Lodovico Dolce, who is supposed to have given the vivâ voce precepts of Titian in his Dialogue,[1] makes Aretino say: "I would generally banish from my pictures those vermilion cheeks with coral lips; for faces thus treated look like masks. Propertius, reproving his Cynthia for using cosmetics, desires that her complexion might exhibit the simplicity and purity of colour which is seen in the works of Apelles."
Those who have written on the practice of painting have always recommended the use of few colours for flesh. Reynolds and others quote even ancient authorities as recorded by Pliny, and Boschini gives several descriptions of the method of the Venetians, and particularly of Titian, to the same effect. "They used," he says, "earths more than any other colour, and at the utmost only added a little vermilion, minium, and lake, abhorring as a pestilence biadetti, gialli santi, smaltini, verdi-azzurri, giallolini."[2] Elsewhere he says,[3] "Earths should be used rather than other colours:" after repeating the above prohibited list he adds, "I speak of the imitation of flesh, for in other things every colour is good;" again, "Our great Titian used to say that he who wishes to be a painter should be acquainted with three colours, white, black, and red."[4] Assuming this account to be a little exaggerated, it is still to be observed that the monotony to which the use of few colours would seem to tend, is prevented by the nature of the Venetian process, which was sufficiently conformable to Goethe's doctrine; the gradations being multiplied, and the effect of the colours heightened by using them as semi-opaque mediums. Immediately after the passage last quoted we read, "He also gave this true precept, that to produce a lively colouring in flesh it is not possible to finish at once."[5] As these particulars may not be known to all, we add some further abridged extracts explaining the order and methods of these different operations.
"The Venetian painters," says this writer,[6] "after having drawn in their subject, got in the masses with very solid colour, without making use of nature or statues. Their great object in this stage of their work was to distinguish the advancing and retiring portions, that the figures might be relieved by means of chiaro-scuro—one of the most important departments of colour and form, and indeed of invention. Having decided on their scheme of effect, when this preparation was dry, they consulted nature and the antique; not servilely, but with the aid of a few lines on paper (quattro segni in carta) they corrected their figures without any other model. Then returning to their brushes, they began to paint smartly on this preparation, producing the colour of flesh." The passage before quoted follows, stating that they used earths chiefly, that they carefully avoided certain colours, "and likewise varnishes and whatever produces a shining surface.[7] When this second painting was dry, they proceeded to scumble over this or that figure with a low tint to make the one next it come forward, giving another, at the same time, an additional light—for example, on a head, a hand, or a foot, thus detaching them, so to speak, from the canvas." (Tintoret's Prigionia di S. Rocco is here quoted.) "By thus still multiplying these well-understood retouchings where required, on the dry surface, (à secco) they reduced the whole to harmony. In this operation they took care not to cover entire figures, but rather went on gemming them (gioielandole) with vigorous touches. In the shadows, too, they infused vigour frequently by glazing with asphaltum, always leaving great masses in middle-tint, with many darks, in addition to the partial glazings, and few lights."
The introduction to the subject of Venetian colouring, in the poem by the same author, is also worth transcribing, but as the style is quaint and very concise, a translation is necessarily a paraphrase.[8]
"The art of colouring has the imitation of qualities for its object; not all qualities, but those secondary ones which are appreciable by the sense of sight. The eye especially sees colours, the imitation of nature in painting is therefore justly called colouring; but the painter arrives at his end by indirect means. He gives the varieties of tone in masses;[9] he smartly impinges lights, he clothes his preparation with more delicate local hues, he unites, he glazes: thus everything depends on the method, on the process. For if we look at colour abstractedly, the most positive may be called the most beautiful, but if we keep the end of imitation in view, this shallow conclusion falls to the ground. The refined Venetian manner is very different from mere direct, sedulous imitation. Every one who has a good eye may arrive at such results, but to attain the manner of Paolo, of Bassan, of Palma, Tintoret, or Titian, is a very different undertaking."[10]
The effects of semi-transparent mediums in some natural productions seem alluded to in the following passage—"Nature sometimes accidentally imitates figures in stones and other substances, and although they are necessarily incomplete in form, yet the principle of effect (depth) resembles the Venetian practice." In a passage that follows there appears to be an allusion to the production of the atmospheric colours by semi-transparent mediums.[11]
[1] "Dialogo della Pittura, intitolato l'Aretino." It was first published at Venice in 1557; about twenty years before Titian's death. In the dedication to the senator Loredano, Lodovico Dolce eulogises the work, which he would hardly have done if it had been entirely his own: again, the supposition that it may have been suggested by Aretino, would be equally conclusive, coupled with internal evidence, as to the original source.
[2] Introduction to the "Ricche Minere della Pittura Veneziana," Venezia, 1674. The Italian annotators on older works on painting are sometimes at a loss to find modern terms equivalent to the obsolete names of pigments. (See "Antologia dell 'Arte Pittorica.") The colours now in use corresponding with Boschini's list, are probably yellow lakes, smalt, verditer, and Naples yellow. Boschini often censures the practice of other schools, and in this emphatic condemnation he seems to have had an eye to certain precepts in Lomazzo, and perhaps, even in Leonardo da Vinci, who, on one occasion, recommends Naples yellow, lake, and white for flesh. The Venetian writer often speaks, too, in no measured terms of certain Flemish pictures, probably because they appeared to him too tinted.
[3] "La Carta del Navegar Pitoresco," p. 338.