Encyclopædia Britannica 1797/XIII

Encyclopædia Britannica; or, a Dictionary of Arts, Sciences, and Miscellaneous Literature, Constructed on a Plan, by which the different Sciences and Arts Are digested into the Form of Distinct Treatises or Systems, comprehending The History, Theory, and Practice, of each, according to the Latest Discoveries and Improvements, and full Explanations given of the various detached Parts of Knowledge… The third Edition… XIII, Edinburgh [Andrew Bell – Colin Macfarquhar] 1797.

PAINTING.

. . .

pp. 645–647

SECT. V. Enumeration of the different Methods of Painting, or the different Means and Materials that Painters make use of to imitate all visible Objects on a plane Superficies.

THOSE now in practice are,

1. Painting in Oil; which is preferable to all other methods, as it is more susceptible of all sorts of expressions, of more perfect gradations of colours, and is at the same time more durable.

2. MOSAIC painting; an invention truly wonderful; it is composed of a great number of small pieces of marble of different colours, joined together with stucco. The works of this kind are made principally at Rome, where this art has been carried so far as to resemble the paintings of the greatest masters; and of these are made monuments for the latest posterity.

3. Painting in FRESCO, which is by drawing, with colours diluted with water, on a wall newly plastered, and with which they so incorporate, that they perish only with the stucco itself. This is principally used on ceilings.

4. Painting in WATER-COLOURS, that is, with colours mixed with water and gum, or paste, &c. 5. MINIATURE painting; which differs from the preceding as it represents objects in the least discernible magnitudes.

6. Painting in CRAYONS; for which purpose colours, either simple or compound, are mixed with gum, and made into a kind of hard paste like chalk, and with which they draw on paper or parchment.

7. Painting in ENAMEL; which is done on copper or gold, with mineral colours that are dried by fire, and become very durable. The paintings on the PORCELAIN of China and Europe, on Delpht ware, &c. are so many sorts of enamel.

8. Painting in WAX, or ENCAUSTIC painting: This is a new or rather an old invention renewed, in which there are in France performances highly pleasing. It is done with wax mixed with varnish and colours.

9. Painting on GLASS, of which there are various kinds.

See all the articles here enumerated, explained in the order of the alphabet. On one of them, however, some additional observations may here be subjoined.

§ 1. Of painting in Fresco.

Of all kinds of painting fresco is the most ancient, the most durable, the most speedily executed, and the most proper to adorn great buildings. It appears, that the fragments of ancient painting handed down to us by the Romans are all in fresco. Norden, quoted by Winkleman, speaks of the ruins of Egyptian palaces and temples, in which are Colossian paintings on walls 80 feet high. The description which those authors have given of these paintings, of the prepared ground, and of the manner in which the colours have been employed, &c. shows plainly that they have been executed in fresco.

The stability of fresco is demonstrated by the existence of those fragments of the highest antiquity. There are no other kinds of painting which could equally have resisted the injuries of the weather, the excessive aridity of certain elements, the moisture of subterraneous situations, and the encroachments of barbarians.

There are different opinions concerning the climate most proper to preserve this kind of painting. “It is observed (says Felibien), that the colours in fresco fade sooner in Italy and Languedoc than at Paris; perhaps from less heat in the last mentioned place, or better lime.” M. Falconet contradicts this assertion in his notes on Pliny, vol. i. p. 223. of his miscellaneous works, published at Paris 1787. Painting in fresco, according to this author, is longer preserved in dry and warm, than in northern and moist climates. However opposite the sentiments of these two authors may appear to be, it is possible to reconcile them, when we consider, that the exposure to a burning sun is capable of operating a great change of the colours on the one hand, and that the frost in a cold climate inevitably destroys the paintings of fresco on the other. Frost is capable of bursting stones, of corroding the petrified veins of earth in the heart of coloured marble, and, in short, nothing can resist its destructive operation.

These observations on fresco paintings lead us to conclude, that the choice of place, when they are without doors, is of the greatest importance. In countries where there is little or no frost, an exposure to the north is the most favourable; and in cold climates a western exposure should be made choice of, because the first rays of the rising sun have a very pernicious effect after frost. We are not, however, wholly to adopt the sentiment of M. Falconet with regard to the pernicious effects of moisture on fresco paintings: for, 1. The ancient paintings recovered from moist places, in which they were buried for many ages, have, under enormous heaps of earth, preserved all their colours. Those from the ruins of Herculaneum have been observed, on the contrary, to lose their colours in a short time after they have been dried by the exterior air. 2. The mortar which composes the ground of this painting is not destroyed in our rainy climates. It is necessary frequently to use powder in removing pieces of this mortar, which are now found to obstruct some buildings in Paris.

After the choice of place, the choice of materials is the next thing of importance in executing fresco. To make it durable, the ground is the object of chief attention; and to make this perfect, the mortar used by the ancients, now unknown, would be necessary.

It is easy to perceive, that a minute detail of forms, an extensive mixture and gradation of tints, and the merit of a delicate and gentle touch, can make no part of the excellencies of this kind of painting. It cannot bear a close examination like a picture in oil. There is always something dry and rough which displeases. An artist who would flatter himself with success in a fresco placed near the eye would be grossly deceived: a common spectator would find it coarse and badly finished.

Fresco is chiefly employed in palaces, temples, and public edifices. In these vast places no kind of painting can be preferred to it; large, vivid in its strokes, and constantly fresh, it enriches the architecture, animates it, and gives relief to the eye from the repetition of the same forms, and the monotony of colour in a place where coloured marbles and bronzes are not employed. Still more a tine fresco gives the greatest effect to a lofty building, since this building serves as a frame and support to this enchanting art, which fixes the attention of every person of sensibility and taste.

We shall afterwards have occasion to show the manner of executing fresco, as well as the nature and application of the colours employed in it: it is necessary to demonstrate here, that it has a freshness, splendor, and vigour not to be found in oil or water colours.

A known principle in all kind of painting is, that the colouring is more perfect in proportion as it approaches to the lights and shades in nature. As colours applied to any subject can never reach this degree of perfection, the allusion which painters produce consists in the comparison and opposition of the tones of colours among themselves.

If the white of the finest and purest oil appears heavy and grey, compared with great lights in natural whites, it follows, that, in order to copy them with fidelity, the tones which follow the first white must be degraded in an exact proportion. Thus it is necessary that the shades of a picture be considerably deeper than those of the model; especially if, from the greatest lights to the browns, one hath proportionally followed the distance which is found between the colours on the pallet and the tones of the object copied.

Now if the white of fresco be infinitely more bright than that of oil, the same effect will be obtained in a brown tone. On the other side, if it constantly happens that the brown tones of fresco are much more vigorous than those of water colours, and equal even to the browns of oil itself, it is certain that it possesses a splendor and vigour more extensive than any other kind of painting. Thus in the hands of an artist who is well acquainted with the colours fit for fresco, it is more susceptible of the general effect, and more capable than any other kind of giving projection and the semblance of life to the figures.

If we were to inquire why painting in fresco is now scarcely or never practised, we should perhaps ascribe it to the great talents required to execute it. “Many of our painters (says Vasari in his treatise on painting) excel in oil and water colours, and yet fail in fresco; because of all kinds this requires the greatest strength of genius, boldness in the strokes, and resolution.” If in an age abounding in great masters, it was difficult to excel in this kind, it must be much more so in ours; but we should not require the characters of sublimity and style to which men were accustomed in the time of Vasari.

We should execute in fresco as we do in oils; for Italy herself, along with Michael Angelo and Zuicharo, had Cortonni, Giardano and Francischini [sic!] as middling fresco-painters. And in France, Lafosse, Bon Boulogne, and Perur, performed several works in fresco which might be imitated by the painters of our times. But let us proceed to the real causes for abandoning this art. These proceed from the want of knowledge and taste in the persons who employ the artists, and from the manners of the age. As a pleasant or licentious conceit, unfinished colouring, and bold effects of shade, are the chief objects of consideration, a very smooth painting enlivened by gentle touches completely gratifies the person who pays the price; and therefore the philosophical principles of the art, which require study, are not cultivated.

We shall now attend to the mechanical process of this useful and beautiful kind of painting. Before painting, it is necessary to apply two layers. If the wall on which you are to paint is of brick, the layer is easily applied, but if it is of freestone closely united, it is necessary to make excavations in the stone, and to drive into them nails or pegs of wood in order to hold the first layer.

The first layer is made of good lime and a cement of pounded brick, or, which is still better, river-sand: this latter forms a layer more uneven, and better fitted to retain the second smooth and polished layer applied to its surface.

There should be experiments to discover a layer still more compact, and more independent of the variations of the air; such, for example, as covers the aqueducts and ancient reservoirs constructed by the Romans in the neighbourhood of Naples.

Before applying the second layer, or what you are to paint, it is necessary that the first be perfectly dry; for there issues from the lime, when it is moist, a smell both disagreeable and pernicious to the artist.

When the first layer is perfectly dry, it is wet with water in proportion to its dryness, that the second layer may the more easily incorporate with it.

The second layer is composed of lime, slaked in the air, and exposed for a year [sic!], and of river-sand, of an equal grain, and moderately fine.

It requires an active and intelligent mason to apply this layer, as the surface must be altogether equal. The operation is performed with a trowel; and the operator requires to have a small piece of wood to take away the large grains of sand, which, remaining, might render the surface uneven.

To give a fine polish to this layer, one ought to take a sheet of paper, apply it to the wall, and pass and repass the trowel over the paper. By this means the little inequalities which hurt the exactness of the stroke, and which produce false appearances at a distance, are entirely smoothed.

The artist must not lay more than the painter can finish in a day, as this kind of painting must be executed on a fresh ground.

The layer being thus prepared, the painter begins his operation; but as painting in fresco must be executed rapidly, and as there is no time to retouch any of the strokes, the painter, as we have observed under the article FRESCO, takes care to provide himself with large cartoons, on which he has drawn, with exactness, and in their full size, the figures which he is to paint, which leaves him nothing to do but to copy them on the wall.

The cartoons are composed of several sheets of large paper pasted one on another, neither too thick nor too slender.

The painter traces the tracks of the figures on the plaster, by passing a steel point over the tracks in the cartoons, or in pricking them.

Having in this manner attained an exact and speedy drawing, it now remains to execute the painting.

But it is essential, when one wishes to finish any small work of this kind, in the first place to be informed of the proper colours, and of those which cannot be used.

In general, the colours which are extracted from earths, and those which have passed through the fire, are the only ones which can be employed in this kind of painting.

The colours are white, made of lime, the white of egg-shells, ultramarine, the black of charcoal, yellow ochre, burnt vitriol, red earth, green of Verona, Venetian black, and burnt ochre.

There are others which require to be used with great precaution, such as enamel blue, cinnabar, and white marble dust.

When enamel blue is used, it requires to be applied instantaneously, and when the lime is very moist, otherwise it does not incorporate with the plaster; and if one retouch with this colour, it must be done an hour or more after the first application, to increase its lustre.

With regard to the white marble dust, it is subject to turn black if it be not mixed up with a convenient quantity of white lime.

Cinnabar, which has a splendor almost superior to all other colours, loses it almost entirely when mixed with lime. At the same time, it may be employed in places not exposed to the air, with a little degree of care in the preparation. Reduce a quantity of the purest cinnabar to powder, put it into an earthen vessel, and pour lime-water on it for two or three times. By this process the cinnabar receives some impression of lime-water, which makes it capable of being employed in fresco-painting.

One of the best colours, and the one most used in fresco for the gradation of tints, and for giving the requisite tone, is white of lime. This white is prepared by mixing lime slaked long before with good water. The lime deposites a sediment at the bottom of the vessel; when the water is poured off, this sediment is the white of lime.

Another kind of white might be used, the effects of which would be known by experience, namely, the white of egg-shells. To prepare this white, one must take a great quantity of shells of eggs, which must be pounded and boiled in water along with a quantity of quicklime; after this they are put into a strainer, and washed repeatedly with fountain-water.

The shells are again pounded until the water employed for that purpose become pure and limpid; and when they are in this manner reduced to powder, this powder is grinded in water, and formed into small pieces, and dried in the sun.

All the different kinds of ochres make excellent colours for fresco, and take different shades, being previously burned in iron chests.

With regard to the Naples yellow, it is dangerous to use it where the painting is much exposed to the air. The blacks of charcoal, of peach-stones, and of vine twigs, are good; but that extracted from bones is of no value.

Roman vitriol gathered at the furnaces, and which is called burnt vitriol, grinded afterwards in spirit of wine, resists the air extremely well when employed in lime. There is also a red extracted from this preparation somewhat like that produced from lac.

This colour is very proper for preparing the layers to be coloured with cinnabar; and the draperies painted with these two colours will vie in splendor with those painted with fine lac in oil.

The ultramarine is the most faithful colour; and it not only never changes, but it communicates this precious quality to those colours with which it is mixed.

The manner of employing those colours, is to grind them in water, and to begin by arranging them into the principal tints you are to employ: these are afterwards put into pots; and it is necessary to use a great many pallets raised at the edges, to form the intermediate shades, and to have under your eye all the shades you require.

As all the tints, except burnt ochre, violet, red, and blacks of all kinds, are apt to become clear, the painter must have beside him some pieces of brick or new tile very dry. A dash of the colours is applied to one of these with the pencil before using them; and as tile instantaneously imbibes the water, one perceives what the shade will be after the fresco is dry.