A portrait by Romney of Lady Hamilton shone through the first, and the solidity of the dark masses, the rendering of the fabric and the luminous quality of the flesh were wonderfully translated by the daylight filtering through.
“There can be no painted pictures like these,” said Matthew Trenchard stoutly. “And why? Because the painter uses paint; I use pure daylight, and the sweetest paint that ever was isn’t a patch on the light of day. Such things as these are more beautiful than pictures, just because the living light from the sky is more beautiful than any pigment made by man.”
Kellock was too cautious to agree with these revolutionary theories.
“Certainly these things would be very fine to decorate our windows, if we didn’t want to look out of them,” he admitted.
Then he held up a portrait of Her Majesty, Queen Victoria.
“Pure ultramarine blue, you see,” commented the master, “and the light brings out its richness, though if you looked at the paper, you’d be puzzled to find any blue in it. That’s because the infinitely fine atoms of the colour would want a microscope to see their separate particles. Yet where the pulp sank to the depths of the mould, they collected in millions to give you those deep shadows.”
Kellock delayed at the copy of a statue: the Venus Victrix from Naples—a work which certainly reproduced the majesty of the original in a rounded, lustrous fashion that no reproduction on the flat could echo.
“We can’t beat that, though it is fifty years old,” declared Kellock.
“We’re going to, however; and another statue is my idea. Marble comes out grandly as you see. I’m out for black and white, not colour. I’ve an idea we can get something as fine as the old masters of engraving, and finer.”
“The vatman is nought for this work,” confessed Kellock. “He makes paper in his mould and that’s all there is to it—whether for printing, or writing, or painting. The man who matters is him who makes the mould.”