After some interesting accounts of statue-painting, the propriety of which has been so ably discussed by Mr Eastlake, and a few words on implements used in painting, Mrs Merrifield treats of leather, niello, and dyeing. The first of these leads her to lament the practice of the monks "during the dark ages;" who, to the supposed loss of many classic works, found out that, according to the old proverb, there is "nothing like leather." We would recommend her to become a little more acquainted with the real history of the monks during "the dark ages," their actual habits and manners, rather than trust, as we fear has been the case, to authors who have only misrepresented them. She will find matter even as interesting as the documents discovered respecting their arts and inventions. However there may be cause for lamenting the misuse of parchments which had been written on, and their conversion into waistcoats for warriors, and sandals for monks, there was no need to fit the said sandals on "the sleek and well-fed monks;" for certainly, if they were as described, they would have worn out the fewer, as "sleek and well-fed" means but fat and lazy. It would be hard to find any now who, equally with them, were given to fasting and prayer. Indeed, the very arts which they practised, into which Mrs Merrifield has made research, should, we think, rescue them from the common ill report.
Leather was used for hangings, at first only behind the seats of the owner of the house, subsequently round the room, and stamped and gilt, and ornamented with tinfoil. We doubt if our modern papers, even the "artistic," are an improvement. The old principle in furniture was richness of effect, a depth, a home-warmth both in substance and colour; the modern inferior taste is, or has been recently, for all that is light, gaudy, and flimsy. We should not be sorry to see the revival of leather hangings, as, in point of richness and look of comfort—a great thing in a room—far superior to paper. There is perhaps no very great beauty in niello, nor much cause for regret that it has fallen into disuse; yet, unimportant as it is in itself, it is the parent of the most delightful, the most useful invention—engraving. Nigellum or niello was known to the ancients, and practised during the middle ages: it is only known now by specimens in museums. Yet we think there has been an attempt to revive it in Russia. We have seen a specimen, but it was very coarsely executed.
Dyeing appears, during the middle ages, to have been the trade of the Jews. It is not ascertained at what period it was introduced into England. It is said that, in the reign of Henry III., woollen cloth was worn white, for lack of the art of dyeing—though this is doubted, as, woad having been imported in the time of John, it might be implied that dyeing was known. Before the introduction of printing-blocks, the practice of painting linen cloth intended for wearing-apparel, with devices, flowers, and various ornaments, in imitation of embroidery, was common in England. To what great results has this little dress-vanity led! How much of our commercial prosperity has its very origin in a taste condemned by the serious as frivolous! The love of ornament is an instinct, and they are slanderers of Nature in all her works, and in man's inventive mind, who would insert it in the calendar of deadly sins. There is perhaps another love, the love of profit, of a more ambiguous character: we believe there are not a few who would have made a "drab creation" of this beautiful world, now from their cotton-printing mills sending forth, by millions upon millions of yards, this "frivolous vanity" to the ends of the earth. It may be questioned if Penn's merchandise, as the bales were unpacked, would have passed the custom-house of a white conscience. Have poor Indians been as unscrupulously corrupted as cheated?
By far the greater portion of the introduction takes up the subject of oil-painting, which was the chief object of the commission. We have already spoken of the result, as well as of the little reliance to be placed upon the experience of modern painters and restorers in the country of the old masters. They flatly contradict each other. Even as to method, did Titian paint first with cold colours? One affirms, another denies. There is much evidence that the Venetian painters were more sparing than others in the use of ultramarine. Their principal blue, it appears, was azzurro della Magna, (German blue.) The receipts for making azures are numerous. Blue is the most important of our colours; it is well, therefore, that the attention of our colour-makers should be particularly directed to it. We have often felt sure, on looking at Venetian pictures, that the blues generally were not ultramarine—the beauty of which colour, great as it is, does not bear the mixture with a body of white lead with impunity—it must be used thin. One of the artists consulted said, "The Venetians never used ultramarine, which inclined too much to the violet." Though he is wrong in "never," for there is proof to the contrary, in reference to their general practice he may be right, as also for their cause of setting it aside. The very glowing, warm, general tones of the Venetians—of Titian and Giorgione especially—required a warmer blue, if we may be allowed to apply such an epithet—for we are aware that most classifiers of colours say that it is always cold; and we remember the old controversy on the subject, which Gainsborough endeavoured not unsuccessfully to decide, by painting his now celebrated picture, called the "Blue Boy." Contrary to the opinion of many artists, we are inclined to agree with Mr Field, whose chemical knowledge and experience should have great weight, that the modern colour "Prussian blue," if well prepared, is one of much value. It is certainly the most powerful—not, however, to be recommended for the clear azure of a sky. We should be glad to know the opinion of Mr Eastlake with regard to the modern ultramarine, said to be made after an analysis of the real substance. Though it belongs not to his investigation of the old practice, a note upon the subject would be very acceptable. If our blues and our chromes are permanent colours, we have little to regret in the (supposed) loss of many used by the old masters.
It is curious that even colours were purchased of the "speziali,"—the apothecaries. It is well known how much we are indebted to medical science for many of the recipes in art, including those for the purification of oils and the manufacture of varnishes. "Sig. A. told me that, when he was at Venice, he made a point of going to the Piazza San Salvatore, where Titian used to purchase his colours, to see whether there were any "speziali" there still. He found one, and inquired of him if he had any old colours, such as were used by the old painters, and he was shown an orange-coloured pigment, which resembled a colour frequently found on Venetian pictures." We have before us a document of payments so late as 1699, by which it appears that, with us also, the apothecary was the vender of painters' materials. "1699—Rob. Bayley, apothecary—for oil, gold, and colours, £61." This was for painting a high cross. Blackness has sometimes been objected to in the colouring of the greatest of landscape painters, Gaspar Poussin. If the following statement may be relied upon, the cause of this occasional blemish, if it be one, may be conjectured. Sig. A. showed a black mirror, which he said had been used in painting by Bamboccio, (Peter Van Laer,) and that it had been "bequeathed by Bamboccio to Gaspar Poussin; by the latter to some other painter, until it ultimately came into the hands of Sig. A." In pictures of an early time the darks are thick and substantial, the lights thin. This was reversed afterwards, excepting with regard to some dark blue, and other draperies, of which examples may be seen in Correggio. There is a peculiar impasto, however, of the Bolognese school, which seems to have escaped the notice of Mr Eastlake and Mrs Merrifield: it is mostly observable in Guercino. The paint on the flesh, in heads, arms, &c., is frequently greatly raised, as if modelled. We are curious to know something respecting this method—in what way the manipulation is managed.
We cannot credit the accounts given by all whom Mrs Merrifield consulted, that it was Titian's practice to lay by his pictures, after each painting, for months, and even years. This slow process implies a forbearance which can noways be reconciled with the fervour and usual impatience of genius. Without fastening him down to so systematic a necessity, we can easily believe that his pictures were long under his hand, from the repeated glazings so remarkable in his works. Exposure to the sun and air seems to have been universal. It is well known that, a short time after painting, a portion, probably a deleterious portion, of the oil rises to the surface. The atmosphere certainly takes up this, but the exposure must be frequent, for this greasiness will return. We strongly suspect that it is this deleterious exudation which destroys the purity of colours; and would recommend, from a long experience, the washing the surface of pictures, (we have used common sand for the purpose,) as often as any greasiness returns. A time will be ascertained when none recurs; and we think the picture is then pretty secure from any farther change. In this case, a kind of abrasion does what time would in the end do; but, not waiting for time, we often varnish, and leave this deleterious part of the oil to do its mischief. Much stress has been laid on the grinding of colours. The Venetians were not very careful in this matter, excepting in their glazing colours. It is very evident that, for some purposes of effect, they purposely laid on their colours very coarsely ground, and scraped down for granulation. White lead, however, it is admitted, cannot be too finely ground, or too carefully made. It is the pigment that Titian was most solicitous about. There is a letter of his extant, in which he laments the death of the person who manufactured it for him. "The Italians, and especially the Venetians," says Mrs Merrifield, "were extremely careful in the preparation of their white lead, which was generally purified by washing." A recipe of Fra Fortunato of Rovigo, recommends the grinding it with vinegar and washing it, repeating the operation: "You will then have a white lead, which will be as excellent for miniature painting as for painting in oil." With regard to the glazings of Titian, an almost incredible story is told by an artist, Sig. E. "He says that glazings are never permanent, and that nothing can make them so; and, as a proof, he told me there were in a certain palace several pictures by Titian, which had always been covered with glasses: that he was present when the glasses were removed for the time; when, to the surprise of every one present, the glazings were found to have evaporated from the pictures, and to have adhered to the inside of the glass. I considered this incredible, and it certainly appears to require proof, although it must be recollected that Lionardo da Vinci says, 'Il verde fatto dal rame, ancorchè tal color sia messo a olio, se ne va in fumo,'" &c. If the colour evaporated from the picture, it would certainly be retained by the glass; and this artist distinctly said, that all the glazings were fixed on the inside of the glass, exactly above the painting, and that the effect of the different colours on the glass was very singular. From that time, he added, he had left off glazing his pictures. This is the more strange, because painters of the Flemish school may be said to have commenced their pictures with glazing, and to have continued it throughout; yet we never heard of such a fact, though many of their pictures have been under glass.
We have elsewhere recommended, without knowing that it was an old practice, the use of white chalk and such substances with the colours, and are therefore pleased to find the following notice,—"White chalk, marble dust, gesso, the bone of cuttle-fish, alumen, and travertine, were occasionally used in white pigments. They were frequently mixed with transparent vegetable colours, to give them body:" it might be added to give them, by a semi-transparency, and that even to colours in their own nature opaque, a luminous quality.
Does "grana in grano," the Spanish term for the scarlet pigment, show the origin of the expression, "a rogue in grain." "Pierce Plowman, whose Vision is supposed to have been written in 1350, in describing the dress of a lady richly clad, says, that her robe was of 'scarlet in grain;' that is, scarlet dyed with grana, the best and most durable red dye. The import of the words 'in grain,' was afterwards changed, and the term was applied generally to all colours with which cloths were dyed, which were considered to be permanent."
"Biadetto," the artificial carbonate of copper, is said to be the blue most resembling that found in Venetian pictures. Mrs Merrifield erroneously places coal among the black pigments. It is a brown, and we know of none so useful; it is deep, but not the hot brown, such as Vandyke brown, resembling that of Teniers: Mr Eastlake has shown that it was used by the Flemish and Dutch painters. We had long used it, before we were acquainted with so authoritative a recommendation.
We find many very useful observations on oils, as to their purification, and the methods of rendering them drying. As Mrs Merrifield offers in a note a new dryer, certainly a desideratum, we quote the passage, that trials of it may be made:—