DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.19751#0145
MINIATURE PAINTING.
89
as pure and unchanged as when first laid on : nor will
any one be surprised when they consider that water co-
lours are mixed and laid on with a pure unchanging
fluid (water), which, evaporating as the colours dry,
leaves them as free from the mixture of extraneous mat-
ter, which might injure them, as they were before they
were rubbed; whilst, on the contrary, oil colours are
mixed and laid on with a vehicle (oil), which is certain
to change and grow more 3'ellow with age, and w’hich
remaining intimately combined with the colours must
necessarily alter their tone: it is this change that gives
what picture fanciers call mellowness, and which may be
serviceable to those artists who are deficient in that way ;
though, for my part, I prefer the mellowness which
comes from the touch of the painter, to that which is
gained by the changing of the colour, or rather of the
oil; for the same colours mixed with water wmuld still
remain the same.
Miniatures, by which are understood portraits on a
small scale, are generally painted on Bristol board, a
newly-invented paper called ivory paper, or on ivory
itself, which last is the best: on the two former, the
outline of the head is sketched in with blacklead pencil,
so lightly as to be scarcely perceptible ; whilst in the
latter it is drawn with a brush and Venetian red, or lake
mixed up very faint.
In miniature painting, permanent white wall be found
very serviceable for the bright speck in the eyes, lights on
drapery, in the representation of lace, and all those ob-
jects of which the lights cannot be left, as scraping them
H
89
as pure and unchanged as when first laid on : nor will
any one be surprised when they consider that water co-
lours are mixed and laid on with a pure unchanging
fluid (water), which, evaporating as the colours dry,
leaves them as free from the mixture of extraneous mat-
ter, which might injure them, as they were before they
were rubbed; whilst, on the contrary, oil colours are
mixed and laid on with a vehicle (oil), which is certain
to change and grow more 3'ellow with age, and w’hich
remaining intimately combined with the colours must
necessarily alter their tone: it is this change that gives
what picture fanciers call mellowness, and which may be
serviceable to those artists who are deficient in that way ;
though, for my part, I prefer the mellowness which
comes from the touch of the painter, to that which is
gained by the changing of the colour, or rather of the
oil; for the same colours mixed with water wmuld still
remain the same.
Miniatures, by which are understood portraits on a
small scale, are generally painted on Bristol board, a
newly-invented paper called ivory paper, or on ivory
itself, which last is the best: on the two former, the
outline of the head is sketched in with blacklead pencil,
so lightly as to be scarcely perceptible ; whilst in the
latter it is drawn with a brush and Venetian red, or lake
mixed up very faint.
In miniature painting, permanent white wall be found
very serviceable for the bright speck in the eyes, lights on
drapery, in the representation of lace, and all those ob-
jects of which the lights cannot be left, as scraping them
H