DOI issue:
No. 49 (April, 1897)
DOI article:Mortimer Menpes' Japanese drawings
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.18388#0180
Mr. Menpes Japanese Drawings
were inadequate. The same feeling induced him
to seek for some new way of gaining the forcible
assertion of colour which he wished to be the
special feature of his latest Japanese work. As
many of his subjects were interiors, effects of arti-
ficial light, or groups of people in gay garments,
some method which would give him depth and
considerable force without losing brilliancy was
clearly an absolute essential. Pure water-colour
proved to be too deficient in luminosity; pastel,
though brilliant enough in colour, had many dis-
advantages that made it inconvenient in actual
working, while its liability to damage by even trivial
accidents particularly unsuited it for use on an ex-
pedition which must necessarily conclude with a
long sea voyage. To have depended upon a
medium so fragile would have meant the exposing
of the bulk of the results of his stay in Japan to the
risk of destruction at any moment.
SKETCH BY MORTIMER MENPES
MENPES
(336
SKETCH BY MORTIMER MENPES
So he set to work to contrive a technical device
which should combine the brilliancy of pastel with
the convenience of water-colour and the freedom
in actual execution of oil painting; and he found
what he wanted in gouache. The manner in
which he used his materials was, however, in some
respects at variance with the ordinary way of
painting water-colours with opaque pigments, and
involved a certain amount of preparation. The
paper on which the drawings were executed was
first soaked for many hours, or even days, until it
was almost reduced to pulp, and was then laid
upon a thick pad of blotting-paper which was
constantly wetted while the actual painting was in
progress. The pigments were applied with ordi-
nary hog-hair oil-painting brushes, solidly and
freely, the brushes being used somewhat firmly so
as to roughen the wet face of the paper. The
drawing was kept moist meanwhile by the blotting-
paper, and the various touches of colour conse-
quently took their places on the surface without
forming hard edges, and finally, when the whole
was completed and the blotting-paper removed,
dried harmoniously together. The effect of this
somewhat uncommon water-colour method has
174
were inadequate. The same feeling induced him
to seek for some new way of gaining the forcible
assertion of colour which he wished to be the
special feature of his latest Japanese work. As
many of his subjects were interiors, effects of arti-
ficial light, or groups of people in gay garments,
some method which would give him depth and
considerable force without losing brilliancy was
clearly an absolute essential. Pure water-colour
proved to be too deficient in luminosity; pastel,
though brilliant enough in colour, had many dis-
advantages that made it inconvenient in actual
working, while its liability to damage by even trivial
accidents particularly unsuited it for use on an ex-
pedition which must necessarily conclude with a
long sea voyage. To have depended upon a
medium so fragile would have meant the exposing
of the bulk of the results of his stay in Japan to the
risk of destruction at any moment.
SKETCH BY MORTIMER MENPES
MENPES
(336
SKETCH BY MORTIMER MENPES
So he set to work to contrive a technical device
which should combine the brilliancy of pastel with
the convenience of water-colour and the freedom
in actual execution of oil painting; and he found
what he wanted in gouache. The manner in
which he used his materials was, however, in some
respects at variance with the ordinary way of
painting water-colours with opaque pigments, and
involved a certain amount of preparation. The
paper on which the drawings were executed was
first soaked for many hours, or even days, until it
was almost reduced to pulp, and was then laid
upon a thick pad of blotting-paper which was
constantly wetted while the actual painting was in
progress. The pigments were applied with ordi-
nary hog-hair oil-painting brushes, solidly and
freely, the brushes being used somewhat firmly so
as to roughen the wet face of the paper. The
drawing was kept moist meanwhile by the blotting-
paper, and the various touches of colour conse-
quently took their places on the surface without
forming hard edges, and finally, when the whole
was completed and the blotting-paper removed,
dried harmoniously together. The effect of this
somewhat uncommon water-colour method has
174