PAINTING. 
S'* 
them as having been drawn in oil-colours. 
Had they been in distemper or water-colours 
on the red clay ground on which they are 
applied, they would have been imbibed and 
soaked into it. Our china and enamel paint- 
ers, prepare and apply their colours with 
spike or other liquid oils; and the Greek 
masters seem to have done the same, uni ess 
they should appear to have burnt their vases 
before they painted them, or to have used a 
mixture of dissolved wax or gum for giving 
ft body to their colours, which might have 
answered the same end as oils. And (his is 
jfne more probable, as there is some reason 
to believe, that these vases went through 
two different fires, that of baking them, and 
that of smelting or burning-in their colours. 
The Greek and Roman paintings that have 
■been preserved or discovered at Rome and 
Herculaneum do not countenance the sup- 
position of oil-colours. On the other hand, 
Vitruvius, who has left us so many valuable 
notices of the antient arts, acquaints us that 
there was a kind of painting, which absolute- 
ly required a mixture of oil. 
From these observations, the evidence 
which the antients have given us in behalf of 
themselves, and of their knowledge of oil- 
painting, may be summed up in few words. 
Their having been acquainted with the 
white ch.dk ground which many modern 
masters use for oil-painting on boards, proves 
no more than that the antients might have 
done the same. 
The oil-varnishes used by the Egyptians 
and Apelles might have brought them to the 
discovery of oil-painting ; but as it appears 
both from mummies, and from the works of 
Pliny, that their colours were not prepared and 
mixed with that varnish, and as it is plain 
rather that this varnish was externally laid 
over the finished pictures, no other conclu- 
sion can be drawn, except that they were 
within sight of the discovery, and that it: is 
a matter of wonder that they should not 
have laid hold of it. 
The outlines of the old Greek or Etruscan 
vases are merely fallacious appearances. 
The old Greek and Roman paintings on 
walls and stones are either painted in dis- 
temper or fresco, or they have not been 
sufficiently examined. 
The oil used in the coarser wax and wall 
paintings, proves at most, that experiments 
had been tried with oils ; but we have no 
direct proofs of oil-painting having been un- 
derstood or used by the Egyptians, Greeks, 
or Romans ; and however great their skill 
or ingenuity, they might very well have 
been within sight and reach of the dis- 
covery, and nevertheless have missed it. 
Rise and progress of painting among the 
moderns. 
It ah/. The revival of painting in Italy 
was owing to Giovanni Cimabue, born at 
Florence in the year 1240 He acquired his 
first instructions from some inferior Greek 
painters then employed in that city, and 
laid the foundation of the art in his own 
country. 
His immediate followers were Giotto and 
his scholars, whose manner, like that of 
their master, was dry and hard ; but the ad- 
miration bestowed on their works excited a 
f general emulation, and they were succeeded 
VOL. II. 
by Masolini and Masaccio, the latter of 
wiiotn began to advance the art by giving 
a superior air to his figures. Ghirlandaio 
added a greater knowledge of distribution 
in the subject:, of his pictures, as well as 
greater correctness of design. 
Andrea Castagna was the first Florentine 
who painted in oil. But Lionarda da Vinci, 
and Michael Angelo Buonaroti, were the 
glory of the Florentine art. Lionardi, pos- 
sessing a line imagination, and full of sensi- 
bility, entered into all the details of painting, 
and devoted himself to the expression of 
the affections of tiie soul. If, in this sublime 
branch of the art, he was afterwards surpass- 
ed by Raffaele, fie could at least boast not 
only of excelling all the painters who went 
before him, but of having pursued and in- 
vestigated a path which none of them had 
attempted to enter. His design is remark- 
able for purity, and the most diligent exact- 
ness of forms. 
Michael Angelo delighted in seeking the ! 
great and the terrible, rather than the grace- ; 
tul and pleasing. Being well acquainted with \ 
every part of anatomy, he knew more ac- j 
curately than any other artist in what manner j 
to express (he forms and joinings of the j 
bones, and the office of every muscle, its | 
origin and insertion. “ In his figures,” says 
Mengs, “ the articulations of the muscles 
are so easy and free, that they appear to be 
made for the attitude in which he represents 
them.” His style possessed a degree of 
grandeur beyond any other painter. He 
did not possess, in the opinion of Reynolds, 
so many delightful parts of the art as Raf- 
faele, but those which he had acquired were 
of a more sublime nature. 
He informs us in one of his letters (con- 
tinues sir Joshua), that he modelled in clay, 
or in wax, all the figures which he intended 
to paint, a method familiar to the painters 
of that time. 
Vasari has recorded that he painted but 
one picture in oil, and resolved never to 
paint another; saying it was an employment 
for women and children. 
Michael Angelo was born at Castel Caprese 
in Tuscany in 1474, and died at the age of 
ninety. His principal work is the capella 
Sistina in the Vatican, which was painted by 
order of pope Julius the Second. It repre- 
sents, in various compartments, the origin of 
the human race, and its progress to society ; 
the empire of religion ; and the last judgment. 
The contemporary of Lionardo da Vinci, 
was Pietro Perugino, the master of Raffaelle 
Sanzio d’Urbino. 
Raffaele was born in 1483, and was at an 
early age the pupil of Pietro. His first man- 
ner was that of his master; but endowed 
with a transcendant genius, after carefully 
studying, and uniting in himself, all the ex- 
cellences of Ills predecessors and contem- 
poraries, he formed a style more perfect than 
that of any painter who went before, or 
lias succeeded him. He was sent for to 
Rome bv pope Julius the Second, who em- 
ployed aim to paint several apartments of 
the Vatican palace. 
It was fortunate for Raffaele, says M.engs, 
that he was born in what he terms the infancy 
of the art, and that lie formed himself by 
copying nature, before he had access to the 
works of any great master. He began by 
X x 
studying, with great exactness, the simple 
truth in his figures ; and thus habituated to 
imitate nature with precision, it was not 
diflicu t for him to carry flic same accuracy 
into the superior style which he adopted, 
first on the sight of the works of the great 
Florentine masters, and afterwards in. imita- 
tion of the antients. 
Composition and expression are the chief' 
excellences of Raffaele. He had too high 
an idea of painting to consider it as a mute 
art : he made it speak to the heart ; and this 
could only be done in subjects which re- 
quired expression. If Raffaele did not attain 
an excellence equal to the Greeks, he saw, 
at least, and imitated, whatever was most 
beautiful and expressive in nature. “ The 
Grecians sailed majestically, ” says Mengs, 
“ between earth and heaven ; Raffaele walked 
with propriety on the earth.” 
At Venice, about the same time with Li- * 
onardo da Vinci, flourished the Bellinis and 
Mantegna. Giovanni Bellini contributed 
greatly to the progress of painting. He is 
accounted (he founder of the Venetian 
school, by introducing the practice of oil- 
painting, which he managed very skilfully, 
and by teaching his scholars to paint after 
nature. He gave a noble air to his heads, 
and there is somewhat of harmony in hi* 
pictures ; but his greatest glory is that he 
was the master pf Giorgione and Titian® 
Vecelli, who carried the Venetian colouring 
to perfection. 
Giorgione died in- his 32d year, having 
excited the emulation of Titian, who sootv 
greatly surpassed him. 
Titian was instructed to copy nature i*^ 
the most servile manner in the school of 
Bellini, but after seeing the works of Gi- 
orgione, he conceived the ideal excellence 
of colouring. The beauties of his works are 
to be found in the happy disposition of co- 
lours, both proper and local, an art which 
he carried to the extreme of skill. The art- 
ists in the Florentine and Roman schools had 
painted chiefly in fresco and distemper, and 
linished their large works from previous 
sketches ; but as Titian painted in oil, ami 
finished directiy from the objects in nature, 
this practice, joined to his natural talents, 
gave him extraordinary advantages, and the 
greatest truth to his pictures. 
He is not eminent in historical pictures 
alone, but also in landscape. In this pro- 
vince his scenes are well chosen, his trees are 
bold and varied in their forms, and thep* 
foliage admirably executed. He generally 
selected for bis landscapes some singular ap- 
pearance of nature. 
In Lombardi/, about the same period also, 
Bianchi, born at Modena, instructed in paint- 
ing Antonio Allegri, better known by the 
name of Correggio. Correggio began, like 
the other painters of his time, to imitate na- 
ture alone, but soon enlarged his manner, 
and gave ease and grandeur to his designs. 
He painted chiefly in’ oil, a kind of painting 
susceptible of the greatest delicacy and 
sweetness, and he gave a pleasing and cap- 
tivating tone to his pictures. His method 
was to lay his colours very thick on the 
brightest parts of his pictures, in order to 
make them capable of receiving afterwards 
the highest degree of light. He perceived 
that the reflections of light correspond witfc 
