An invention, finally deserving of mention, and extremely useful to painting, was made known during this last epoch by a Ferrarese, and afterwards brought to perfection by others. Antonio Contri, son of a Ferrarese lawyer, who, for domestic reasons, had long settled at Rome, and next at Paris, feeling a natural bias for design, practised it in both those cities; but first displayed greater excellence in embroidery than painting. Returning into Italy, and establishing himself at Cremona, he was instructed in landscape by Bassi, in which he was accustomed also to introduce flowers, the branch of painting in which he most distinguished himself. He also succeeded well in perspectives and in animals. His pictures, and those of his son Francesco, who pursued his style, remain at Cremona, Ferrara, and their vicinity; but it was his new discovery, just alluded to, which obtained a more wide circulation and repute. This is the method of removing from walls to canvass any picture without the least injury to its design or colouring. Various trials of it, during the space of a year, instructed him how to compose a sort of glue, or bitumen, which he spread over a canvass of equal size with the picture he wished to transfer to it. Having applied this to the painting, and beaten it firm with a mallet, he cut the plaister round it, and applied to the canvass a wooden frame well propped, in order that the work might take hold, and come off equal throughout. In a few days he cautiously removed the canvass from the wall, which brought with it the painting; and, having extended it on a smooth table, he applied to the back of it another canvass, varnished with a composition more adhesive than the former. He then placed over the work a quantity of sand, which should equally compress it in all its parts; and, after a week's space, he examined the two pieces of canvass, detached the first by means of warm water, and there then remained on the second the whole painting taken from the wall. He applied this method in different houses of Cremona, for Baruffaldi in Ferrara, and in Mantua for Prince d'Harmstadt, governor of the city; so as to enable him to send some heads, or other works of Giulio Romano, thus removed from the ducal palace, to the emperor. The secret composition of his glue Contri always concealed, but similar attempts were made about the same period in foreign countries. In the journal of Trevoux it is stated that Louis XV. caused the celebrated painting of St. Michael, by Raffaello, to be removed from its original canvass to a new one, a process which succeeded admirably, for on this last the chinks and creases disappeared which had greatly injured the former.[60] From this account I have been led to doubt whether Contri were really the inventor of this art, as asserted by Ferrarese writers. I say only doubted, since I am unable to judge the question with precision, for want of ascertaining the exact year in which he first applied the method with success. What is indisputable however is, that he was the first who was induced to make such trial of it upon painted walls, and that the plan which he adopted was only of his own invention. But whether he discovered the art, or only the method of applying it, at this period his secret, or something equivalent to it, is pretty well known in Italy. On passing through Imola, I saw, in a private house, two histories of the Life of the Virgin, which had been painted by Cesi in the cathedral of that city, removed thence, and replaced on large new canvass. Had this invention been elicited a few years previously, several of those ancient works might have been preserved, mention of which is now only to be met with in books, to the regret of every lover of the fine arts.
Here too we must give some account of an exceedingly interesting art, as regards that of painting; an art which, after the lapse of centuries, in some degree re-appeared in Italy, owing chiefly to the exertions of an ingenious Spaniard. He resided many years at Ferrara, and was assisted by the artists there in his experiments and undertakings. Some years before, attempts had been made at Paris to recover the method of painting in caustic, or that which the Greeks and Romans succeeded in by the medium of fire.[61] A few words in Vitruvius and Pliny, and these very obscure in our days, and to which various meanings are given by critics, formed the only chart and compass to direct the inquirer. It was known that wax was employed in ancient painting, much the same as oil in the modern; but how to prepare it, to combine it with the colours, to use it in a liquid state, and how to apply fire to the process until the completion of the work—was the secret to be discovered. Count Caylus, who pursued antiquarian researches less for the sake of history than of the arts, was perhaps the principal promoter of so useful an inquiry. The royal Academy of Inscriptions joined him, and offered a public premium for the discovery of a method of painting in caustic, such as should be found worthy of its approbation. Many experiments were at this period made; and philology, chemistry, painting, all united in throwing light upon the subject. Among various methods proposed by three academicians, Caylus, Cochin, and Bachiliere, two of them received premiums, though in some measure the same, and both proposed by the last of the three mentioned names. The whole account may be read in the Encyclopedia, under the head of Encaustique. Thenceforward native artists did not fail to make new trials, and practise themselves in pictures all'encausto. One of these, who arrived at Florence in 1780, exhibited to me a head, and some portion of the figure, thus painted by himself. I likewise saw him so employed. He had near him a brazier, on which were placed small pans filled with colours, all of a different body, and mixed with wax, but with what third ingredient I know not; whether salt of tartar, as recommended in the dissertation remunerated at Paris, or some other composition. A second brazier was fixed behind the cartoon or panel on which he painted, in order to preserve it always warm. The work being finished, he went over the whole with a small hair brush, and gave it a clear and vivid glow.
Some there were at that time in Italy who much admired this art. The numerous reliques of ancient painting, preserved free from the effects of time at Naples and at Rome, may be said to exhibit a manifest triumph over modern productions, which so much sooner become aged and fade away. This it was that induced the Ab. Vincenzo Requeno to publish the book shortly before cited, at Venice, first in 1784. In him were united all the requisite qualities for promoting the new discovery—the learning of a man of letters, experience of an artist, philosophical reasoning, and persevering experiment. His work is in every one's hands, so as to enable them to form an opinion, for this is not the place to enter into a discussion of its various merits. It has been done by the Cav. de Rossi in three extracts from that work, published in the first volume of the "Memorie delle Belle Arti," one of the most brief and at the same time admired journals in Italy. My sole object is to do justice to his singular penetration and industry. He gave a solution of the difficulty mentioned in the Encyclopedia, and discovered a new process. He shewed that salt of tartar was not made use of by the Greeks to dissolve wax, and adapt it to the brush, because they were unacquainted with such a substance; while his own experience convinced him it was useless for the purpose. He knew that the application of fire to the back of the painting was not the method adopted by the Greeks, inasmuch as it was inapplicable to their paintings upon large walls. He tried many experiments, and he at length found that the resinous gum, called mastic, would produce the effect which he had vainly sought from salt of tartar. With the gum and wax he made crayons, and found various ways of combining the colours, so as best to adapt them for the use of painting. When the work was finished, he was accustomed sometimes to give it a slight covering of wax, in place of varnish, and sometimes to leave it without; but in every process which he observed, he perfected the work by the application of fire, or as he himself observes, by burning it. This he effected by holding a brazier near the front of the picture, and lastly going over the work with a small linen cloth, which clears and enlivens the tints.
I have seen the first trials, as made by the Ab. Requeno himself, or by artists directed by him, in possession of his Excellency Pignatelli at Bologna, who added to the discovery no small share of information and patronage. But it was not to be expected that a new kind of painting could be perfected by means of a single studio. Aware of this, the author of the work thus expresses himself: "At the moment when a resinous gum shall be found better, that is, more white and hard, and equally soluble with wax and water as those employed by me, the pictures and caustics will become more beautiful, consistent, and durable. I am not a painter by profession, nor do I merit any particular commendation among dilettanti. My pictures have been conducted solely for the purpose of shewing a method of painting with ease and consistency in wax, without oil, without glue, and by means of gums only, with wax and water." On this account he thenceforward invited professors to join in promoting his discovery, and lived to witness its effects.
Omitting to speak of the chemists who aided in throwing light upon the progress of this art,[62] the pictoric school at Rome undertook in a manner to promote and bring it to its last degree of perfection. At that period lived counsellor Renfesthein, the friend of Mengs and of Winckelmann, [TN14] a man of exquisite taste in the arts of design, and ever surrounded by numbers of artists, who either received from him the benefit of his advice, or commissions from foreigners, private persons, and sovereigns. To these he proposed sometimes one, sometimes another method of the caustic art; and in a short time he beheld his cabinet filled with pictures on canvass, on wood, and on different kinds of stones, which he had already submitted to every proof, by putting them under ground, in water, and exposing them to every variety of weather without injury. From this time the new discovery spread to different studii, and was communicated successively to the Italian cities, and to foreign nations.
Entire chambers have thus been painted by caustic, a specimen of which is seen in that which the Archduke Ferdinand, governor of Milan, caused to be thus decorated in his villa of Monza. And in ornamental paintings and landscape this art may hitherto boast still more attractions than in figures. All however must be aware that it has not yet attained that degree of softness and finish possessed by the ancients in their paintings in wax, and in oil and varnish by the moderns. But where many unite to perfect it, it may be hoped that some Van Eyck may rise up, who will succeed in discovering, or more properly in perfecting that which "all artists had long looked for and ardently desired."[63]
[57] That of head librarian at St. Mark's.
[58] See Renaldis, p. 20.
[59] Gratella, literally a gridiron, or lattice-work.
[60] See Il Sig. Ab. Requeno, in his "Essays for the Re-establishment of the ancient Art of the Greek and Roman Painters." Ed. Ven. p. 108.