Penley, Aaron: A System Of Water-Colour Painting: Being A Complete Exposition Of The Present Advanced State Of The Art, As Exhibited In The Works Of The Modern Water-Colour School (London, 1852)

PRINCIPLES.

1. GRANULATION.
The great charm of Water-Colour Painting lies in the
beauty and truthfulness of its aerial tones; and hence
arises its peculiar power of adaptation to the representa-
tion of skies and distances—be they light or dark, glow-
ing or sombre. The production of this beautiful effect
depends entirely upon the fact of the paper, on which we
paint, being granulous; that is, upon its surface present-
ing so many little hollows and projections, which receive
transparent washes of colour, whereby an alteration of
light in the protuberances, and half-light in the cavities,
is maintained. By such alteration and variation of light
the eye is enabled to penetrate beyond the flat surface.
Such being the case, it is strictly imperative on the
Artist, that he should never lose this grain; for upon
this will depend the atmosphere, and therefore the suc-
cess, of his work.

2. AIR.
One of the first essentials in Landscape Painting is
the proper management of the sky, which should be
made to retire, not appearing as colour or paint, but as
air. It should be a representation conveying the idea
of vacuity or space, and not of surface. A clear and open
sky is not, as the mere sketch would render it, blue
colour, but rather a tone of the purest and most perfect