Graining and Marbling / A Series of Practical Treatises on Material, Tools and Appliances Used; General Operations; Preparing Oil Graining Colors; Mixing; Rubbing; Applying Distemper Colors; Wiping Out; Penciling; The Use of Crayons; Review of Woods; The Graining of Oak, Ash, Cherry, Satinwood, Mahogany, Maple, Bird's Eye Maple, Sycamore, Walnut, Etc.; Marbling in All Shades.

by F. Maire

QUESTIONS ON LESSON XXV.

131. What are the principal characteristics of rosewood?

132. How are the grounds for rosewood to be prepared?

133. How is rosewood grained?

134. What else is said regarding the graining of yellow pine and other woods.

LESSON XXVI.
MARBLING.

135. The imitation of marbles and other stones of a variegated character is much older than that of the imitation of woods by graining. This is no doubt due to the universal custom of public buildings in the Roman Empire being finished in stonework, marbles, jaspers, onyx and other variegated stones. The patricians vied with each other in the lavish decoration of their palaces, which were, of course, the real thing, but many of the merchants and plebeians who could not afford these expensive finishes, had recourse to an artificial representation of them, in their principal chambers at least. The marble imitations found so far do not speak very highly for the skill of the marblers of that period, and it must take a rank far below that of other mural decorations done at the same time presumably by a higher grade of artists.

136. The enormous use of marble and onyx in various decoration in this country, which has been developed within the latter part of the past fifty years, has been educating the people to the use of something better than the miserable paper imitations which have paraded as marble, or rather been a parody upon it. Such as these paper imitations have been, it is no wonder that people of taste have tabooed them from their homes, preferring a plain wall or washable varnished tile paper to those ludicrous misrepresentations.

137. For many purposes marble imitations are beginning to be used much more extensively than they were and good imitations always captivate the attention of people of taste, with the consequence that when once introduced in a neighborhood it soon happens that the man who is able to do a good job is soon overrun with that kind of work. That it has not become general is because, sad to say, it has almost become a lost art from long disuse. The many cheaper halls, restaurants, etc., in public and semi-public buildings where the real stone is too expensive; the many private vestibules, halls and bathrooms, where their use is almost imperatively demanded by good taste as the only permissible embellishment to relieve the monotony of the walls, by at least a dado imitation of good marble done in oil and washable. An endless variation in variously formed panels and cornices and surrounding stiles, where contrasting colored varieties of marbles and onyxes can be used, or their use in plain slabs as desired, will enable the artist who does the marbling to produce an individuality of work on every job. The good marbler is entitled to be called an artist, for it is only an artist who can vary this infinity of forms properly. Not that the execution of the work demands great ability in reproducing it—the artist’s skill is developed and shown in the proper arrangement and use of coloring, and also in the proper tracing out of the work itself, but that without the other will surely disappoint.

138. Many marbles resemble each other very closely excepting in their coloring, and even in marbles of the same quarry there will be found such variations in the forms of their veinings, agglomerations in those of conglomerate form that really no well defined description can be given of any of them. The general characteristics is all that can be said of any of them and some general directions given under each which will help the student to do his work upon right lines.