DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.1311#0185
OF THE WORLD'S INDUSTRY. 153
pencils; this being alone a remarkable test of its superior fitness as a native lead.
The substitutes for Cumberland lead are manifold, some or all of the varieties of the
leads before mentioned being worked into pencils variously designated " prepared,"
"purified," or "composition." These different leads, by means of gums and resinous
matters, are either kneaded in a plastic state and forced into the channels of the cedar
wood, or more frequently combined and ground with substances with which they will
bake to the required hardness, or with others which will fuse, and the mass solidify
when cold. Lustre, intense colour, freedom in working, and ready erasure, Cumberland
lead possessed in an eminent degree beyond all other leads known; but its uncertain
temper and occasional grit—properties common to all leads in a natural state—gave rise
to its amalgamation with other substances which have been enumerated; and though
some of the qualities in which Cumberland lead failed have been obtained with varying
success by these amalgamations, its especial and valuable qualities when pure have in
the same ratio been deteriorated and destroyed. Thus the artist has been left to
choose between the evils of a native and a spurious lead, until the somewhat recent
discovery by Mr. Brockedon of a process by which lead is made perfect. It would seem
that these pencils are especially made for Messrs. Reeves and Sons, and that they are
unquestionably what they affect to be.
Another important evidence of successful trade enterprise in aid of art is to be found
n the water-colours prepared with was, as was shown in this case. They dissolve with
ease, possess great volume and transparency; and, moreover, they cannot be converted
into flint by hot temperatures, so often the fate of the ordinary water-colour. The intro-
duction of a medium of the purest wax into the manufacture of water-colours was a stage
in the art of water-colour painting deserving of honourable mention. It has given to this
delightful department of art facilities of unapproachable character, and tended to rank it
very close to that of oil, which it surpasses in its powers of drying, the advantages of
smaller space, and ease of carriage. Very many have been the attempts to give body to
the colours used with water, and a variety of media have been used for this purpose.
One of these is the more particularly worth mentioning, as showing the avidity with
which anything new is seized upon, even by the intelligent and discerning, and the effects
which followed a too confiding credulity. We allude to the use of honey for the purposes
above stated. This medium certainly had the desired result of keeping the colour with
which it was mixed in a moist state; indeed, if the brush was too fully charged with it,
those parts of the drawing to which it was applied would not, unless in hot weather, or in
a warm room, dry for some time; and even when dry, such drawings, if exposed to a
humid atmosphere, became "tacky" again in the folio or elsewhere, and stuck to their
unctuous companions in the most sweet but destructive union. A drawing finished with
these colours could not be left a moment with safety. The flies, attracted by the
tempting treat, would moisten the choicest parts with their probosci, and tattoo the human
face divine, or give to that of lovely woman all the appearance of being ravaged by small-
pox. It was no unusual thing to find a flock of sheep disappear from a common, a chateau
shattered aud unroofed in a night, and a litter of pigs and a cow or two carried away in a
fly. Nor was the artist himself exempt from the annoyance of their perseverance and
pilferings. To paint from summer nature in the open air was to look through a swarm;
and the head of the luckless draughtsman became like a hive in the midst of it.
The allusion to a temporary false step in the onward progress of chemical research in
art naturally, although in a very opposite category, directs our attention to the subject of
" frauds," a very strong term, hut nevertheless true—frauds upon artists. It must be in
every father's experience—in that of every director of youth—that there is a particular
period in a boy's life when the yearning for a " box of paints" becomes positively painful,
vol. ii. 2 R
pencils; this being alone a remarkable test of its superior fitness as a native lead.
The substitutes for Cumberland lead are manifold, some or all of the varieties of the
leads before mentioned being worked into pencils variously designated " prepared,"
"purified," or "composition." These different leads, by means of gums and resinous
matters, are either kneaded in a plastic state and forced into the channels of the cedar
wood, or more frequently combined and ground with substances with which they will
bake to the required hardness, or with others which will fuse, and the mass solidify
when cold. Lustre, intense colour, freedom in working, and ready erasure, Cumberland
lead possessed in an eminent degree beyond all other leads known; but its uncertain
temper and occasional grit—properties common to all leads in a natural state—gave rise
to its amalgamation with other substances which have been enumerated; and though
some of the qualities in which Cumberland lead failed have been obtained with varying
success by these amalgamations, its especial and valuable qualities when pure have in
the same ratio been deteriorated and destroyed. Thus the artist has been left to
choose between the evils of a native and a spurious lead, until the somewhat recent
discovery by Mr. Brockedon of a process by which lead is made perfect. It would seem
that these pencils are especially made for Messrs. Reeves and Sons, and that they are
unquestionably what they affect to be.
Another important evidence of successful trade enterprise in aid of art is to be found
n the water-colours prepared with was, as was shown in this case. They dissolve with
ease, possess great volume and transparency; and, moreover, they cannot be converted
into flint by hot temperatures, so often the fate of the ordinary water-colour. The intro-
duction of a medium of the purest wax into the manufacture of water-colours was a stage
in the art of water-colour painting deserving of honourable mention. It has given to this
delightful department of art facilities of unapproachable character, and tended to rank it
very close to that of oil, which it surpasses in its powers of drying, the advantages of
smaller space, and ease of carriage. Very many have been the attempts to give body to
the colours used with water, and a variety of media have been used for this purpose.
One of these is the more particularly worth mentioning, as showing the avidity with
which anything new is seized upon, even by the intelligent and discerning, and the effects
which followed a too confiding credulity. We allude to the use of honey for the purposes
above stated. This medium certainly had the desired result of keeping the colour with
which it was mixed in a moist state; indeed, if the brush was too fully charged with it,
those parts of the drawing to which it was applied would not, unless in hot weather, or in
a warm room, dry for some time; and even when dry, such drawings, if exposed to a
humid atmosphere, became "tacky" again in the folio or elsewhere, and stuck to their
unctuous companions in the most sweet but destructive union. A drawing finished with
these colours could not be left a moment with safety. The flies, attracted by the
tempting treat, would moisten the choicest parts with their probosci, and tattoo the human
face divine, or give to that of lovely woman all the appearance of being ravaged by small-
pox. It was no unusual thing to find a flock of sheep disappear from a common, a chateau
shattered aud unroofed in a night, and a litter of pigs and a cow or two carried away in a
fly. Nor was the artist himself exempt from the annoyance of their perseverance and
pilferings. To paint from summer nature in the open air was to look through a swarm;
and the head of the luckless draughtsman became like a hive in the midst of it.
The allusion to a temporary false step in the onward progress of chemical research in
art naturally, although in a very opposite category, directs our attention to the subject of
" frauds," a very strong term, hut nevertheless true—frauds upon artists. It must be in
every father's experience—in that of every director of youth—that there is a particular
period in a boy's life when the yearning for a " box of paints" becomes positively painful,
vol. ii. 2 R