DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.20658#0257
PORTRAIT. 24 o
In painting trees the trunk may be laid with ochre, putting some green in the white and clear
parts, and in the brown parts a little black, adding to the shade for both a small proportion of
green. Tints resembling nature may also be composed with blue and yellow, interspersed occa-
sionally with light touches of mastieot or white. For herbage or foliage in the fore-grounds, a
sea-green is often used to lay thern on the first ground ; but when they appear in the shades a
deeper «;reen is employed, mixed with a little brown for such as are withered and decayed.
lo glazing a painting white is not used, as it is commonly of too strong a body; although
when mixed and applied with very thin varnish it may be employed to advantage. In the flower-
pieces of several eminent hands this manner of glazing with white has produced a rich and pleasing
effect.
Before concluding this Section on portrait painting it may be useful, in adition to what was
formerly observed in the second Chapter of this Boole, on a comparison of the ancient and
modern painters, to mention some opinions on the mode of painting of the ancients. It has been
generally believed that they had only four colours, out of which all their tints were formed ; this
however has been combated in an ingenious Essay, published in the Memoirs of the Literary and
Philosophical Society of Manchester, for the year 1790. The writer conceives the above opinion
to have taken its rise from a misunderstanding of certain passages in ancient authors who have
treated the subject, and who alluded to those who, in the days of those writers, were already
ancients : but w ho, in speaking of the practices of their own later times, although still considered
as ancients by us, furnish many proofs of the use of more colours in painting than bad in earlier
limes been employed. Thus Cicero exclaims :—"How much greater brilliancy, beauty, and
variety of colours do we not observe in the modern paintings than in the ancient!" Ii is not
improbable the very earliest painters made use of fewer colours than those of later times, since
we are rold of the discovery of some of them. Thus we are informed that the ancient purple was
prepared from a substance produced by insects on certain plants :—a description agreeing to what
is now called cochineal, from which our present lake is extracted. Again it is mentioned in
Pliny, that a blue colour was obtained from the same country, and in the same manner as our
indigo. " The best," says this great naturalist, " comes from india, being t he juice of a sort of
reed, with a thick clammy mud. When first bruised this juice is black, but when diluted it becomes
of an admirable hue, of a mixture of purple and sky-blue." In another place Piinv mentions India
as contributing to colours the mud of its rivers. ISow this mud can be nothing but the sediment
which remains after the preparation of indigo from the plant anil, of which it is made; and
which in India might in ancient times be produced by the maceration in the rivers of the
vegetables growing on their banks.
Besides this purple and the Indian blue, many other colours had been discovered in Plinv's
lime, who has left us a list of them. The writer, in the Manchester Memoirs, has collected
from various authors the following account:—Of white colouring substances the ancients had
ziJtite had variously prepared ; a white from calcined egg-shells, and preparations from cretaceous
and argillaceous earths. The modern painters have in addition magistery of bismuth, little used,
and ought to have the calces of tin and zinc.
" Of blacks, the ancients had preparations similar to lamp, ivory, Frankfort, and blue-black ;
also to Indian ink, and common writing ink ; and they used what we do not use, viz. the
precipitate of the black dyers' vats. Black chalk and black lead were., as I think, unknown to them.
" Of
In painting trees the trunk may be laid with ochre, putting some green in the white and clear
parts, and in the brown parts a little black, adding to the shade for both a small proportion of
green. Tints resembling nature may also be composed with blue and yellow, interspersed occa-
sionally with light touches of mastieot or white. For herbage or foliage in the fore-grounds, a
sea-green is often used to lay thern on the first ground ; but when they appear in the shades a
deeper «;reen is employed, mixed with a little brown for such as are withered and decayed.
lo glazing a painting white is not used, as it is commonly of too strong a body; although
when mixed and applied with very thin varnish it may be employed to advantage. In the flower-
pieces of several eminent hands this manner of glazing with white has produced a rich and pleasing
effect.
Before concluding this Section on portrait painting it may be useful, in adition to what was
formerly observed in the second Chapter of this Boole, on a comparison of the ancient and
modern painters, to mention some opinions on the mode of painting of the ancients. It has been
generally believed that they had only four colours, out of which all their tints were formed ; this
however has been combated in an ingenious Essay, published in the Memoirs of the Literary and
Philosophical Society of Manchester, for the year 1790. The writer conceives the above opinion
to have taken its rise from a misunderstanding of certain passages in ancient authors who have
treated the subject, and who alluded to those who, in the days of those writers, were already
ancients : but w ho, in speaking of the practices of their own later times, although still considered
as ancients by us, furnish many proofs of the use of more colours in painting than bad in earlier
limes been employed. Thus Cicero exclaims :—"How much greater brilliancy, beauty, and
variety of colours do we not observe in the modern paintings than in the ancient!" Ii is not
improbable the very earliest painters made use of fewer colours than those of later times, since
we are rold of the discovery of some of them. Thus we are informed that the ancient purple was
prepared from a substance produced by insects on certain plants :—a description agreeing to what
is now called cochineal, from which our present lake is extracted. Again it is mentioned in
Pliny, that a blue colour was obtained from the same country, and in the same manner as our
indigo. " The best," says this great naturalist, " comes from india, being t he juice of a sort of
reed, with a thick clammy mud. When first bruised this juice is black, but when diluted it becomes
of an admirable hue, of a mixture of purple and sky-blue." In another place Piinv mentions India
as contributing to colours the mud of its rivers. ISow this mud can be nothing but the sediment
which remains after the preparation of indigo from the plant anil, of which it is made; and
which in India might in ancient times be produced by the maceration in the rivers of the
vegetables growing on their banks.
Besides this purple and the Indian blue, many other colours had been discovered in Plinv's
lime, who has left us a list of them. The writer, in the Manchester Memoirs, has collected
from various authors the following account:—Of white colouring substances the ancients had
ziJtite had variously prepared ; a white from calcined egg-shells, and preparations from cretaceous
and argillaceous earths. The modern painters have in addition magistery of bismuth, little used,
and ought to have the calces of tin and zinc.
" Of blacks, the ancients had preparations similar to lamp, ivory, Frankfort, and blue-black ;
also to Indian ink, and common writing ink ; and they used what we do not use, viz. the
precipitate of the black dyers' vats. Black chalk and black lead were., as I think, unknown to them.
" Of