DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.20658#0273
WATER-COLOURS.
retouched 1770; but notwithstanding those various attempts to uphold it, the painting is now
just descernible and no more, on the dusky wall; a dim shadow of what it once was. As a
striking contrast to this famous painting in oil must be noticed on the opposite wall of the same
refectory, in precisely similar circumstances, a painting in fresco, that is in water-colours,
executed in the time of Da Vinci, which still retains all the vivacity of its original colouring.
The celebrated antique painting known by the name of the Aldobrandbd Marriage, which has
lately passed into the Pope's collection in the Vatican, retains its vivid colouring in fresco, at
the end of at least seventeen hundred years."
In portrait-painting the use of water-colours has been almost confined to miniatures, in which
no attempt in oil has even entered into competition with it. This excellence proceeds not so
much from the practicability of working with greater delicacy of colour and finishing in that
manner, as from its truth to nature and freedom from that greasiness of surface inseparable
from paintings in oil. And there is no reason to doubt that the same advantages would follow,
if equal practice and attention were bestowed in painting portraits of the full size in life. For by
the present methods of working every requisite is now fully within the command of the artist.
The best works of the old masters are in water-colours; viz. in fresco or distemper; a senseless
corruption of the French word detrcmpe; because the colours are soaked into the plaster. For
the easel-pieces of Raphael and other masters of his time would not have established their repu-
tation. Their greatest works excel in the higher requisites in painting; in design in com-
position in expression ; which do not depend on any peculiar mode of practice. In colouring
and some other minor parts of their art they were deficient; for them they neglected, in
order to cultivate such as were higher and of much greater importance. The celebrated
remark of Michael Angelo, that " painting in oil was an employment fitted only for women
and children/' was such as might have been expected from him, a giant in the art of painting,
who held all the minor requisites, in which oil-painting may have any advantages over other,
methods, to be of little importance.
TINTING PRINTS.
A branch of water colouring is the method of tinting prints, in which regard must be had to
the quality of the paper on which the prints are executed for this is sometimes of such a nature
that ordinary water-colours, and even body colours, will sink into it, unless previously pre-
pared with a solution of alum, or with some other strengthening substance. The strength
and consistence of the colours to be applied to the print must be proportioned to the quantity
and nature of the ink on the paper. If it be intended only to stain the print, the engraved parts
will answer well for the shadows, and to preserve the keeping of the drawing : but when the print
is to be highly coloured, the engraving, although necessary to guide the placing of the colours,
may often be kept down, and in some degree concealed by the body of colour. Whites ought to
be left out wherever it can be done, as in the lights, or other parts of a lint approaching to the
lights; the colours applied being so thin and transparent as to supersede the necessity of intro-
ducing white colours. In the same way black ought to be left out, or if indispensable, it should be
used sparingly and as gently as possible. 3 n doing the broad lights and shades, the same met hods
of working and mingling the colours must be adopted, and neither white nor black admitted
without.
retouched 1770; but notwithstanding those various attempts to uphold it, the painting is now
just descernible and no more, on the dusky wall; a dim shadow of what it once was. As a
striking contrast to this famous painting in oil must be noticed on the opposite wall of the same
refectory, in precisely similar circumstances, a painting in fresco, that is in water-colours,
executed in the time of Da Vinci, which still retains all the vivacity of its original colouring.
The celebrated antique painting known by the name of the Aldobrandbd Marriage, which has
lately passed into the Pope's collection in the Vatican, retains its vivid colouring in fresco, at
the end of at least seventeen hundred years."
In portrait-painting the use of water-colours has been almost confined to miniatures, in which
no attempt in oil has even entered into competition with it. This excellence proceeds not so
much from the practicability of working with greater delicacy of colour and finishing in that
manner, as from its truth to nature and freedom from that greasiness of surface inseparable
from paintings in oil. And there is no reason to doubt that the same advantages would follow,
if equal practice and attention were bestowed in painting portraits of the full size in life. For by
the present methods of working every requisite is now fully within the command of the artist.
The best works of the old masters are in water-colours; viz. in fresco or distemper; a senseless
corruption of the French word detrcmpe; because the colours are soaked into the plaster. For
the easel-pieces of Raphael and other masters of his time would not have established their repu-
tation. Their greatest works excel in the higher requisites in painting; in design in com-
position in expression ; which do not depend on any peculiar mode of practice. In colouring
and some other minor parts of their art they were deficient; for them they neglected, in
order to cultivate such as were higher and of much greater importance. The celebrated
remark of Michael Angelo, that " painting in oil was an employment fitted only for women
and children/' was such as might have been expected from him, a giant in the art of painting,
who held all the minor requisites, in which oil-painting may have any advantages over other,
methods, to be of little importance.
TINTING PRINTS.
A branch of water colouring is the method of tinting prints, in which regard must be had to
the quality of the paper on which the prints are executed for this is sometimes of such a nature
that ordinary water-colours, and even body colours, will sink into it, unless previously pre-
pared with a solution of alum, or with some other strengthening substance. The strength
and consistence of the colours to be applied to the print must be proportioned to the quantity
and nature of the ink on the paper. If it be intended only to stain the print, the engraved parts
will answer well for the shadows, and to preserve the keeping of the drawing : but when the print
is to be highly coloured, the engraving, although necessary to guide the placing of the colours,
may often be kept down, and in some degree concealed by the body of colour. Whites ought to
be left out wherever it can be done, as in the lights, or other parts of a lint approaching to the
lights; the colours applied being so thin and transparent as to supersede the necessity of intro-
ducing white colours. In the same way black ought to be left out, or if indispensable, it should be
used sparingly and as gently as possible. 3 n doing the broad lights and shades, the same met hods
of working and mingling the colours must be adopted, and neither white nor black admitted
without.