statements and opiuions of your correspondent Wilhelni de 

 Winterton, emanate from no trifling degree of thought and more ex- 

 perience; twenty-five or six years ago I broached both in public and 

 private the fact he now proclaims, that fine and pure oil excelled 

 every mixture of varnish in beauty and eflecf, provided such oil were 

 not nsed in excess ; and that the principle of permanence in oil paint- 

 ing, was to be looked for in such a source alone ; while paintings in 

 water had no resource but pigmental permanence or outer varnish. 

 I have expended some hundreds on the subject, especially in fruitless 

 attempts to render the permanent white used in water more opaque, 

 ;. e. fuller of bodv or covering power, and expended them in vain; but I 

 have no hesitation in asserting that, had I succeeded to my heart's 

 content — although my purse might have been immensely profitted — 

 for all painters incessantly cried hourly for a permanent oil white — the 

 thing would have been worthless and deceptive in itself — inasmuch, 

 like ultramarine it would have practically changed — that is, the oil 

 would have risen and changed ; and, as a consequence, a permanent 

 white would have appeared yellow, as that pigment appears green 

 from the same cause. 



Your correspondent is also right with reference to the acute and 

 correct observance of fact displ.iyed by the old masters in painting, 

 who, like their contemporaries in jdiysic, were keen observers of facts, 

 not flippant teachers r.f airy nothings; and, as a proof, I instance 

 Leonardo da Vinci, who had observed the rising of oil and its subse- 

 quent discolouration ; but, taking up a mistaken idea of the cause, 

 viz., that the husks of his nuts give out a dark colouring matter — he 

 blanched them after soaking in hot water by rubbing oft' the skins, as 

 the apothecaries blanch almonds prior to making a milky emulsion by 

 heating them with water in marble vessels— he fell then, upon a 

 remedy worse than the disease, for believing implicitly in the purity 

 of bis oil— subsequently procured after the manner of the Persians, 

 who extract the attar of roses, viz., by pouring boiling water on his 

 bruised kernels and skimming off the ascending oil— Leonardi used 

 more oil than other painters of his day, and hence his pictures rank 

 by no means high as to permanence : Wilkie, when it Italy, described 

 his Last Supper as awfully gone, when i fresco painted in the same 

 building, long antecedently, remained fresh. It mu«t be remembered 

 too, that Rubens, at any rate after, if not before, he painted the 



Brazen Serpent,' used iiiHiiitely less oil, and yet his pictures are not 

 only more perfect, but defy the picture cleaner's solvents — simply be- 

 cause he used Hiorttur|ientine, or naphtha, and glazed with — some say 

 copal — I say amber. 



This must not be doubted, because such |)ainting, in the tighter por- 

 tions of many, flatten skies, easily rubs out, and is not Kolid. Reshious 

 matter (solid turpentine whitli, in nature, is often mixed with gum,) 

 was also much used one hundred i/ears before his day, as well as subse- 

 ([uenlly ; and resinous matter gives as much solidity as any oil, an 

 example whereof I examined from the easel of a pupil of Georgione, 

 which was so perfect a mass of resin the whole picture might hive been 

 crumbled into dust, like mastic varnish; a state no painting, however old, 

 could reach if painted with excess of oil ; mil 1 am strongly induced 

 to believe, that to a knowledge of this f ict, but a misapplication of 

 the principle, we owe more than half of Sir Joshua Reynolds' line tone, 

 colour, and eltect being lost in multitudinous cracks. Sir Joshua was 

 not aware, also, that the law which governs the drying of oils, and 

 resins dissolved in oils, is inverscd in the drying of liquid resins, or 

 resins dissolved in spirits, as I shall fully devclope in my next jiaper, 

 simply premising here, by way of elucidiition, the more hard and 

 fiercely drying the forimr are the more they are (lis|)ose(l to crack; 

 whereas, the more soft and destitute the latter in drying power the 

 greater is the cracky tendency. 



Holding these opinions, I taught them, and was laughed at as 

 the best compliment due — even after I pointed out the superior 

 permanence of house-painters flatten, and caused a room to be so 

 painted by a very worthy man, the late Mr. James Newman, at 

 his country residence. Whetstone House, at the time another was 

 painted in Soho .Square with oil; and the result answered my expecta- 

 tions fully; the one became whiter, and the other a filthy yellow. 

 Again, in ls21 I s.iw a most respectable picture cleaner residing with 

 me, rub oflF some of the permanent skies while the oil saturated ones 

 were changed even where ultramarine had been usrd : still did art 

 reject the proft'ered boon, and artists laugh at ine : Mr. George Saunders 

 alone listened respectfully and acquiesced. Now what are the pro- 

 perties required ? Simply those De Winterton has presented to your 

 readers, but, of course, in justice to the limits of your pages, in general 

 language only. 



The hasty opinions of M.Merimee, like him, I regret : our object 

 is not to brighten colours, but to render them permanent — to dry them 

 rapidly in this, and all similar climates, without rising and without 

 horn, which cannot be done except by approaching these ancient skies 

 and this flatten in elementary power ; but to oil. 



Nut oil, I believe with him to be worthless, except to grind colours 

 ill which are intended to be kept — because it does not dry: — poppy 

 and linseed oils are those obviously indicated by common sense, be- 

 cause they do dry — to which may be added, in this and similar cli- 

 mates, oil of henipseed (if properly made), and in hot ones castor oil, 

 not that of olives, very generally used in Italy to prevent drying; it 

 must, however, be carefully used or it will beget tack ; and where- 

 ever an Italian picture of the higher order has failed, it has cither 

 been from excess of oil, or the use of olive oil as a check upon drying. 

 Some silly offspring- of the easy chair of an institution has suggested 

 to English artists the separation of the oil inio elain and steiriiie, its 

 elementary principles — without a vestige of practical know ledge or 

 rational motive — supposing the fatty, but more solid sleirinc injured 

 till' oil — wliereas the elain, once separated, (/r/es much uvrsc, and is of 

 an inferior colour — rises as much — horns as fully, and deteriorates as 

 perfectly as before : so nuich for the worth of institution gentry, the 

 moment they leave the mere schoolmaster's chair. Alas! you might 

 as rationally expect the pedagogue who teaches the elements of navi- 

 gation to practically steer a ship ; what would be the result 1 and yet, 

 these men are laughably enough looked up to, on practical matter-, 

 and strutting in all the false plumage of the daw, in which you have 

 ridiculously decked their backs, are prrmitted often to spoil the best 

 of arts, and damn the best of [ilans. 



Such men, Sir, like the pedagogue, may be highly and miquestion- 

 ably respectable in their sphere, but keep them in it in the iiime of 

 all the saints— out of it they remind you of Scaliger, and Den John- 

 son's — 



"Word catchers, youth cheaters, vain-gloryosophers, 

 For such are your seekers of virluc-iihilosophers." 



1 Some persons, and gilted men too, assert thnl, tn a blind reliauee on the " stiljse- 

 qiient" practice of Uiibens, and llie invulnerable powers of llis "glaring," the picture 

 cleaner has spoiled this picture by taking oft all that liner linishiug which 'once existed.' 

 Others, and accomplished men also, say. The Brazen Serpent • never had been glazed at 

 all ;• and I am not so truly presumptuous as to give an opinion. 



- A note to Haydon's Lectures shews us some ot the minor fry of theory liave infected 

 liini too, ul)out olein ami steirine ; why, so far from being * siccative;' the discoverer of 

 elain or olein many years ago stiggcBted it to watchmaliers as a substituti: for oil of the 

 beu nut, because it would not dry I 



