Heraldry as art: An account of its development and practice, chiefly in England

by G. W. Eve

The principal masses of colour being in, such dividing or other strong lines as occur will be drawn with black. A drawing pen will probably be used for straight ones and in this also care must be taken that the black, lamp black or ivory black, is not too diluted, or it will probably spread, especially when in contact with colours that contain glycerine or waxy constituents.

This done, the next stage of the work, if it is to have the elaboration of the real illuminated MSS. rather than of the diagrammatic Rolls of Arms, will be to model up the forms with shadow colour, using carmine or crimson lake to shade vermilion with the addition of a little sepia when stronger colour is required. Blue will be shaded with French blue to the required tone, and green with darker green.

The lights may then be put in with light tones of their respective colours. Gold is shaded with a low tone of yellow as a general shadow colour and with umber, and is sometimes high lighted with Naples yellow and white. In accessory decoration gold may be shaded with green and finished with a darker tint of the same colour.

In the colour treatment of mantling the tone may well be kept low in relation to that of the shield to which it will thus lead up and give value.

Instead of lighting with tones of their own colour the parts in which modelling is suggested, a very beautiful and decorative effect is produced by the mediaeval practice of heightening the whole design with gold in lines which coalesce into masses on the high lights and trail off into the shadows where also they help to define the form in a very effective way. This use of gold throughout the work serves at the same time to harmonize and pull the whole thing together into unity. It is a method which requires considerable skill of hand and clearness of intention, for the lines must be drawn with firm certainty, but when successful is most effectively beautiful.

In the treatment of the helmet its relative importance in the composition must not be forgotten, nor its brilliancy in combination with its central position be allowed to attract undue attention. The broad shadow which its body takes in its forward tilted position is very useful in keeping down the general tone, in colour work as well as in black and white. Also it may be remembered that helmets were themselves painted and their rivets gilt.

In painting on paper, where yellow is substituted for gold, Cadmium will be found to be the most useful kind of that colour.

Until the invention of moist colour the pigments were obtained in powder and mixed with gum water, a great deal of small knowledge being required in order that the colours should not rub off the surface on the one hand, or crack or otherwise misbehave on the other. Gold was mixed in the same way, but if with too little gum it rubbed off and if with too much it refused to burnish. Nevertheless, the colours when so mixed have a certain advantage in having more body, and a better because less waxy surface. However, the greater convenience of moist colour is undoubted and in some of them the surface is very good. So-named luminous body colour made by Newman of Soho Square has been recently tried with very satisfactory results, the cobalt among the “difficult colours” being particularly good.

The notable revival of Enamelling has restored to heraldry a very beautiful means of expression, one which has proved from the twelfth century downwards to be especially suitable to its subject, as well from its broad simplicity of treatment as from its permanence and beauty. In this connexion one’s thoughts inevitably turn to the stall-plates of the Knights of that Most Noble Order of the Garter in its Chapel in Windsor Castle, and one is led to hope that they may once again be done in a way not unworthy of their splendid and monumental predecessors of the old days.

Enamel entered to an enormous extent into the decorative metal work of the Middle Ages. Altars, Church vessels, and crosiers, caskets, nefs and other domestic objects, the girdles and clasps for ladies’ use, as well as the details of military trappings were among the many things that were adorned in this manner. The massive military belts that were worn below the hips and were indicative of high rank were especially rich in goldsmiths’ work and enamels, infinite pains and enormous sums being spent on their execution.