83. INDIAN RED,
Once known as Persian Red, is brought from Bengal. It is a natural earth rich in peroxide of iron, of a purple russet hue and good body, and valued when fine for the clearness and soft lakey tone of its tints. In a crude state it is a coarse powder, full of extremely hard and brilliant particles of a dark appearance and sometimes magnetic. It is greatly improved by grinding and washing over, and is very permanent. Neither light, impure air, mixture with other colours, time, nor fire, effects any sensible change in it; but being opaque and not keeping its place well, it is unsuited for glazing. This pigment differs considerably in its hues, that which is most rosy being esteemed the best, and affording the purest tints. Inferior ochres were formerly substituted for Indian red, which procured it a variable character; but the colour being now obtained abundantly can in general be had genuine. It is a good drier.
Mixed with Indian ink, it furnishes useful shadows; and compounded with cobalt or indigo, most serviceable grays. For sunsets, where deep purple lines are louring over the horizon's brink, a mixture of French blue with a little Indian red and lake is admirably adapted. In twilight and stormy clouds, in sails and buildings, in shade carnations of portraits and backgrounds, &c., the red is often employed.
84. LIGHT RED
Is an ochre of an orange-russet hue, chiefly valued for its tints. The principal yellow ochres afford this colour best, and the brighter and clearer the yellow ochre is from which it is prepared, the brighter will the red be, and the better flesh tints will it yield with white. Light red has the good properties common to ochres, dries capitally, and furnishes an excellent crayon. It is much used both in figure and landscape painting, giving fine grays with cobalt, and serviceable compounds with yellow ochre, indigo, lamp black, rose madder, Payne's grey, brown madder, &c.
Terra Puzzoli, a volcanic production, is a species of light red, as is the Carnagione of the Italians.
85. VENETIAN RED,
Less known as English Red, Prussian Red, and Scarlet Ochre. True Venetian red, that is, the red of the Venetians, was probably brought from India, and similar to our modern Indian red. The Venetian red of the present day, however, is an artificial product, containing no earthy base, and therefore improperly classed among the ochres. It is prepared by calcining sulphate of iron, to which a little nitre may be advantageously added. The result is a peroxide of iron, resembling light red, but more powerful, and of a more scarlet hue. It is very permanent, but being a purely iron pigment, should be cautiously employed with colours affected by that metal. Though not bright, its tints are clear, and it mixes and works kindly with cobalt or French blue, affording fine pearly grays. Heightened by madder lake, it furnishes a glowing red, very useful in some descriptions of skies; and saddened by black, it gives low toned reds of good quality for buildings. With white it produces carnation tints nearly approaching to nature, and much employed by Titian, Vandyke, and others. Compounded with aureolin, Venetian red yields a clear orange of considerable transparency.
Spanish Red is an ochre differing little from the above.