If all books upon arts and sciences, manufactures and mechanics, had been or could be written by the respective professors thereof, things would appear in another light; we should, perhaps, not have the finest language in those performances; but we do not want that, plain truth and common sense is all that is required; if a guide leads us the right way, we need not mind his dress.
I shall make no apology for this performance of mine: if the contents do not speak for themselves, my abilities as a writer would but weakly support them, only as new inventions are frequently condemned for no other reason but because they are new; it becomes me to acquaint the public, that I should never have gone so far as to publish this system, if I had not been convinced of its merit by experience and practice; I made many and various experiments (as will be mentioned in the sequel) to ascertain its stability; and having painted several pictures of different sizes, I can answer for its practicability. In short, it is a manner of painting susceptible of all the boldness, freedom and delicacy of any other whatsoever; you may leave off and cherish your work at pleasure, you cannot fatigue your colours, you are not subject to that inconvenience attending oil painting, viz. of setting one’s picture by to dry, &c.
You will have all the effects and sweetness of painting in oil, and the colours will not be liable to fade and change; no damp can affect it, no corrosive will hurt it; nor can the colours crack and fall in shivers from off the canvas.
Let no-body think me too positive, or intoxicated with my own notions, before they have gone through the whole treatise, and made a few experiments. I advance facts, and not conjectures only.
It is not my intention to quarrel or depreciate oil painting, nor will I attempt to deny its true merit; therefore hope it will not be considered as a crime to propose a method that will equal its perfections, and surpass it for duration and stability of colours. I tell artists what I know, they may do what they judge proper. Though I bestow encomiums upon my subject it is not with a design to impose; I am not self-conceited, or foolish enough to think or believe that Rynolds or Ransey, Scott or Lambert, &c. &c. will take up at once and prefer my new system to that they practised for many years with success and applause—they, and every body else, may try; a trifling expence, and a few idle hours will afford experiments by which they will know if what I advance will really be an advantage to their works and themselves. And how far it will answer, either whole or in part, the general ends of painting, one single sketch will be enough to judge by; in arts, one experience is worth a thousand conjectures.
In the prosecution of my system, oil-colours came always in for a part of the experiment, in opposition to those fixed with wax, in order to judge better and with more precision of their variation. By this it happened that I often painted oil-colours over a waxed ground; which colours always appeared brighter and cleaner than the very same painted over an oil-cloth; at least I fancied that dead colouring in water colours and finishing in oil, was an experiment worth trying. For this purpose (as portrait painting is not my province) I pitched upon a head of Sir Godfrey Kneller, a gentleman and friend had sent me to copy small in oil; accordingly I dead coloured it in water colours and fixed them with wax, and afterwards finished it in oil-colours, not only to my satisfaction and surprize, but every body’s else that saw it; the brightness and transparency of its colours is not to be conceived. I copied the same head again in oil-colours only, and with all imaginable care and attention, but the colouring of the latter looked dull in opposition to the other[4]; to give reasons for this incident is more than I can do; I shall give a few conjectures, and conjectures only, upon it, under the article of experiments.
If I should not gain the approbation and good will of the oil painting faculty, for a few hints: I am sure those artists who profess painting in crayons will be beholden to me for what I shall communicate to them—a method to fix crayons or pastelle.
Every body knows the beauties and pleasing effects of those paintings and their perishable qualities so well, that to enlarge upon is needless to bestow great encomiums upon my secret, which is so closely connected with encaustic for the pencil, and whose merit has already been mentioned, would be superfluous; the process and experiments I am now going to unfold will be of more weight than all my reasonings previous thereto.
To make the whole familiar and easy to all capacities, I thought it convenient to lay down the whole penciling system under five different articles or periods, according as they succeed each other in the execution; and to keep the thread of the proceeding uninterrupted, I shall make a few observations upon every article in particular, and there give and explain the different methods that may be practised for the same end, together with my reason, and why I deviated in some parts from Count Caylus’s system.
The operations for painting with crayons will be treated and explained separately, and upon the same plan. Lastly, the experiments will come in to illustrate both, and verify what I advance.