38 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECT'S JOURNAL. 



[February, 



been despoiled of a magnificent piece of decoration, but because it is 

 liliely to prejudice against, and deter from, again attempting tessel- 

 lated flooring — at least upon anything like tlie same scale. 



We have not yet taken our readers over the whole edifice, but, al- 

 though mueli that is highly attractive and wortliy of notice remains to 

 be spoken of, — viz., the apartments constituting what is called 'Lloyds', 

 which are unusually spacious, and in some respects of novel character 

 also, — we must be excused from conducting them upstairs, lest the 

 Editor's patience should be exhausted, and he kick us and our article 

 down stairs without any ceremony. So instead of looking at those 

 rooms, it behoves us to look to ourselves, and to see that our paper, 

 does not grow to such dimensions that no room can be found for it, 

 but it must be exchanged for some other, which sort of Exchange 

 we most assuredly should not admire at all, nor should we call it a 

 Royal one, though made by Regina herself. 



ON THE OILS HITHERTO USED IN PAINTING; 



AND THE NATURAL AS WELL AS REQUIRED PROPERTIES OF ALL 

 OILS FOR ITS USES. 



No. IL 



Lanzi" might well say, " Much will he do for the Art who can tell 

 us with what gums, with what mixtures these Greeks painted ;" and 

 as justly assert, after all his indefatigable enquiries, " Correggio's 

 vehicle is lost and inimitable ;" for, after years of labour, I came to 

 the conclusion, that no one oil, no one agent, as a vehicle,^ could effect 

 the desired end ; and, therefore, by combining the elementary princi- 

 ples of the best terebinthinaties, so as to dry without the rising of oil 

 and thereby prevent lowering and yellow iiorn, I gained as far as I 

 could judge, tlie chief desideratum of the Art, and subsequently joined 

 to this tlie powers of glassa, which I saw clearly had been used by 

 Correggio and Rubens so as to glaze with that splendid, ever-flowing 

 power, which I honestly believe no other earthly agent at all ap- 

 proaches ; but the difficulties of the subject in its enforcement, no 

 man can possibly conceive. I have now before me six quart bottles 

 of the same agency, varied to suit first one caprice, then another, until 

 nothing short of the most minute diary could have prevented confusion 

 and loss of first principles, and this only between the dates 1341 and 

 1844, and two of the finest elementary matters were actually rejected, 

 one to please a colourman's^ caprice because of its colour, the other 

 because of its smell, in defiance of all my experience and assertions; 

 although, I am now prepared to prove by the living testimony of an 

 artist of no ordinary' qualifications, that an Italian experimentalist 

 of note now living, extracted the one from an accredited picture 

 of Correggio, which my friend saw, first in the state of powder, 

 next after evaporation of its solution hi its original form; and 

 that in searching the public archives he found evidence of the ex- 

 penditure for glassa, &c. And further that my friend under his 

 instruction learned to overcome its difficulties,'* used it, and con- 

 tinues to use it with unquestionable effect; nay more, the employers 

 of Corrgegio," paid for similar articles for Correggio's use ; and three 

 powerful agents out of five, acquired by me from sheer thought, 

 labour and cost, in a word from practical deduclion, were proved, 

 to ray conviction at least, to have been actually used by this hitherto 

 inimitable painter; and that with one alone a mere dauber could 



1 Lanzl, Vol. I. 



a So Utile do varnish makers know or even colourmen what a vehicle requires, I am 

 now compelled to retrace my steps, and the vehicle is now prsciaely what my landficape 

 by Birch was painted with, and Insert those agents In t845 which in 1H42 Wassrs. New- 

 m«Q'fl rejected. 



a That is a necessary caprice of trade; the tradesman keeps what will sell— what the 

 majority dsmands, and he considers such demands his desiderata. 



4 Mr. Salter, the painter of the Waterloo Banquet, of 5(j, Pall Mall, wha knows more 

 of vehicle than any man I have met witli in thirty years. 



a He who found the ag8nt(l8'i7), from an ancient book, was taught by him who disco- 

 vered it by analysifl of a piece of a real Correggio * to use it.* Mark the similitude of our 

 labours and circumstances— a practised painter could not use it well until taught by the 

 philosopher; a colourman and amateur painter rejected mine first as too dark, second as 

 of a bad smell ; Mr. Birch's brushes stuck fast in my landscape two years ago, as too 

 fiercely drying; Mr. Easllake could not get his first specimen to * dry at all'— yet do we 

 agree. 



fl This will he better given in full and ' formally* by my valuable friend in a communi- 

 cation to the Royal Commission of the Fine Arts, and In deference to whose " equal right 

 to fame" I use the now obsolete term " glassa," (which I take to have been a trading term 

 synonymous with what was termed gutta succina), the pure gum fornis of the Monk Theo- 

 pbUua, which Merlmee, as a crotchet, identified with copal,— but which no more referred 

 to an absolute "gum" than the old name of catechu, a vegetable extract, viz., Terra 

 Japonica— referred to any earth. — I would neither forestall my own " past" communica- 

 tion to the Secretary of the Royal Commission of the Fine Arts, nor any my friend may 

 intend to make, for this is a second advent of painting, au absolute resurrection of the 

 vehicle of CorreEgio, 



have produced impasta and luminosity which Reynolds tried in vain 

 to aehieve. But, to return systematically to my last paper. 



Oils, I have said, must not be tampered with. A simple, pure, 

 vegetable oil such as linseed or poppy, bleached,' if you please to 

 ble;ich at all, in defiance of my experience, by the sun alone, (although 

 in this climate you never can gain the state called by Cennini baked — 

 a state quite opposite to tliat of buikd oil.) A simple oil, I say, joined 

 with a pure resinous vehicle, a proper dryer for this climate, and such 

 a glazing will defy time; and, I repeat, with these, good flake or 

 Kremnilz white is more jiermanent than ultramarine in ordinary oils 

 and JVTacgelps : for the one will not change, as a white, while the 

 other does, in effect, change as a blue (however permanent in itself^, 

 when covered by an acquired yellow. 



It becomes clear therefore, painters who love their Art and look for 

 fame, for I do not address such vulgar drivellers as said the other day 

 publicly, " he cared not, so long as his pictures outlived the exhibi- 

 tion and brought him the price, if they died away the next day;" and 

 some months ago to another — " what care I, Ihey will stand my time" 

 — such beings are too grovelling, too heartless to feel the lash, or I 

 would broadly give the " local habitation and the name." Painters 

 who seek the laurel wreath of posterity must dash off their ancient 

 prejudices — spurn idle empirics who advertise this and that colour or 

 mixture, and inverse their ideas of permanence, choose simple pig- 

 ments few in number, torture less with the brush, depend wholly and 

 solely on vehicle, and use less oil and tliat simple and pure, lieedless 

 of shop limpidity — use a proper dryer with every lead or tender colour 

 as well as with lakes or blacks, and cease to be deluded by body, 

 however convenient it may be. They must cast aside all Macgelps 

 sold in the shops, however puffed off, and make their own of copal or 

 glassa, which is infinitely better, and remember the empirical addition 

 of copal to brighten colours, however learnedly vaunted by Merimee, 

 only betrays a total ignorance of all practical desiderata and the sim- 

 ple principles of permanence. Their oil will then not retrograde, as 

 it now does, by an unerring law of nature, and their pictures will not 

 die away or crack, but remain gloriously steadfast, rich, flowing and 

 fresh. 



I have alluded, in my last paper, to the non-use of dryers except 

 where a lake or black required forcing, let them remember lead re- 

 quires forcing also, simply because it wants also fixing as rapidly as 

 possible, and so with vermilion, &c., or its gravity assists the oil in 

 rising, which it does into cups or valliesfrom which the skin radiates, 

 and tiiis skin wdiicli Fernbach mistakes for an oleate of the pigment 

 contains no pigment at all, it is a mere film or artificial caoutchouc 

 (or Indian rubber) and the pigment is always found beneath after rub- 

 bing it off with pumice, beautifully pure but full of vallies. Fernbach 

 in fact rides a silly hobby," that of theoretic chemistry from a bad 

 school, with nomenclatuie for a vest and his saddle a sort of Liebig 

 skin. I am amply disposed, however, to "render unto CiBsar the 

 things which are Cffisar's, and unto God the things which are his." 

 M. Fernbach is said to possess some secret vehicle on which he sets a 

 high value, and that the book, therefore, he has uishered into the 

 world contains it not, but that this vehicle smells strongly of the 

 copaiba balsam — here the enquirer has shaken Liebig's nonsensical 

 elementary science off, and gained a grand point. Copaiba was used 

 by me twenty years ago, and every other natural balsam and gum resiu, 

 not only known to modern medicine, but many which modern medicine 

 scarcely knows the name of." Copaiba was recurred to again by me 

 four years ago. With copaiba, as one agent, I had a landscape painted 

 by a Mr. Birch'" two years ago ;" and two quarts now stand as refuse 

 in Soho Square. Copaiba I first used twenty years ago with an es- 

 sential oil to imitate a balsam long forgotten, but of great solvent 

 powers, viz. the beautiful Balm of Qilead (Balsamum Gtleadensis) of 

 which I possessed a brilliant specimen from the cabinet of the late 

 Dr. William Harris, the well-known bibliomaniac. Copaiba was used 

 by Sir Joshua Reynolds, as I see by liis diary ; and whoever possesses 

 at this moment Sir Joshua's portrait of Goldsmith can amply test my 

 experience, if painted, as he states in the diary, with copaivi, as 

 he calls it, and lead, it will be found the hand has the colour good, 

 impasta fair, but too fixed, too solid, that is not floating as if fixable 

 but not fixed — and finally, full of cracks, — this will surely be if the 



^ See further of Rlr. Salter's beautiful alcoholic treatment In the sequel. 



9 And Salter has profited by not following the same path. Let a painter be well read 

 and versed in the nature and history of what he uses, hut never a chemist (affected to be), 

 nor ever trust the oxygen and hydrogen gentry of the mere teacher's chair, these men are 

 Incubi and Ignes fatul, out of their sphere they laugh at your folly while you quote their 

 trash. Obviously they are theorists,— practically know nothing. The worst physicians, 

 toxicologists, painters, and farmers I ever knew, were these amphlbire of science. 



Not one in every thousand ever heard of some common dispensatories not five hun- 

 dred years old. I could prescribe with 8 or 10 synonymes and medicines the majority 

 never heard of; and I name It only to exemplify the fact that modern chemistry, bye- 

 named philosophy, Is the owl on the donkey of Pope's Dunclad, and its motto " oU des. 

 peiandum." 



a u Of Brewer Street, Golden Square, 



