Plate 8.—Detail from The Arts of War Fresco
Lord Leighton, Victoria and Albert Museum
the nature of the subject was thought to demand a smoother surface.
The wall wash, preparation coats, and the colours used in the painting, being all mixed or diluted with the same medium, and the spike oil, used in the artist’s dipper, having the effect of opening up the ground coating, allows the colours to unite with, or melt into, the ground, the latter being extremely porous, so that when finished and dry the work forms a continuous body from the surface right into the plaster. In this continuity of body spirit-fresco resembles closely that of the buon-fresco.
The process admits of repainting and retouching as often as may be necessary, though it is best, for the sake of gaining a desired luminous effect, to paint frankly with a full brush, laying on the colour in an impasto, and where depth of tone or transparency is desired these effects are best obtained by washing in thinly or glazing the shadows, using the colours and the spike oil medium, as in water-colour painting. The method of work is really, in the execution, a mixture of the techniques of oil and water-colour painting. One of its great advantages is the practically unlimited range of colours allowed on the palette, and another is that the artist can take up his work at any time, or stage, neither of which obtains in buon-fresco.
It may be of interest to describe the method of carrying out the painting of the work in connection with the South Kensington frescos. The original designs were painted carefully in brown monochrome, in light and shade, and were enlarged as fine outlines on a canvas to the exact size of the wall space; from these enlargements tracings were made on tracing cloth, and these tracings were pricked through and pounced on to the wall with powdered charcoal, this impression being intensified by going over it with a lead pencil. A small coloured sketch in the case of each fresco was prepared in oil colour, which was fairly closely copied in the colouring of the larger work. For convenience, the monochrome cartoons in each case were photographed to full scale, in sections, and the light and shade was faithfully copied from these photographs, so that in the execution of the painting on the wall there should be no hesitation, nor any experimenting in colour.
The first piece of work done on the wall was one of the largest and most prominent figures, and was painted as far as possible in direct and full colour. The nature of the medium, however, does not always lend itself to the finishing of the work straight off in one painting; this is the case especially in the flesh tints, or in any elaborate drapery modelling. The method usually adopted was to lay in the tints with a full brush and solid colour, carrying the modelling as far as possible in the first painting. Too much working over the same part is liable to bring up the wax, and to cause the work to dry unpleasantly glossy. When there is a danger of this occurring it is better to leave off and take up the part again after