This is a beautiful transparent colour, which, in some fine manuscripts of the fifteenth century, is used as a transparent glaze over burnished gold, the effect of which is very magnificent, as the metallic gleam of the gold shines through the deep transparent red of the over-painting. Lake was also used as an opaque, solid pigment by mixing it with white, which at once gave it "body," and destroyed its transparency.
Purple of a very magnificent tint was occasionally made by a mixture of ultramarine with the carmine-red of the kermes beetle; this was specially used by the illuminators of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.
| Yellows. |
Yellows.Yellow ochre, a fine earth pigment coloured by iron, was the principal yellow of the illuminators.
In late manuscripts orpiment (sulphuret of arsenic), which is a more brilliant lemon-yellow, was occasionally used; see Cennino Cennini, § 47.
Litharge yellow, an oxide of lead, was another important colour, but more especially for the painter in oil, who used it very largely as a drier[[278]].
Another fine ochreous earth of a rich brown colour was the terra di Siena or "raw Siena"; the colour of this was made warmer in tint by roasting, thus producing "burnt Siena."
| Use of white. |
Use of white.White pigments were perhaps the most important of all to the illuminator, who usually only used pure colours for his deepest shadows; all lights and half tints, both in miniature pictures and in decorative foliage, being painted with a large admixture of white. The use of this system of colouring by Fra Angelico and many painters of the Sienese school has been already referred to; see page [190].
For this reason it was very important to use a pure and durable white pigment which would combine well with other colours.