DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.20658#0265
WATER-COLOURS.
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which have been laid out and clumped as caprice directed or, which for picturesque effect is still
worse, with geometric regularity. With a little knowledge of the rules of art a proprietor would
be enabled to consider and treat his grounds as a picture, and to produce all the effect of which
his materials are susceptible, by building or planting with design and according to those principles.
Such a proprietor would at least have it in his power to examine and perhaps suggest
improvements and corrections on the projects of professed practical landscape-gardeners, as they
may be styled, who are sometimes governed more by caprice than by science and taste in their
operations, and are on many occasions unable to assign any reason for their plans and
proceedings.
It is justly observed by Mr. F. Nicholson, in his very useful practical treatise on Landscape-
painting with water-colours, just published, that " in a national point of view, we have lately had
a convincing proof of the importance of works of art; one in which the subject has been too
little attended to, by those whom it most concerns. To whatever country the most valuable
productions of art can be drawn, that country will be the centre of attraction to the civilized
world. Such undoubtedly was the idea of the late ruler of the French nation; and such a
centre of attraction would Paris have continued to be, if the dispersion of the works of art,
collected under a system of rapine and plunder, had not taken place. The productions of art,
in the present age, will be of increased value at future periods. We have in this country many
objects of great interest: such are the remains of monastic and other buildings ; the former are
decaying so rapidly that, in another century, they will be known only by such delineations as
have been, or may be made of them, while they yet exist; for mere verbal description, at a
period when there is little of the kind to refer to, will convey but an inadequate idea of what
they have been." Fascinating as are the effects of this elegant species of painting, and simple
as appear the means by which those effects are produced, still in order to attain a proper degree
of proficiency in its execution skill must be acquired in several particulars, stated to be requisite
in the preceding observations on painting in oil. The colouring substances employed are
frequently the same; but they are differently prepared and applied. The peculiarity of paintiug
with water colours is that the whites are produced by the natural colour of the paper: of the
white however in the picture, as in the objects themselves which are represented, the student
must be aware that pure white can very seldom appear. He must never forget that, in painting
of every kind, he is not to exhibit objects as they actually exist in themselves, but as they are
observed by the eye. The whiteness of snow is proverbial : yet a mass of the purest snow will
present every gradation of colour, by reflection and refraction, according to the species of light
directed to the mass, and the state of the atmosphere through which the rays of light are
transmitted. Hence in a summer morning when the sun is on the south of the renowned Mont
Blanc, the snow on the north side appears from a distance equally dark with the pinnacles of rock
which rear their heads above its surface. When the sun is going down, the spectator retaining
his former place of observation, beholds with astonishment the formerly dark expanse of snow
brilliant with the warmest and most vivid tints of the rainbow. Hence it is that on particular
occasions only the white mountain literally deserves its name.
The first thing to be done by the young painter in water-colours is to provide himself with a
proper drawing board, of mahogany or wajnut-tree, perfectly even in all directions and smooth.
On one side is fastened the paper on which the drawing is to be executed ; and on the other is
pasted.
'251
which have been laid out and clumped as caprice directed or, which for picturesque effect is still
worse, with geometric regularity. With a little knowledge of the rules of art a proprietor would
be enabled to consider and treat his grounds as a picture, and to produce all the effect of which
his materials are susceptible, by building or planting with design and according to those principles.
Such a proprietor would at least have it in his power to examine and perhaps suggest
improvements and corrections on the projects of professed practical landscape-gardeners, as they
may be styled, who are sometimes governed more by caprice than by science and taste in their
operations, and are on many occasions unable to assign any reason for their plans and
proceedings.
It is justly observed by Mr. F. Nicholson, in his very useful practical treatise on Landscape-
painting with water-colours, just published, that " in a national point of view, we have lately had
a convincing proof of the importance of works of art; one in which the subject has been too
little attended to, by those whom it most concerns. To whatever country the most valuable
productions of art can be drawn, that country will be the centre of attraction to the civilized
world. Such undoubtedly was the idea of the late ruler of the French nation; and such a
centre of attraction would Paris have continued to be, if the dispersion of the works of art,
collected under a system of rapine and plunder, had not taken place. The productions of art,
in the present age, will be of increased value at future periods. We have in this country many
objects of great interest: such are the remains of monastic and other buildings ; the former are
decaying so rapidly that, in another century, they will be known only by such delineations as
have been, or may be made of them, while they yet exist; for mere verbal description, at a
period when there is little of the kind to refer to, will convey but an inadequate idea of what
they have been." Fascinating as are the effects of this elegant species of painting, and simple
as appear the means by which those effects are produced, still in order to attain a proper degree
of proficiency in its execution skill must be acquired in several particulars, stated to be requisite
in the preceding observations on painting in oil. The colouring substances employed are
frequently the same; but they are differently prepared and applied. The peculiarity of paintiug
with water colours is that the whites are produced by the natural colour of the paper: of the
white however in the picture, as in the objects themselves which are represented, the student
must be aware that pure white can very seldom appear. He must never forget that, in painting
of every kind, he is not to exhibit objects as they actually exist in themselves, but as they are
observed by the eye. The whiteness of snow is proverbial : yet a mass of the purest snow will
present every gradation of colour, by reflection and refraction, according to the species of light
directed to the mass, and the state of the atmosphere through which the rays of light are
transmitted. Hence in a summer morning when the sun is on the south of the renowned Mont
Blanc, the snow on the north side appears from a distance equally dark with the pinnacles of rock
which rear their heads above its surface. When the sun is going down, the spectator retaining
his former place of observation, beholds with astonishment the formerly dark expanse of snow
brilliant with the warmest and most vivid tints of the rainbow. Hence it is that on particular
occasions only the white mountain literally deserves its name.
The first thing to be done by the young painter in water-colours is to provide himself with a
proper drawing board, of mahogany or wajnut-tree, perfectly even in all directions and smooth.
On one side is fastened the paper on which the drawing is to be executed ; and on the other is
pasted.