Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 18.djvu/155

PAINTING 139 excess it degenerates into manner ; or it may serve as a convenient screen for the want of accurate observation and thorough execution. Among the masters most remarkable for precision and rapidity of handling are Velazquez, Tintoretto, Veronese, and Rubens. The execution of Leonardo da Vinci is laboured. Vanderwerf, Mengs, and Denner are also instances of laboured smoothness. The three last-named belong to a class designated "the polishers," "little men, who did not see the whole at a time, but only parts of a whole, and thus vainly essayed to make up the whole by a smooth union of parts." No two artists employ the same method in painting. Some attain the result aimed at by involved and compli cated, others by direct and simple methods. The difference in technique between the work of an English artist and artists trained in French or German ateliers may be seen at a glance, and it is of little use attempting to lay down hard and fast rules on the subject. Even among the great Italian painters a wide variety of practice existed. It has been pretty well ascertained, partly from unfinished works, that Titian s method was to work out the effect of his pictures, as far as possible, with pure white, red, and black, the shadows being left cold. To prevent the yellowing of the oil, and to harden the colour, the picture was exposed to the sun, months were sometimes allowed to elapse, and then the surface of this dead or first colouring was rubbed down with pumice stone and fresh colours and the glazings applied, a considerable period during which the picture was exposed to the sun elapsing between successive appli cations of colour. Titian is said to have been very partial to the use of his fingers when laying on paint, particularly on flesh and glazings. The practice of Paul Veronese was quite opposed to that of Titian. He sought almost the full effect at once by direct means and simple mixture of tints, seldom repeating his colours, and using few glazings. When the work was well advanced in this way he covered the whole with a thin coat of varnish to bring up the colours, and then re touched the lights and enforced the shadows with dexterous touches. It is said of Reynolds, who spent half his life in ex periments, that in order to discover their technical secrets he deliberately scraped away and destroyed Venetian pictures of value. The decay of so many of his works shows with how little success these experiments were rewarded. Numerous " guides to oil painting " exist, but little real instruction or benefit is to be gained from their perusal. They abound in minute directions how to paint " trunks of trees, heaths, fields, roads, skies (grey, blue, and stormy), sunsets, sunrises, running streams and waterfalls, moun tains, the smoke or steam of steamers, and chimneys of cottages," as well as "heads, flesh, backgrounds, draperies (blue, red, and black)," with lists of the proper colours to be employed for each. All this, it is hardly needful to say, is worse than useless. The surest and safest way for any one who intends to study painting seriously, or to make it his profession, is to place himself under the instruction of an artist of repute, either in his own country or in some foreign atelier ; but, even after acquiring a sound technical knowledge of the processes employed in paint ing, it will be found that much remains to learn which no master can teach. It is said of Velazquez that " he dis covered that nature herself is the artist s best teacher, and industry his surest guide to perfection, and he very early resolved neither to sketch nor to colour any object without having the thing itself before him." Water-Colour Painting. The use, in painting, of earths and minerals of different colours, diluted with water, is of great antiquity. Painting with oils or oleo-resinous vehicles is a comparatively modern invention. Tempera, encaustic, and fresco were ancient modes of water paint ing. Several of the early Dutch and Flemish oil painters attained to considerable technical excellence in the sepa rate practice of water-colour painting ; little more than simple washings of water colour were employed by them, the processes which have in modern times so greatly raised and extended its scope being then unknown. Painting in water colour owes much of its development to English artists, and may be regarded as a peculiarly national school of art. The first English water-colour painter of note, Paul Sandby, used Indian ink in the earlier stages of his drawings, finishing them with a few tints of thin colour. At this period paintings in water colour were little more than flat washes, and in the early catalogues of the Royal Academy Exhibition were designated " water- tinted" or "water-washed drawings." Improvements were gradually effected, first by varying the ground- work tint with blue and sepia, over which washes of colour, com mencing with a warm generalizing tint, were struck. John Cozens was the first to substitute a mixture of indigo and Indian red in place of Indian ink as a neutral tint in the early stages of his work, a practice which was long retained. The/>ld water-colour painters used the lead pencil or the reed pen in finishing their drawings. The first to break away from this conventional method was Girtin, who painted objects at once with the tints they appeared to possess in nature. Turner, perhaps the greatest master of the art, was closely associated with Girtin in early life, and in the course of his long career he carried water-colour painting to a degree of perfection which can scarcely be surpassed. Nearly all the great improvements which have taken place of late years in water-colour painting are due more or less to him. John Lewis, De Wint, Prout, Hunt, Cox, Harding, and Copley Fielding have all contributed to the development of the art. Materials used in Water-Colour Painting. -1. Paper. A great variety of papers is used, varying in texture from the extreme of roughness to hot-pressed smoothness. In many of Turner s drawings the paper is tinted. Nothing, how ever, seemed to come amiss to him ; papers of almost any surface or texture were used. David Cox, in many of his later works, employed a rough paper made from old sail cloth. The paper most generally used is known as " Imperial, " and is made of various degrees of texture and thickness. Whatman s papers are also much esteemed. The proper sizing of the paper is of great importance ; if it is too strongly done the colours will not float or work freely, if too little they are absorbed into the fabric and appear poor and dead. In this last case, gum-arabic dis solved in warm water will improve the effect by bringing up the colour and giving greater depth and richness of tone. The paper is prepared to receive the drawing by being well sponged and stretched upon a drawing-board. 2. Pigments. The permanent earthy minerals were chiefly used in ancient works, and these, with the addition of a few transparent colours, such as sepia, indigo, and Indian ink, satisfied the early water-colour painters of England. Richer and more delicate colours were gradually added, and of late years chemistry has supplied many entirely new ones. No method of giving permanency to some of the transparent yellows, carmine, and other colours obtained from the cochineal insect has yet been discovered, but the improved methods of preparing pigments from the root of the madder plant have rendered the use of carmine not so necessary. The earths and minerals are the most permanent pigments, but when employed with water they are more unmanageable, and flow less freely than the fugitive vegetable colours. Among the earlier water-colour