NAIURE 



357 



THURSDAY, AUGUST, 19, iS 



COLOURS IN ART 

 A Handbook for Painters and Art Students on the 

 Character and Use of Colours, their Permanent and 

 Fugitive Qualities, and the Vehicles proper to Etnploy. 

 Also Short Remarks on the Practice of Paititijig in Oil 

 and Water-Colours. By W. J. Muckley. (London : 

 Baillifere, Tindall, and Cox, 18S0.) 



THAT a book for the instruction of artists as to the 

 composition and purity of their pigments is much 

 needed can hardly be denied. The difficulty, however, in 

 writing such a book is very great ; for it must either be 

 very incomplete or contain a large amount of matter 

 which but very few artists can understand. And no one 

 is competent to write such a book but he who has some 

 knowledge of painters' manipulations and a very good 

 knoW'ledge of chemistry ; to drop the chemistry and take 

 upon faith what has been written about the purity and 

 nature of pigments, is hardly the method which should be 

 adopted, and the person who does it is not likely to be a 

 very safe guide to the artist, although he may give very 

 many useful hints, and state much that is true. To treat 

 of colours properly their composition must be described 

 and the adulterations to which they are liable should be 

 explained, which cannot be done without a certain amount 

 of chemistry and chemical teiTns, and if the persons who 

 read a book on pigments know nothing about chemistry, 

 how can they be benefited by it ? And this is difficulty 

 number two. How is it to be overcome ? Why, simply 

 by artists learning something of chemistry ? There is no 

 other way for it. A book so incomplete as that under 

 consideration is very misleading, because a person after 

 reading it will know but little more about pigments than 

 when he began. Of what use is it to know that cadmium 

 yellow is a "sulphide of the metal cadmium," and that 

 "emerald green is a preparation of copper," unless it be 

 known that the elements which compose each have a 

 decided liking for changing places, and that if these 

 pigments are brought into contact the change will 

 assuredly take place to the entire destruction of the tint 

 of both of them ? The real truth of the matter is that 

 until artists will consent to become, to a certain extent, 

 students of science, they will never get out of their diffi- 

 culties, and if they will consent to this, to some of them we 

 fear derogatory task, they will find that there is more 

 help for them from science than they imagined : chemistry 

 will lead to physics, and then for the first time perhaps 

 many of them will learn what colour is, and what light 

 and shade really are, and new views will burst upon them, 

 and new methods of using their pigments will become 

 necessary, and then pictures will be resplendent with 

 nature's tints, and transparency will replace opacity, and 

 nature will have some chance of being fairly represented. 

 There are many artists who are scientific men, and there 

 are others to whom nature has given special powers ; and 

 these show by their works that they understand or 

 appreciate the true nature of colour and of light and 

 shade. Look at Mr. Brett's sea-pieces (he is a scientific 

 man of note), they are bright, luminous, and true to 

 nature, although they may not please painters of the old 

 Vol. XXII.— No. 564 



school, one of whom once, when asked what he thought of 

 one of this artist's pictures, was heard to say he did not 

 like rocks. As an illustration of one who lays no claim to 

 be a scientific man, take Mr. Herbert's painting of Moses 

 in the House of Lords, where bodies of the colour nearly 

 of the sandy back ground stand out from it without any 

 tricks, with all the vivid distinctness of a stereoscopic 

 picture. 



To those who know nothing of chemistry what direc- 

 tions can be given for the use of paints which in them- 

 selves are stable, but which cannot be mixed with 

 certain others .' It would take a huge volume to record 

 all the cases in which they could be used, and to note all 

 the contingencies which might arise to influence them, 

 and yet a little sound chemical knowledge would make 

 the matter easy and brief. Good champagne is a good 

 and wholesome wine, and good old port is a nectar fit for ■ 

 the gods, and hock and claret are cooling drinks which, 

 with their fragrant bouquets, appeal to the imagination : 

 all are good and wholesome ; but mix them all in the 

 same stomach at a great feast, and what will be the result, 

 at least in most cases ? Vermilion is a good and safe 

 pigment, so is cadmium yellow, and so is emerald green ; 

 but mix them all together, and what will happen ? Keep 

 the emerald green and the cadmium apart by some hard 

 and quick-drying vehicle, and all will be well ; allow a 

 day's interval to elapse between taking the champagne 

 and hock, and port and claret, and no inconvenience will 

 be experienced. 



It is very refreshing to read from the pen of Mr. 

 Muckley the warning which he gives to artists to restrict 

 the number of colours which they employ. It is to the 

 use of bright and new tints with which the French colour- 

 makers tempt our artists that much of the evil complained 

 of is due, and moreover the adulteration practised abroad, 

 but rarely in this country, has added to it. Mr. Muckley 

 has divided pigments into "permanent colours" and 

 "useless pigments." Speaking of "whites," he very 

 justly recommends zinc white as being permanent, but 

 then he speaks of "flake white" as permanent, but con- 

 fesses that it loses " its opacity by age," and that "impure 

 air and sulphuretted hydrogen turn white lead " {i.e. flake 

 white) " to a dirty brown in a short time." One would 

 hardly rank this among permanent colours. Amongst 

 yellows he mentions "lemon yellow" as not altogether 

 trustworthy. Now lemon yellow is chromate of baryta, 

 and, like all other chromates, is liable to reduction by 

 organic matter, and then, as it becomes reduced, its tint 

 changes to green. Although he ranks this pigment 

 among "permanent colours" be does so with a caution ; 

 why then place it in this list? "Aureolin." is also 

 included in it ; but very grave doubts are entertained of 

 its stability in oil by many artists. It certainly resists 

 the action of alkalies fairly well. 



" Naples yellow," a pigment which portrait and figure 

 painters have a great affection for, is now a compound 

 made in imitation of the old paint, which consisted of 

 antimony and lead ; it was usually some time ago made 

 with white lead tinted with some yellow pigments. If 

 made with zinc white and cadmium, as Mr. Muckley 

 asserts, there is not much danger in using it. 



.A.mongst the "useless pigments" which are said to be 

 " stable " it should be remarked that the whites, " Blanc 



