PAINTING. 
o’nly be applied to cloth or paper, through the fubftance 
of which the wax may pafs; but, in wood, done, metals, 
or plalter, the former method of count Caylus mult be 
obferved. 
Mr. Muntz has alfo difcovered a method of forming 
grounds for painting with crayons, and fixing tliefe, as 
well as water-colours, employed with the pencil. On the 
unwaxed fide of a linen cloth, llretched and waxed as be¬ 
fore, lay an even and thick coat of the colour proper for 
the ground ; having prepared this colour, by mixing fome 
proper pigment with an equal quantity of chalk, and 
tempering them with water. When the colour is dry, 
bring the pidlure to the fire, that the wax may melt, pafs 
through the cloth, and fix the ground. An additional 
quantity of wax may be applied to the back of the piclure, 
if that which was firft rubbed on Ihould not be fufficient 
for the body of colour ; but, as this mull be laid-on with¬ 
out heat, the. wax Ihould Be diffolved in oil of turpentine, 
and applied with a brulh, and the canvas again expofed 
to the fire, that the frelh fupplyof wax may pafs through 
the cloth, and be abforbed by the colour : and thus a 
firm and good body will be formed for working on with 
the crayons. If cloth and paper are joined together, the 
cloth muft be firft fixed to the ftraining-frame ; and then 
the paper mult be palled to it with acompofition of palle, 
made with wheaten flour, or ftarch and water, and about 
a twelfth part of its weight of common turpentine. The 
turpentine mull be added to the palle when it is almoft 
fufficientiy boiled, and the compofition well llirred, and 
left to fimmer over the fire for five or fix minutes. Let 
wax be dillblved in oil of turpentine to the confillence 
of a thin palle ; and, when the cloth and paper are dry, 
let them be held near a fire; and with a brulh lay a coat 
or the wax and turpentine on both ildes the joined cloth 
and paper, in luch a degree of thicknefs, that both fur- 
faces may fliine throughout without any appearance of 
dull fpots. Then expofe the cloth to the fire or to the 
lun ; by which means the oil will evaporate, and the wax 
become folid, and be fit to receive any con&pofition of co¬ 
lour for a ground, which is to be laid-on as above di¬ 
rected in the cafe of cloth without paper.. 
Almoft all the colours that areufed in o’il-painting may 
be alfo applied in the encaullic method. Mr. Muntz ob¬ 
jects, indeed, to brown, light pink, and unburnt terra 
di Sienna ; becaufe thele, on account of their gummy or 
llony texture, will not admit fuch a. cohdion with the 
wax as will pr.operly fix them ; but other colours, which 
cannot be admitted in oil-painting, as red-lead, red orpi- 
ment, cryftals of verdegris, and red precipitate of mer¬ 
cury., may be ufed here. The crayons tiled in encaullic 
painting are the fame with thofe uled in the common way 
of crayon-painting, excepting thole that in their compo- 
fitions are too tenacious ; and the method of uling them 
is the fame in both cafes. 
The encaullic painting has many peculiar advantages: 
though the colours have not the natural varnilh or fliining 
which they require with oil, they have all the llrength of 
paintings in oil, and all the airinefs of water-colours, 
•without partaking of the apparent charaCler or defefts of 
either ; they may be looked at in any light, and in any 
lituation, without any falfe glare ; the colours are firm, 
and will bear waThing; and a piclure, after having been 
fmoked, and then expofed to the dew, becomes as clean 
as if it had been but juft painted. It may alfo be re¬ 
touched at pleafure, without any detriment to the colours; 
for the new colours will unite with the old ones, without 
fpots, as is the cafe in common fize-painting; nor is it 
necefiary to rub the places to be re-touched with oil, as in 
oil-pi£lures ; it is not liable to crack, and eaiily repaired, 
if it ihould chance to fufferany injury. The duration of 
this painting is alfo a very material advantage ; the co¬ 
lours are not liable to fade and change; no damp can 
affedl them, nor any corrofive lubllance injure them ; nor 
can the colour fall off in fltivers from the canvas. How¬ 
ever, ivotwithftanding td 1 tliefe and other advantages enu- 
-Vol. XVIII. No. 1237. 
217 
merated by the abbe MaZeas and Mr. Muntz, this art 
has not yet been much pra£lifed. Many of thele proper¬ 
ties belong to a much higher fpecies of encaullic paint¬ 
ing, lately difcovered in England, the colours of which 
are fixed by a very intenfe heat; nor are the colours, or 
grounds on which they are laid, liable to be dillblved or 
corroded by any chemical menftruum, nor, like the glaffy 
colours of enamel, to run out of the drawing on the fire. 
See on this fubjeft, Phil. Tranf. vol. li. and Phil. Mag. 
vol. i. p. 23, 141, and 406. 
The oil-varniflies ufed by the Egyptians and, by Apelles 
might have brought them to the dilcovery of oil-paint¬ 
ing; but, as it appears, both from mummies and from 
the works of Pliny, that their colours were not prepared 
and mixed with that varnilh, and as it is plain rather that 
this varnilh was externally laid over the finilhed pictures; 
no other conclufion can be drawn, except that they were 
within fight of the dilcovery, and that it is a matter of 
wonder that they Ihould not have laid hold of it. 
The oil alfo, that was ufed in the coarfcr wax and wall 
paintings juft mentioned, proves at moll that-experiments 
had been tried with oils ; but we have no proofs of oil- 
painting having been underllood or ufed by the Egyptians, 
Greeks, or Romans; and, however great their Hei 11 or in¬ 
genuity, they might very well have been within fight and 
reach of the dilcovery, and neverthelefs have miffed it. 
Of the Colours ufed by the Ancients. 
Sir Humphry Davy, during his refidence at Rome in 
the year 1814 and 15, made a great number of experi¬ 
ments on the colours ufed in painting by the ancients, 
an account of which, with obfervations, he tranfmitted 
in the beginning of the year 1815 to the Royal SocietjL 
In his introduction to this paper, he obferves, that the 
importance which the Greeks attached to pictures, the 
ellimation in which their great painters were held, the 
high prices paid for their moll celebrated productions, and 
the emulation exifting between different Hates with re¬ 
gard to the poffeflion of them, prove that painting was 
one of the arts moll cultivated in ancient Greece. The 
works, indeed, of the great mailers of Greece, are un¬ 
fortunately loll: they difappeared from their native coun¬ 
try during the wars waged by the Romans with the fuc- 
ceffors of Alexander, and the later Greek republics; and 
were deftroyed either by accident, by time, or by barba¬ 
rian conquerors, at the period df the decline and fall of 
the Roman empire.'' The fubjecls of many of tliefe pic¬ 
tures are deferibed in ancient authors ; and feme idea of 
the manner and llyle of the Gree'k artifts may be gained, 
from the defigns on the vafes, called, though improperly, 
Etrufcan, which were executed by artifts of Magna Grecia, 
and fome faint notion of their execution and colouring 
may be gained from the paintings in frefco at Rome, 
Herculaneum, and Pompeii. Tliefe paintings, it is true, 
are not properly Greek ; j et, whatever may have been 
laid of the early exillence of painting in Italy, as a native 
art, we are certain that, at the period when Rome was 
the metropolis of the world, the fine arts were cultivated 
in that city exclusively by the Greeks, or by artills of 
the Greek fchools. By comparing the deferiptjons of 
Vitruvius and Pliny with thofe of Theopliraftus, it is 
found, that the fame materials for colouring were em¬ 
ployed at Rome and at Athens; and of thirty great 
painters mentioned by Pliny, whole works were known 
to the Romans, two only are exprel'sly mentioned as born 
in Italy; the reft were Greeks. 
Ornamental frefco-painting was indeed generally exe¬ 
cuted by inferior artifts ; and the defigns on the walls of 
the houfes of Herculaneum and Poinpeii, are not to be 
regarded as fair fpecimens of excellence, even in this de¬ 
partment of the art; but in Rome, in the period of her 
fu‘11 glory, and in the ornaments of the imperial palace of 
the firft Ceefars, all the refources of the diftingiiilhed ar¬ 
tifts of that age were probably employed. Pliny men¬ 
tions Cornelius Pinus, and Accius, as the two artifts of 
3 K the 
