Thus much then with reference to the dignity of this now expiring art. We have already[1859] stated with what single colours the earlier artists painted, when speaking of these pigments under the head of metals. The new modes of painting which were afterwards discovered, and are known as “neogrammatea,”[1860] the names of the artists, their different inventions, and the periods at which these inventions were adopted, will all be described when we come to enumerate the painters: for the present, however, the proposed plan of this work requires, that I should enlarge upon the nature of the several colours that are employed.
The art of painting at last became developed, in the invention of light and shade, the alternating contrast of the colours serving to heighten the effect of each. At a later period, again, lustre[1861] was added, a thing altogether different from light. The gradation between lustre and light on the one hand and shade on the other, was called “tonos;” while the blending of the various tints, and their passing into one another, was known as “harmoge.”[1862]
CHAP. 12. (6.)—PIGMENTS OTHER THAN THOSE OF A METALLIC ORIGIN. ARTIFICIAL COLOURS.
Colours are either[1863] sombre or florid, these qualities arising either from the nature, of the substances or their mode of combination. The florid colours are those which the employer supplies[1864] to the painter at his own expense; minium,[1865] namely, armenium, cinnabaris,[1866] chrysocolla,[1867] indicum, and purpurissum. The others are the sombre colours. Taking both kinds together, some are native colours, and others are artificial. Sinopis, rubrica, parætonium, melinum, eretria and orpiment, are native colours. The others are artificial, more particularly those described by us when speaking of metals; in addition to which there are, among the more common colours, ochra, usta or burnt ceruse, sandarach, sandyx, syricum, and atramentum.
CHAP. 13.—SINOPIS: ELEVEN REMEDIES.
Sinopis[1868] was discovered in Pontus; and hence its name, from the city of Sinope there. It is produced also in Egypt, the Balearic islands, and Africa; but the best is found in Lemnos and Cappadocia, being extracted from quarries there. That part is considered the best which has been found adhering to the rock. In the native mass, it has its own proper colour within, but is spotted on the exterior; the ancients made use of it for tone.[1869]
There are three kinds of sinopis, the red, the pale red, and the intermediate. The price of the best is twelve denarii per pound; it is used both for painting with the brush, and for colouring wood. The kind which comes from Africa sells at eight asses per pound; the name given to it is “cicerculum.”[1870] That[1871] which is of the deepest red is the most in use for colouring compartitions. The sinopis known as the dull[1872] kind, being of a very tawny complexion, sells also at the price of eight asses per pound; it is used principally for the lower[1873] parts of compartitions.
Used medicinally, sinopis is of a soothing nature, and is employed as an ingredient in plasters and emollient poultices. It admits of being easily used, whether in the form of a dry or of a liquid composition, for the cure of ulcers situate in the humid parts of the body, the mouth and the rectum, for instance. Used as an injection, it arrests looseness of the bowels, and, taken in doses of one denarius, it acts as a check upon female discharges. Applied in a burnt state, with wine in particular, it has a desiccative effect upon granulations of the eyelids.
CHAP. 14.—RUBRICA; LEMNIAN EARTH: FOUR REMEDIES.
Some persons have wished to make out that sinopis is nothing else but a kind of rubrica[1874] of second-rate quality, looking upon earth of Lemnos as a rubrics of the highest quality. This last approaches very nearly to minium,[1875] and was as highly esteemed among the ancients as the island that produces it: it was never sold except in sealed packages, a circumstance to which it was indebted for its additional name of “sphragis.” It is with this material that they give the under-coating to minium, in the adulteration of which it is also extensively employed.