DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.68796#0336
316 Painting Old and New part hi
example, the practice of painting into a wet rubbing may
secure a rich and harmonious effect, but it may also lead an
inferior practitioner into monotony and unctiousness. The
warm glazes of the Venetians, a little too thickly and widely
spread, will suffuse the whole piece with the spurious sun-
shine delighted in by second-rate colourists. Then again,
there are certain specious devices of modelling impasto so
as to bring high-lights into actual relief or to imitate the
textures of natural objects, that we learn from ancient prac-
tice to distrust. It follows of course from the nature of oil
pigments that lighter passages, involving a free use of white,
are painted with the most body, while shadows can be
indicated with considerable depth as well as transparency
by the mere rubbing which sometimes satisfied Frans Hals.
Hence the light parts may stand out in thick impasto
beyond the rest, and the highest light tend to become a
projecting dot of pigment. The great masters accept these
mechanical consequences of the medium they employ, but
so far from emphasising them they endeavoured to minimise
their working. Thus Rembrandt paints solidly under his
shadows, though he may use glazes as a finish. It was of
course discerned by these essentially sound practitioners
that the projecting high light, while it may seem to give a
certain brilliancy for the moment, really defeats its own
object, for in side or top illumination it will cast an actual
shadow in its neighbourhood just where shadow is not
needed, and in the course of time may attract so much
dust as to tell out rather as a spot of black. The case is
the same with the imitation of relief effects. This is at
times carried pretty far by masters of great research in
their practice, such as Rembrandt and Reynolds, who will
work into a plastic mass of white pigment with the handle
of the paint-brush till a sort of relief design is formed, the
colouring being adjusted by glazes. As a rule, however,
example, the practice of painting into a wet rubbing may
secure a rich and harmonious effect, but it may also lead an
inferior practitioner into monotony and unctiousness. The
warm glazes of the Venetians, a little too thickly and widely
spread, will suffuse the whole piece with the spurious sun-
shine delighted in by second-rate colourists. Then again,
there are certain specious devices of modelling impasto so
as to bring high-lights into actual relief or to imitate the
textures of natural objects, that we learn from ancient prac-
tice to distrust. It follows of course from the nature of oil
pigments that lighter passages, involving a free use of white,
are painted with the most body, while shadows can be
indicated with considerable depth as well as transparency
by the mere rubbing which sometimes satisfied Frans Hals.
Hence the light parts may stand out in thick impasto
beyond the rest, and the highest light tend to become a
projecting dot of pigment. The great masters accept these
mechanical consequences of the medium they employ, but
so far from emphasising them they endeavoured to minimise
their working. Thus Rembrandt paints solidly under his
shadows, though he may use glazes as a finish. It was of
course discerned by these essentially sound practitioners
that the projecting high light, while it may seem to give a
certain brilliancy for the moment, really defeats its own
object, for in side or top illumination it will cast an actual
shadow in its neighbourhood just where shadow is not
needed, and in the course of time may attract so much
dust as to tell out rather as a spot of black. The case is
the same with the imitation of relief effects. This is at
times carried pretty far by masters of great research in
their practice, such as Rembrandt and Reynolds, who will
work into a plastic mass of white pigment with the handle
of the paint-brush till a sort of relief design is formed, the
colouring being adjusted by glazes. As a rule, however,