Encyclopaedia Britannica > Volume 15, NIC-PAR

630
Jlise, Pro¬
gress, and
Decline.
PAINTING.
picture mentioned above, and sometimes on marble.
When they employed wood, they laid on in the hrst in¬
stance a white ground. Among the antiquities cl 1 er-
culaneum are four paintings on white marble.
Their immoveable paintings on walls were either 1
fresco or on the dry stucco in distemper. Indeed all the
ancient paintings may be reduced to,fresco pamt-
incr; secondly, water colour, or distemper painting
a dry ground •, and, thirdly, encaustic painting.
The ancient fresco paintings appear to have been al¬
ways on a white stucco ground, the colours inlaid very
deep, and the drawing much more bold and free than
any similar performance of modern art. The outlines
of the ancient paintings on ffrCsco were probably done
at once, as appears from the depth of the incision and
the boldness and freedom of the design, equal to the
care and spirit of a pencilled outline.
In general the ancients painted on a dry ground even
in their buildings, as appears from the Herculaneum an¬
tiquities, most of which are executed in this manner.
At Rome and Naples, the first (deepest) coat is of true
iiuzzolana, of the same nature with the tarras now used
in mortar required to keep out wet, about one finger
thick •, the next of ground marble or alabaster, am
sometimes of pure lime or stucco, in thickness about
one third of the former. Upon this they appear to have
laid a coat of black, and then another of red paint 5 on
which last the subject itself was executed. Such seems
to have been their method of painting on walls j but in
their moveable pictures, and in the performance of their
first artists, and where effect of shade and light were-
necessavy, they doubtless used white.
The colours employed they seem to have mixed up
with size, of which they preferred that made by boil¬
ing the ears and genitals of bulls. This appears to have
made the colour so durable and adhesive, that the an¬
cient paintings lately found bear washing with a soft
cloth and water*, and sometimes even diluted aquafortis
is employed to clean their paintings on fresco. Rimy
says that glue dissolved in vinegar and then dried, is
not again soluble. . .
What the encaustic painting of the ancients was, lias
been much disputed. From the works of Vitruvius
and Pliny* it appears evidently that it was of three
kinds. # .
First, Where a picture painted in the common way,
was covered with a varnish of wax melted, diluted with a
little oil, and laid on warm with a brush.
Secondly, Where the colours themselves were mixed
up with melted wax, and the mixture used while
warm. And,
Thirdly, Where a painting was executed on ivory
by means of the cestrvm or vinculum.
Some experiments on this last method by Air Cole-
brook may be found in the Phil. Trans, vol. li. and
more particular directions in Muntz’s Treatise on Ln-
caustic Painting. ... , ■
It appears from ancient writings of tlie best authori¬
ty, that in the earliest and purest times of this art, the
painters used few colours, perhaps not more than four.
“ The paintings of the ancients (says Dionysius Hali-
carnasseus) were simple and unvaried in their colouring,
but correct in their drawing, and distinguished by their
elegance. Those which succeeded, less correct in their
drawing, W'ere more finished, more varied in their light
History.
and shades, trusting their effect to the multitude of their IlisC) Pro.
colours.” But no certain conclusion can be drawn, that gress, and
the more early amongthe great painters of the ancients,
Such as Apoliodovus, Zeuxis, rJ imanthes, &.c. bad on¬
ly four different colours, merely because they did not
vise them. On the contrary, it may be conjectured
with some degree of probability, from their chasteness
in design, and from the complaints Pliny makes of the
gaudy taste of the Roman painters, that the Greeks in
general were designedly chaste in their colouring, and
not so merely from necessity, at least about the tune of
Zeuxis and Apelles*, for the former could not have
painted grapes so naturally as he is said to have done
with four colours only *, and the rebuke given by the
latter to one of his scholars who had painted a Helen
very gaudilv, is a confirmation of these observations.
“ Young man (says Apelles), not being ab.e to make
her beautiful, you have made her rich. _
Ofwhite colouring substances, the ancients had
lead variously prepared, a white from calcined egg- ancients
shells, and preparations from cretaceous and argillace¬
ous earths. The moderns, in addition, have magistery
of bismuth, little used j and ought to have the calces of
tin and zinc. . . ..
Of blacks, the ancients had preparations similar to
lamp, ivory, blue, and Francfort black; also to Indian
ink, and common writing ink *, and they used, what we
do not, the precipitate of the black dyers vats.
The ancients possessed a species of w/ wm/zo/i or fines
cinnabar, a coarser cinnabar, red lead, various earths
burnt and unburnt, apparently similar to our red ochre,
Venetian red, Indian red, Spanish brown, burnt ter¬
ra de Sienna, and scarlet ochre *, they had also a sub¬
stance alike in colour and in name to our dragons
blood. . . ,
The yellow pigments of the ancients were genencal-
ly the same with our orpiments, king’s yellow, Naples
yellow, &c. They did not possess turpeth-mineral,
mineral yellow, or gamboge ; nor do they appear to
have known of gall-stone as a pigment. .
Of blue paints they had preparations from the lapis
cyanus and lapis armenius. Indigo they had, and per¬
haps bice and smalt; for they made blue glass, but whe¬
ther from some ore of cobalt or of wolfram must be
uncertain : they had not Prussian blue, verditer, or lit¬
mus, which we have. AVe do not use the blue precipi¬
tate of the dyers vats, or mountain blue, which they
certainly employed. . ,
Of green colours they had verdegrise, terre verte, and
malachite or mountain green. The latter is not m use
among us. Sap-green, green verditer, and Scheele s
green, appear to have been unknown to them : like us,
they procured as many tints, as they pleased from blue
and yellow vegetables. _ , ..
We have no original purple in use : that from gold
by means of tin, though very good when well prepared,
is too dear perhaps, and unnecessary. I heir purple was
a tinged earth. Their orange or sandarac (red orpi-
ment) we also possess. Hence there does not appear to
have been any great want of pigments or any very ma¬
terial difference between the colours they used and such
as we generally employ. Perhaps the full effect of co¬
louring may be obtained without the use of excetdn g
brilliant pigments, depending chiefly on the propoition
and opposition of tints. The