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101. But if these evils now continue, it can only be through rashness which no example can warn, or through apathy which no hope can stimulate, for Mr. Eastlake has alike withdrawn license from experimentalism and apology from indolence. He has done away with all legends of forgotten secrets; he has shown that the masters of the great Flemish and early Venetian schools possessed no means, followed no methods, but such as we may still obtain and pursue; but he has shown also, among all these masters, the most admirable care in the preparation of materials and the most simple consistency in their use; he has shown that their excellence was reached, and could only have been reached, by stern and exact science, condescending to the observance, care, and conquest of the most minute physical particulars and hindrances; that the greatest of them never despised an aid nor avoided a difficulty. The loss of imaginative liberty sometimes involved in a too scrupulous attention to methods of execution is trivial compared to the evils resulting from a careless or inefficient practice. The modes in which, with every great painter, realization falls short of conception are necessarily so many and so grievous, that he can ill afford to undergo the additional discouragement caused by uncertain methods and bad materials. Not only so, but even the choice of subjects, the amount of completion attempted, nay, even the modes of conception and measure of truth are in no small degree involved in the great question of materials. On the habitual use of a light or dark ground may depend the painter's preference of a broad and faithful, or partial and scenic chiaroscuro; correspondent with the facility or fatality of alterations, may be the exercise of indolent fancy, or disciplined invention; and to the complexities of a system requiring time, patience, and succession of process, may be owing the conversion of the ready draughtsman into the resolute painter. Farther than this, who shall say how unconquerable a barrier to all self-denying effort may exist in the consciousness that the best that is accomplished can last but a few years, and that the painter's travail must perish with his life?
102. It cannot have been without strong sense of this, the true dignity and relation of his subject, that Mr. Eastlake has gone through a toil far more irksome, far less selfish than any he could have undergone in the practice of his art. The value which we attach to the volume depends, however, rather on its preceptive than its antiquarian character. As objects of historical inquiry merely, we cannot conceive any questions less interesting than those relating to mechanical operations generally, nor any honors less worthy of prolonged dispute than those which are grounded merely on the invention or amelioration of processes and pigments. The subject can only become historically interesting when the means ascertained to have been employed at any period are considered in their operation upon or procession from the artistical aim of such period, the character of its chosen subjects, and the effects proposed in their treatment upon the national mind. Mr. Eastlake has as yet refused himself the indulgence of such speculation; his book is no more than its modest title expresses. For ourselves, however, without venturing in the slightest degree to anticipate the expression of his ulterior views—though we believe that we can trace their extent and direction in a few suggestive sentences, as pregnant as they are unobtrusive—we must yet, in giving a rapid sketch of the facts established, assume the privilege of directing the reader to one or two of their most obvious consequences, and, like honest 'prentices, not suffer the abstracted retirement of our master in the back parlor to diminish the just recommendation of his wares to the passers-by.
103. Eminently deficient in works representative of the earliest and purest tendencies of art, our National Gallery nevertheless affords a characteristic and sufficient series of examples of the practice of the various schools of painting, after oil had been finally substituted for the less manageable glutinous vehicles which, under the general name of tempera, were principally employed in the production of easel pictures up to the middle of the fifteenth century. If the reader were to make the circuit of this collection for the purpose of determining which picture represented with least disputable fidelity the first intention of its painter, and united in its modes of execution the highest reach of achievement with the strongest assurance of durability, we believe that—after hesitating long over hypothetical degrees of blackened shadow and yellowed light, of lost outline and buried detail, of chilled luster, dimmed transparency, altered color, and weakened force—he would finally pause before a small picture on panel, representing two quaintly dressed figures in a dimly lighted room—dependent for its interest little on expression, and less on treatment—but eminently remarkable for reality of substance, vacuity of space, and vigor of quiet color; nor less for an elaborate finish, united with energetic freshness, which seem to show that time has been much concerned in its production, and has had no power over its fate.
104. We do not say that the total force of the material is exhibited in this picture, or even that it in any degree possesses the lusciousness and fullness which are among the chief charms of oil-painting; but that upon the whole it would be selected as uniting imperishable firmness with exquisite delicacy; as approaching more unaffectedly and more closely than any other work to the simple truths of natural color and space; and as exhibiting, even in its quaint and minute treatment, conquest over many of the difficulties which the boldest practice of art involves.
This picture, bearing the inscription "Johannes Van Eyck (fuit?) hic, 1434," is probably the portrait, certainly the work, of one of those brothers to whose ingenuity the first invention of the art of oil-painting has been long ascribed. The volume before us is occupied chiefly in determining the real extent of the improvements they introduced, in examining the processes they employed, and in tracing the modifications of those processes adopted by later Flemings, especially Rubens, Rembrandt, and Vandyck. Incidental notices of the Italian system occur, so far as, in its earlier stages, it corresponded with that of the north; but the consideration of its separate character is reserved for a following volume, and though we shall expect with interest this concluding portion of the treatise, we believe that, in the present condition of the English school, the choice of the methods of Van Eyck, Bellini, or Rubens, is as much as we could modestly ask or prudently desire.
105. It would have been strange indeed if a technical perfection like that of the picture above described (equally characteristic of all the works of those brothers), had been at once reached by the first inventors of the art. So far was this from being the case, and so distinct is the evidence of the practice of oil-painting in antecedent periods, that of late years the discoveries of the Van Eycks have not unfrequently been treated as entirely fabulous; and Raspe, in particular, rests their claims to gratitude on the contingent introduction of amber-varnish and poppy-oil:—"Such perhaps," he says, "might have been the misrepresented discovery of the Van Eycks." That tradition, however, for which the great painters of Italy, and their sufficiently vain historian, had so much respect as never to put forward any claim in opposition to it, is not to be clouded by incautious suspicion. Mr. Eastlake has approached it with more reverence, stripped it of its exaggeration, and shown the foundations for it in the fact that the Van Eycks, though they did not create the art, yet were the first to enable it for its function; that having found it in servile office and with dormant power—laid like the dead Adonis on his lettuce-bed—they gave it vitality and dominion. And fortunate it is for those who look for another such reanimation, that the method of the Van Eycks was not altogether their own discovery. Had it been so, that method might still have remained a subject of conjecture; but after being put in possession of the principles commonly acknowledged before their time, it is comparatively easy to trace the direction of their inquiry and the nature of their improvements.
106. With respect to remote periods of antiquity, we believe that the use of a hydrofuge oil-varnish for the protection of works in tempera, the only fact insisted upon by Mr. Eastlake, is also the only one which the labor of innumerable ingenious writers has established: nor up to the beginning of the twelfth century is there proof of any practice of painting except in tempera, encaustic (wax applied by the aid of heat), and fresco. Subsequent to that period, notices of works executed in solid color mixed with oil are frequent, but all that can be proved respecting earlier times is a gradually increasing acquaintance with the different kinds of oil and the modes of their adaptation to artistical uses.
Several drying oils are mentioned by the writers of the first three centuries of the Christian era—walnut by Pliny and Galen, walnut, poppy, and castor-oil (afterwards used by the painters of the twelfth century as a varnish) by Dioscorides—yet these notices occur only with reference to medicinal or culinary purposes. But at length a drying oil is mentioned in connection with works of art by Aetius, a medical writer of the fifth century. His words are:—
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"Walnut oil is prepared like that of almonds, either by pounding or pressing the nuts, or by throwing them, after they have been bruised, into boiling water. The (medicinal) uses are the same: but it has a use besides these, being employed by gilders or encaustic painters; for it dries, and preserves gildings and encaustic paintings for a long time."
"It is therefore clear," says Mr. Eastlake, "that an oil varnish, composed either of inspissated nut oil, or of nut oil combined with a dissolved resin, was employed on gilt surfaces and pictures, with a view to preserve them, at least as early as the fifth century. It may be added that a writer who could then state, as if from his own experience, that such varnishes had the effect of preserving works 'for a long time,' can hardly be understood to speak of a new invention."—P. 22.
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Linseed-oil is also mentioned by Aetius, though still for medicinal uses only; but a varnish, composed of linseed-oil mixed with a variety of resins, is described in a manuscript at Lucca, belonging probably to the eighth century:—
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"The age of Charlemagne was an era in the arts; and the addition of linseed-oil to the materials of the varnisher and decorator may on the above evidence be assigned to it. From this time, and during many ages, the linseed-oil varnish, though composed of simpler materials (such as sandarac and mastic resin boiled in the oil), alone appears in the recipes hitherto brought to light."—Ib., p. 24.
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107. The modes of bleaching and thickening oil in the sun, as well as the siccative power of metallic oxides, were known to the classical writers, and evidence exists of the careful study of Galen, Dioscorides, and others by the painters of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries: the loss (recorded by Vasari) of Antonio Veneziano to the arts, "per che studio in Dioscoride le cose dell'erbe," is a remarkable instance of its less fortunate results. Still, the immixture of solid color with the oil, which had been commonly used as a varnish for tempera paintings and gilt surfaces, was hitherto unsuggested; and no distinct notice seems to occur of the first occasion of this important step, though in the twelfth century, as above stated, the process is described as frequent both in Italy and England. Mr. Eastlake's instances have been selected, for the most part, from four treatises, two of which, though in an imperfect form, have long been known to the public; the third, translated by Mrs. Merrifield, is in course of publication; the fourth, "Tractatus de Coloribus illuminatorum," is of less importance.
Respecting the dates of the first two, those of Eraclius and Theophilus, some difference of opinion exists between Mr. Eastlake and their respective editors. The former MS. was published by Raspe,[14] who inclines to the opinion of its having been written soon after the time of St. Isidore of Seville, probably therefore in the eighth century, but insists only on its being prior to the thirteenth. That of Theophilus, published first by M. Charles de l'Escalopier, and lately from a more perfect MS. by Mr. Hendrie, is ascribed by its English editor (who places Eraclius in the tenth) to the early half of the eleventh century. Mr. Hendrie maintains his opinion with much analytical ingenuity, and we are disposed to think that Mr. Eastlake attaches too much importance to the absence of reference to oil-painting in the Mappae Clavicula (a MS. of the twelfth century), in placing Theophilus a century and a half later on that ground alone. The question is one of some importance in an antiquarian point of view, but the general reader will perhaps be satisfied with the conclusion that in MSS. which cannot possibly be later than the close of the twelfth century, references to oil-painting are clear and frequent.
108. Nothing is known of the personality of either Eraclius or Theophilus, but what may be collected from their works; amounting, in the first case, to the facts of the author's "language being barbarous, his credulity exceptionable, and his knowledge superficial," together with his written description as "vir sapientissimus;" while all that is positively known of Theophilus is that he was a monk, and that Theophilus was not his real name. The character, however, of which the assumed name is truly expressive, deserves from us no unrespectful attention; we shall best possess our readers of it by laying before them one or two passages from the preface. We shall make some use of Mr. Hendrie's translation; it is evidently the work of a tasteful man, and in most cases renders the feeling of the original faithfully; but the Latin, monkish though it be, deserved a more accurate following, and many of Mr. Hendrie's deviations bear traces of unsound scholarship. An awkward instance occurs in the first paragraph:—
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"Theophilus, humilis presbyter, servus servorum Dei, indignus nomine et professione monachi, omnibus mentis desidiam animique vagationem utili manuum occupatione, et delectabili novitatum meditatione declinare et calcare volentibus, retributionem coelestis praemii!"
"I, Theophilus, an humble priest, servant of the servants of God, unworthy of the name and profession of a monk, to all wishing to overcome and avoid sloth of the mind or wandering of the soul, by useful manual occupation and the delightful contemplation of novelties, send a recompense of heavenly price."—Theophilus, p. 1.
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Proemium is not "price," nor is the verb understood before retributionem "send." Mr. Hendrie seems even less familiar with Scriptural than with monkish language, or in this and several other cases he would have recognized the adoption of apostolic formulae. The whole paragraph is such a greeting and prayer as stands at the head of the sacred epistles:—"Theophilus, to all who desire to overcome wandering of the soul, etc., etc. (wishes) recompense of heavenly reward." Thus also the dedication of the Byzantine manuscript, lately translated by M. Didron, commences "A tous les peintres, et a tous ceux qui, aimant l'instruction, etudieront ce livre, salut dans le Seigneur." So, presently afterwards, in the sentence, "divina dignatio quae dat omnibus affluenter et non improperat" (translated, "divine authority which affluently and not precipitately gives to all"), though Mr. Hendrie might have perhaps been excused for not perceiving the transitive sense of dignatio after indignus in the previous text, which indeed, even when felt, is sufficiently difficult to render in English; and might not have been aware that the word impropero frequently bears the sense of opprobo; he ought still to have recognized the Scriptural "who giveth to all men liberally and upbraideth not." "Qui," in the first page, translated "wherefore," mystifies a whole sentence; "ut mereretur," rendered with a schoolboy's carelessness "as he merited," reverses the meaning of another; "jactantia," in the following page, is less harmfully but not less singularly translated "jealousy." We have been obliged to alter several expressions in the following passages, in order to bring them near enough to the original for our immediate purpose:
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"Which knowledge, when he has obtained, let no one magnify himself in his own eyes, as if it had been received from himself, and not from elsewhere; but let him rejoice humbly in the Lord, from whom and by whom are all things, and without whom is nothing; nor let him wrap his gifts in the folds of envy, nor hide them in the closet of an avaricious heart; but all pride of heart being repelled, let him with a cheerful mind give with simplicity to all who ask of him, and let him fear the judgment of the Gospel upon that merchant, who, failing to return to his lord a talent with accumulated interest, deprived of all reward, merited the censure from the mouth of his judge of 'wicked servant.'
"Fearing to incur which sentence, I, a man unworthy and almost without name, offer gratuitously to all desirous with humility to learn, that which the divine condescension, which giveth to all men liberally and upbraideth not, gratuitously conceded to me: and I admonish them that in me they acknowledge the goodness, and admire the generosity of God; and I would persuade them to believe that if they also add their labor, the same gifts are within their reach.
"Wherefore, gentle son, whom God has rendered perfectly happy in this respect, that those things are offered to thee gratis, which many, plowing the sea waves with the greatest danger to life, consumed by the hardship of hunger and cold, or subjected to the weary servitude of teachers, and altogether worn out by the desire of learning, yet acquire with intolerable labor, covet with greedy looks this 'BOOK OF VARIOUS ARTS,' read it through with a tenacious memory, embrace it with an ardent love.
"Should you carefully peruse this, you will there find out whatever Greece possesses in kinds and mixtures of various colors; whatever Tuscany knows of in mosaic-work, or in variety of enamel; whatever Arabia shows forth in work of fusion, ductility, or chasing; whatever Italy ornaments with gold, in diversity of vases and sculpture of gems or ivory; whatever France loves in a costly variety of windows; whatever industrious Germany approves in work of gold, silver, copper, and iron, of woods and of stones.
"When you shall have re-read this often, and have committed it to your tenacious memory, you shall thus recompense me for this care of instruction, that as often as you shall have successfully made use of my work, you pray for me for the pity of Omnipotent God, who knows that I have written these things, which are here arranged, neither through love of human approbation, nor through desire of temporal reward, nor have I stolen anything precious or rare through envious jealousy, nor have I kept back anything reserved served for myself alone; but in augmentation of the honor and glory of His name, I have consulted the progress and hastened to aid the necessities of many men."—Ib. pp. xlvii.-li.
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109. There is perhaps something in the naive seriousness with which these matters of empiricism, to us of so small importance, are regarded by the good monk, which may at first tempt the reader to a smile. It is, however, to be kept in mind that some such mode of introduction was customary in all works of this order and period. The Byzantine MS., already alluded to, is prefaced still more singularly: "Que celui qui veut apprendre la science de la peinture commence a s'y preparer d'avance quelque temps en dessinant sans relache ... puis qu'il adresse a Jesus Christ la priere et oraison suivante," etc.:—the prayer being followed by a homily respecting envy, much resembling that of Theophilus. And we may rest assured that until we have again begun to teach and to learn in this spirit, art will no more recover its true power or place than springs which flow from no heavenward hills can rise to useful level in the wells of the plain. The tenderness, tranquillity, and resoluteness which we feel in such men's words and thoughts found a correspondent expression even in the movements of the hand; precious qualities resulted from them even in the most mechanical of their works, such as no reward can evoke, no academy teach, nor any other merits replace. What force can be summoned by authority, or fostered by patronage, which could for an instant equal in intensity the labor of this humble love, exerting itself for its own pleasure, looking upon its own works by the light of thankfulness, and finishing all, offering all, with the irrespective profusion of flowers opened by the wayside, where the dust may cover them, and the foot crush them?
110. Not a few passages conceived in the highest spirit of self-denying piety would, of themselves, have warranted our sincere thanks to Mr. Hendrie for his publication of the manuscript. The practical value of its contents is however very variable; most of the processes described have been either improved or superseded, and many of the recipes are quite as illustrative of the writer's credulity in reception, as generosity in communication. The references to the "land of Havilah" for gold, and to "Mount Calybe" for iron, are characteristic of monkish geographical science; the recipe for the making of Spanish gold is interesting, as affording us a clew to the meaning of the mediaeval traditions respecting the basilisk. Pliny says nothing about the hatching of this chimera from cocks' eggs, and ascribes the power of killing at sight to a different animal, the catoblepas, whose head, fortunately, was so heavy that it could not be held up. Probably the word "basiliscus" in Theophilus would have been better translated "cockatrice."
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"There is also a gold called Spanish gold, which is composed from red copper, powder of basilisk, and human blood, and acid. The Gentiles, whose skillfulness in this art is commendable, make basilisks in this manner. They have, underground, a house walled with stones everywhere, above and below, with two very small windows, so narrow that scarcely any light can appear through them; in this house they place two old cocks of twelve or fifteen years, and they give them plenty of food. When these have become fat, through the heat of their good condition, they agree together and lay eggs. Which being laid, the cocks are taken out and toads are placed in, which may hatch the eggs, and to which bread is given for food. The eggs being hatched, chickens issue out, like hens' chickens, to which after seven days grow the tails of serpents, and immediately, if there were not a stone pavement to the house, they would enter the earth. Guarding against which, their masters have round brass vessels of large size, perforated all over, the mouths of which are narrow, in which they place these chickens, and close the mouths with copper coverings and inter them underground, and they are nourished with the fine earth entering through the holes for six months. After this they uncover them and apply a copious fire, until the animals' insides are completely burnt. Which done, when they have become cold, they are taken out and carefully ground, adding to them a third part of the blood of a red man, which blood has been dried and ground. These two compositions are tempered with sharp acid in a clean vessel; they then take very thin sheets of the purest red copper, and anoint this composition over them on both sides, and place them in the fire. And when they have become glowing, they take them out and quench and wash them in the same confection; and they do this for a long time, until this composition eats through the copper, and it takes the color of gold. This gold is proper for all work."—Ib. p. 267.
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Our readers will find in Mr. Hendrie's interesting note the explanation of the symbolical language of this recipe; though we cannot agree with him in supposing Theophilus to have so understood it. We have no doubt the monk wrote what he had heard in good faith, and with no equivocal meaning; and we are even ourselves much disposed to regret and resist the transformation of toads into nitrates of potash, and of basilisks into sulphates of copper.
111. But whatever may be the value of the recipes of Theophilus, couched in the symbolical language of the alchemist, his evidence is as clear as it is conclusive, as far as regards the general processes adopted in his own time. The treatise of Peter de St. Audemar, contained in a volume transcribed by Jehan le Begue in 1431, bears internal evidence of being nearly coeval with that of Theophilus. And in addition to these MSS., Mr. Eastlake has examined the records of Ely and Westminster, which are full of references to decorative operations. From these sources it is not only demonstrated that oil-painting, at least in the broadest sense (striking colors mixed with oil on surfaces of wood or stone), was perfectly common both in Italy and England in the 12th, 13th, and 14th centuries, but every step of the process is determinable. Stone surfaces were primed with white lead mixed with linseed oil, applied in successive coats, and carefully smoothed when dry. Wood was planed smooth (or, for delicate work, covered with leather of horse-skin or parchment), then coated with a mixture of white lead, wax, and pulverized tile, on which the oil and lead priming was laid. In the successive application of the coats of this priming, the painter is warned by Eraclius of the danger of letting the superimposed coat be more oily than that beneath, the shriveling of the surface being a necessary consequence.
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"The observation respecting the cause, or one of the causes, of a wrinkled and shriveled surface, is not unimportant. Oil, or an oil varnish, used in abundance with the colors over a perfectly dry preparation, will produce this appearance: the employment of an oil varnish is even supposed to be detected by it.... As regards the effect itself, the best painters have not been careful to avoid it. Parts of Titian's St. Sebastian (now in the Gallery of the Vatican) are shriveled; the Giorgione in the Louvre is so; the drapery of the figure of Christ in the Duke of Wellington's Correggio exhibits the same appearance; a Madonna and Child by Reynolds, at Petworth, is in a similar state, as are also parts of some pictures by Greuze. It is the reverse of a cracked surface, and is unquestionably the less evil of the two."—"Eastlake," pp. 36-38.
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112. On the white surface thus prepared, the colors, ground finely with linseed oil, were applied, according to the advice of Theophilus, in not less than three successive coats, and finally protected with amber or sandarac varnish: each coat of color being carefully dried by the aid of heat or in the sun before a second was applied, and the entire work before varnishing. The practice of carefully drying each coat was continued in the best periods of art, but the necessity of exposure to the sun intimated by Theophilus appears to have arisen only from his careless preparation of the linseed oil, and ignorance of a proper drying medium. Consequent on this necessity is the restriction in Theophilus, St. Audemar, and in the British Museum MS., of oil-painting to wooden surfaces, because movable panels could be dried in the sun; while, for walls, the colors are to be mixed with water, wine, gum, or the usual tempera vehicles, egg and fig-tree juice; white lead and verdigris, themselves dryers, being the only pigments which could be mixed with oil for walls. But the MS. of Eraclius and the records of our English cathedrals imply no such absolute restriction. They mention the employment of oil for the painting or varnishing of columns and interior walls, and in quantity very remarkable. Among the entries relating to St. Stephen's chapel, occur—"For 19 flagons of painter's oil, at 3s. 4d. the flagon, 43s. 4d." (It might be as well, in the next edition, to correct the copyist's reverse of the position of the X and L, lest it should be thought that the principles of the science of arithmetic have been progressive, as well as those of art.) And presently afterwards, in May of the same year, "to John de Hennay, for seventy flagons and a half of painter's oil for the painting of the same chapel, at 20d. the flagon, 117s. 6d." The expression "painter's oil" seems to imply more careful preparation than that directed by Theophilus, probably purification from its mucilage in the sun; but artificial heat was certainly employed to assist the drying, and after reading of flagons supplied by the score, we can hardly be surprised at finding charcoal furnished by the cartload—see an entry relating to the Painted Chamber. In one MS. of Eraclius, however, a distinct description of a drying oil in the modern sense, occurs, white lead and lime being added, and the oil thickened by exposure to the sun, as was the universal practice in Italy.
113. Such was the system of oil-painting known before the time of Van Eyck; but it remains a question in what kind of works and with what degree of refinement this system had been applied. The passages in Eraclius refer only to ornamental work, imitations of marble, etc.; and although, in the records of Ely cathedral, the words "pro ymaginibus super columnas depingendis" may perhaps be understood as referring to paintings of figures, the applications of oil, which are distinctly determinable from these and other English documents, are merely decorative; and "the large supplies of it which appear in the Westminster and Ely records indicate the coarseness of the operations for which it was required." Theophilus, indeed, mentions tints for faces—mixturas vultuum; but it is to be remarked that Theophilus painted with a liquid oil, the drying of which in the sun he expressly says "in ymaginibus et aliis picturis diuturnum et taediosum nimis est." The oil generally employed was thickened to the consistence of a varnish. Cennini recommends that it be kept in the sun until reduced one half; and in the Paris copy of Eraclius we are told that "the longer the oil remains in the sun the better it will be." Such a vehicle entirely precluded delicacy of execution.
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"Paintings entirely executed with the thickened vehicle, at a time when art was in the very lowest state, and when its votaries were ill qualified to contend with unnecessary difficulties, must have been of the commonest description. Armorial bearings, patterns, and similar works of mechanical decoration, were perhaps as much as could be attempted.
"Notwithstanding the general reference to flesh-painting, 'e cosi fa dello incarnare,' in Cennini's directions, there are no certain examples of pictures of the fourteenth century, in which the flesh is executed in oil colors. This leads us to inquire what were the ordinary applications of oil-painting in Italy at that time. It appears that the method, when adopted at all, was considered to belong to the complemental and merely decorative parts of a picture. It was employed in portions of the work only, on draperies, and over gilding and foils. Cennini describes such operations as follows. 'Gild the surface to be occupied by the drapery; draw on it what ornaments or patterns you please; glaze the unornamented intervals with verdigris ground in oil, shading some folds twice. Then, when this is dry, glaze the same color over the whole drapery, both ornaments and plain portions.'
"These operations, together with the gilt field round the figures, the stucco decorations, and the carved framework, tabernacle, or ornamento itself of the picture, were completed first; the faces and hands, which in Italian pictures of the fourteenth century were always in tempera, were added afterwards, or at all events after the draperies and background were finished. Cennini teaches the practice of all but the carving. In later times the work was divided, and the decorator or gilder was sometimes a more important person than the painter. Thus some works of an inferior Florentine artist were ornamented with stuccoes, carving, and gilding, by the celebrated Donatello, who, in his youth, practiced this art in connection with sculpture. Vasari observed the following inscription under a picture:—'Simone Cini, a Florentine, wrought the carved work; Gabriello Saracini executed the gilding; and Spinello di Luca, of Arezzo, painted the picture, in the year 1385.'"—Ib. pp. 71, 72, and 80.
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114. We may pause to consider for a moment what effect upon the mental habits of these earlier schools might result from this separate and previous completion of minor details. It is to be remembered that the painter's object in the backgrounds of works of this period (universally, or nearly so, of religious subject) was not the deceptive representation of a natural scene, but the adornment and setting forth of the central figures with precious work—the conversion of the picture, as far as might be, into a gem, flushed with color and alive with light. The processes necessary for this purpose were altogether mechanical; and those of stamping and burnishing the gold, and of enameling, were necessarily performed before any delicate tempera-work could be executed. Absolute decision of design was therefore necessary throughout; hard linear separations were unavoidable between the oil-color and the tempera, or between each and the gold or enamel. General harmony of effect, aerial perspective, or deceptive chiaroscuro, became totally impossible; and the dignity of the picture depended exclusively on the lines of its design, the purity of its ornaments, and the beauty of expression which could be attained in those portions (the faces and hands) which, set off and framed by this splendor of decoration, became the cynosure of eyes. The painter's entire energy was given to these portions; and we can hardly imagine any discipline more calculated to insure a grand and thoughtful school of art than the necessity of discriminated character and varied expression imposed by this peculiarly separate and prominent treatment of the features. The exquisite drawing of the hand also, at least in outline, remained for this reason even to late periods one of the crowning excellences of the religious schools. It might be worthy the consideration of our present painters whether some disadvantage may not result from the exactly opposite treatment now frequently adopted, the finishing of the head before the addition of its accessories. A flimsy and indolent background is almost a necessary consequence, and probably also a false flesh-color, irrecoverable by any after-opposition.
115. The reader is in possession of most of the conclusions relating to the practice of oil-painting up to about the year 1406.
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"Its inconveniences were such that tempera was not unreasonably preferred to it for works that required careful design, precision, and completeness. Hence the Van Eycks seem to have made it their first object to overcome the stigma that attached to oil-painting, as a process fit only for ordinary purposes and mechanical decorations. With an ambition partly explained by the previous coarse applications of the method, they sought to raise wonder by surpassing the finish of tempera with the very material that had long been considered intractable. Mere finish was, however, the least of the excellences of these reformers. The step was short which sufficed to remove the self-imposed difficulties of the art; but that effort would probably not have been so successful as it was, in overcoming long-established prejudices, had it not been accompanied by some of the best qualities which oil-painting, as a means of imitating nature, can command."—Ib. p. 88.
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116. It has been a question to which of the two brothers, Hubert or John, the honor of the invention is to be attributed. Van Mander gives the date of the birth of Hubert 1366; and his interesting epitaph in the cathedral of St. Bavon, at Ghent, determines that of his death:—
* * *
"Take warning from me, ye who walk over me. I was as you are, but am now buried dead beneath you. Thus it appears that neither art nor medicine availed me. Art, honor, wisdom, power, affluence, are spared not when death comes. I was called Hubert Van Eyck; I am now food for worms. Formerly known and highly honored in painting; this all was shortly after turned to nothing. It was in the year of the Lord one thousand four hundred and twenty-six, on the eighteenth day of September, that I rendered up my soul to God, in sufferings. Pray God for me, ye who love art, that I may attain to His sight. Flee sin; turn to the best [objects]: for you must follow me at last."
* * *
John Van Eyck appears by sufficient evidence to have been born between 1390 and 1395; and, as the improved oil-painting was certainly introduced about 1410, the probability is greater that the system had been discovered by the elder brother than by the youth of 15. What the improvement actually was is a far more important question. Vasari's account, in the Life of Antonello da Messina, is the first piece of evidence here examined (p. 205); and it is examined at once with more respect and more advantage than the half-negligent, half-embarrassed wording of the passage might appear either to deserve or to promise. Vasari states that "Giovanni of Bruges," having finished a tempera-picture on panel, and varnished it as usual, placed it in the sun to dry—that the heat opened the joinings—and that the artist, provoked at the destruction of his work—
* * *
"began to devise means for preparing a kind of varnish which should dry in the shade, so as to avoid placing his pictures in the sun. Having made experiments with many things, both pure and mixed together, he at last found that linseed-oil and nut-oil, among the many which he had tested, were more drying than all the rest. These, therefore, boiled with other mixtures of his, made him the varnish which he, nay, which all the painters of the world, had long desired. Continuing his experiments with many other things, he saw that the immixture of the colors with these kinds of oils gave them a very firm consistence, which, when dry, was proof against wet; and, moreover, that the vehicle lit up the colors so powerfully, that it gave a gloss of itself without varnish; and that which appeared to him still more admirable was, that it allowed of blending [the colors] infinitely better than tempera. Giovanni, rejoicing in this invention, and being a person of discernment, began many works."
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117. The reader must observe that this account is based upon and clumsily accommodated to the idea, prevalent in Vasari's time throughout Italy, that Van Eyck not merely improved, but first introduced, the art of oil-painting, and that no mixture of color with linseed or nut oil had taken place before his time. We are only informed of the new and important part of the invention, under the pointedly specific and peculiarly Vasarian expression—"altre sue misture." But the real value of the passage is dependent on the one fact of which it puts us in possession, and with respect to which there is every reason to believe it trustworthy, that it was in search of a Varnish which would dry in the shade that Van Eyck discovered the new vehicle. The next point to be determined is the nature of the Varnish ordinarily employed, and spoken of by Cennini and many other writers under the familiar title of Vernice liquida. The derivation of the word Vernix bears materially on the question, and will not be devoid of interest for the general reader, who may perhaps be surprised at finding himself carried by Mr. Eastlake's daring philology into regions poetical and planetary:—
* * *
"Eustathius, a writer of the twelfth century, in his commentary on Homer, states that the Greeks of his day called amber ([Greek: elektron]) Veronice ([Greek: beronike]). Salmasius, quoting from a Greek medical MS. of the same period, writes it Verenice ([Greek: berenike]). In the Lucca MS. (8th century) the word Veronica more than once occurs among the ingredients of varnishes, and it is remarkable that in the copies of the same recipes in the Mappae Clavicula (12th century) the word is spelt, in the genitive, Verenicis and Vernicis. This is probably the earliest instance of the use of the Latinized word nearly in its modern form; the original nominative Vernice being afterwards changed to Vernix.
"Veronice or Verenice, as a designation for amber, must have been common at an earlier period than the date of the Lucca MS., since it there occurs as a term in ordinary use. It is scarcely necessary to remark that the letter [Greek: beta] was sounded v by the mediaeval Greeks, as it is by their present descendants. Even during the classic ages of Greece [Greek: beta] represented [Greek: phi] in certain dialects. The name Berenice or Beronice, borne by more than one daughter of the Ptolemies, would be more correctly written Pherenice or Pheronice. The literal coincidence of this name and its modifications with the Vernice of the middle ages, might almost warrant the supposition that amber, which by the best ancient authorities was considered a mineral, may, at an early period, have been distinguished by the name of a constellation, the constellation of Berenice's (golden) hair."—Eastlake, p. 230.
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118. We are grieved to interrupt our reader's voyage among the constellations; but the next page crystallizes us again like ants in amber, or worse, in gum-sandarach. It appears, from conclusive and abundant evidence, that the greater cheapness of sandarach, and its easier solubility in oil rendered it the usual substitute for amber, and that the word Vernice, when it occurs alone, is the common synonym for dry sandarach resin. This, dissolved by heat in linseed oil, three parts oil to one of resin, was the Vernice liquida of the Italians, sold in Cennini's time ready prepared, and the customary varnish of tempera pictures. Concrete turpentine ("oyle of fir-tree," "Pece Greca," "Pegola"), previously prepared over a slow fire until it ceased to swell, was added to assist the liquefaction of the sandarach, first in Venice, where the material could easily be procured, and afterwards in Florence. The varnish so prepared, especially when it was long boiled to render it more drying, was of a dark color, materially affecting the tints over which it was passed.[15]
* * *
"It is not impossible that the lighter style of coloring introduced by Giotto may have been intended by him to counteract the effects of this varnish, the appearance of which in the Greek pictures he could not fail to observe. Another peculiarity in the works of the painters of the time referred to, particularly those of the Florentine and Sienese schools, is the greenish tone of their coloring in the flesh; produced by the mode in which they often prepared their works, viz. by a green under-painting. The appearance was neutralized by the red sandarac varnish, and pictures executed in the manner described must have looked better before it was removed."—Ib. p. 252.
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Farther on, this remark is thus followed out:—
* * *
"The paleness or freshness of the tempera may have been sometimes calculated for this brown glazing (for such it was in effect), and when this was the case, the picture was, strictly speaking, unfinished without its varnish. It is, therefore, quite conceivable that a painter, averse to mere mechanical operations, would, in his final process, still have an eye to the harmony of his work, and, seeing that the tint of his varnish was more or less adapted to display the hues over which it was spread, would vary that tint, so as to heighten the effect of the picture. The practice of tingeing varnishes was not even new, as the example given by Cardanus proves. The next step to this would be to treat the tempera picture still more as a preparation, and to calculate still further on the varnish, by modifying and adapting its color to a greater extent. A work so completed must have nearly approached the appearance of an oil picture. This was perhaps the moment when the new method opened itself to the mind of Hubert Van Eyck.... The next change necessarily consisted in using opaque as well as transparent colors; the former being applied over the light, the latter over the darker, portions of the picture; while the work in tempera was now reduced to a light chiaroscuro preparation.... It was now that the hue of the original varnish became an objection; for, as a medium, it required to be itself colorless."—Ib. pp. 271-273.
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119. Our author has perhaps somewhat embarrassed this part of the argument, by giving too much importance to the conjectural adaptation of the tints of the tempera picture to the brown varnish, and too little to the bold transition from transparent to opaque color on the lights. Up to this time, we must remember, the entire drawing of the flesh had been in tempera; the varnish, however richly tinted, however delicately adjusted to the tints beneath, was still broadly applied over the whole surface, the design being seen through the transparent glaze. But the mixture of opaque color at once implies that portions of the design itself were executed with the varnish for a vehicle, and therefore that the varnish had been entirely changed both in color and consistence. If, as above stated, the improvement in the varnish had been made only after it had been mixed with opaque color, it does not appear why the idea of so mixing it should have presented itself to Van Eyck more than to any other painter of the day, and Vasari's story of the split panel becomes nugatory. But we apprehend, from a previous passage (p. 258), that Mr. Eastlake would not have us so interpret him. We rather suppose that we are expressing his real opinion in stating our own, that Van Eyck, seeking for a varnish which would dry in the shade, first perfected the methods of dissolving amber or copal in oil, then sought for and added a good dryer, and thus obtained a varnish which, having been subjected to no long process of boiling, was nearly colorless; that in using this new varnish over tempera works he might cautiously and gradually mix it with the opaque color, whose purity he now found unaffected, by the transparent vehicle; and, finally, as the thickness of the varnish in its less perfect state was an obstacle to precision of execution, increase the proportion of its oil to the amber, or add a diluent, as occasion required.
120. Such, at all events, in the sum, whatever might be the order or occasion of discovery, were Van Eyck's improvements in the vehicle of color, and to these, applied by singular ingenuity and affection to the imitation of nature, with a fidelity hitherto unattempted, Mr. Eastlake attributes the influence which his works obtained over his contemporaries:—
* * *
"If we ask in what the chief novelty of his practice consisted, we shall at once recognize it in an amount of general excellence before unknown. At all times, from Van Eyck's day to the present, whenever nature has been surprisingly well imitated in pictures, the first and last question with the ignorant has been—What materials did the artist use? The superior mechanical secret is always supposed to be in the hands of the greatest genius; and an early example of sudden perfection in art, like the fame of the heroes of antiquity, was likely to monopolize and represent the claims of many."—Ib. p. 266.
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This is all true; that Van Eyck saw nature more truly than his predecessors is certain; but it is disputable whether this rendering of nature recommended his works to the imitation of the Italians. On the contrary, Mr. Eastlake himself observes in another place (p. 220), that the character of delicate imitation common to the Flemish pictures militated against the acceptance of their method:—
* * *
"The specimens of Van Eyck, Hugo van der Goes, Memling, and others, which the Florentines had seen, may have appeared, in the eyes of some severe judges (for example, those who daily studied the frescoes of Masaccio), to indicate a certain connection between oil painting and minuteness, if not always of size, yet of style. The method, by its very finish and the possible completeness of its gradations, must have seemed well calculated to exhibit numerous objects on a small scale. That this was really the impression produced, at a later period, on one who represented the highest style of design, has been lately proved by means of an interesting document, in which the opinions of Michael Angelo on the character of Flemish pictures are recorded by a contemporary artist."[16]
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121. It was not, we apprehend, the resemblance to nature, but the abstract power of color, which inflamed with admiration and jealousy the artists of Italy; it was not the delicate touch nor the precise verity of Van Eyck, but the "vivacita de' colori" (says Vasari) which at the first glance induced Antonello da Messina to "put aside every other avocation and thought, and at once set out for Flanders," assiduously to cultivate the friendship of Giovanni, presenting to him many drawings and other things, until Giovanni, finding himself already old, was content that Antonello should see the method of his coloring in oil, nor then to quit Flanders until he had "thoroughly learned that process." It was this process, separate, mysterious, and admirable, whose communication the Venetian, Domenico, thought the most acceptable kindness which could repay his hospitality; and whose solitary possession Castagno thought cheaply purchased by the guilt of the betrayer and murderer; it was in this process, the deduction of watchful intelligence, not by fortuitous discovery, that the first impulse was given to European art. Many a plank had yawned in the sun before Van Eyck's; but he alone saw through the rent, as through an opening portal, the lofty perspective of triumph widening its rapid wedge;—many a spot of opaque color had clouded the transparent amber of earlier times; but the little cloud that rose over Van Eyck's horizon was "like unto a man's hand."
What this process was, and how far it differed from preceding practice, has hardly, perhaps, been pronounced by Mr. Eastlake with sufficient distinctness. One or two conclusions which he has not marked are, we think, deducible from his evidence, In one point, and that not an unimportant one, we believe that many careful students of coloring will be disposed to differ with him: our own intermediate opinion we will therefore venture to state, though with all diffidence.
122. We must not, however, pass entirely without notice the two chapters on the preparation of oils, and on the oleo-resinous vehicles, though to the general reader the recipes contained in them are of little interest; and in the absence of all expression of opinion on the part of Mr. Eastlake as to their comparative excellence, even to the artist, their immediate utility appears somewhat doubtful. One circumstance, however, is remarkable in all, the care taken by the great painters, without exception, to avoid the yellowing of their oil. Perfect and stable clearness is the ultimate aim of all the processes described (many of them troublesome and tedious in the extreme): and the effect of the altered oil is of course most dreaded on pale and cold colors. Thus Philippe Nunez tells us how to purify linseed oil "for white and blues;" and Pacheco, "el de linaza no me quele mal: aunque ai quien diga que no a de ver el Azul ni el Blanco este Azeite."[17] De Mayerne recommends poppy oil "for painting white, blue, and similar colors, so that they shall not yellow;" and in another place, "for air-tints and blue;"—while the inclination to green is noticed as an imperfection in hempseed oil: so Vasari—speaking of linseed-oil in contemporary practice—"benche il noce e meglio, perche ingialla meno." The Italians generally mixed an essential oil with their delicate tints, including flesh tints (p. 431). Extraordinary methods were used by the Flemish painters to protect their blues; they were sometimes painted with size, and varnished; sometimes strewed in powder on fresh white-lead (p. 456). Leonardo gives a careful recipe for preventing the change of color in nut oil, supposing it to be owing to neglect in removing the skin of the nut. His words, given at p. 321, are incorrectly translated: "una certa bucciolina," is not a husk or rind—but "a thin skin," meaning the white membranous covering of the nut itself, of which it is almost impossible to detach all the inner laminae. This, "che tiene della natura del mallo," Leonardo supposes to give the expressed oil its property of forming a skin at the surface.
123. We think these passages interesting, because they are entirely opposed to the modern ideas of the desirableness of yellow lights and green blues, which have been introduced chiefly by the study of altered pictures. The anxiety of Rubens, expressed in various letters, quoted at p. 516, lest any of his whites should have become yellow, and his request that his pictures might be exposed to the sun to remedy the defect, if it occurred, are conclusive on this subject, as far as regards the feeling of the Flemish painters: we shall presently see that the coolness of their light was an essential part of their scheme of color.
The testing of the various processes given in these two chapters must be a matter of time: many of them have been superseded by recent discoveries. Copal varnish is in modern practice no inefficient substitute for amber, and we believe that most artists will agree with us in thinking that the vehicles now in use are sufficient for all purposes, if used rightly. We shall, therefore, proceed in the first place to give a rapid sketch of the entire process of the Flemish school as it is stated by Mr. Eastlake in the 11th chapter, and then examine the several steps of it one by one, with the view at once of marking what seems disputable, and of deducing from what is certain some considerations respecting the consequences of its adoption in subsequent art.
124. The ground was with all the early masters pure white, plaster of Paris, or washed chalk with size; a preparation which has been employed without change from remote antiquity—witness the Egyptian mummy-cases. Such a ground, becoming brittle with age, is evidently unsafe on canvas, unless exceedingly thin; and even on panel is liable to crack and detach itself, unless it be carefully guarded against damp. The precautions of Van Eyck against this danger, as well as against the warping of his panel, are remarkable instances of his regard to points apparently trivial:—
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"In large altar-pieces, necessarily composed of many pieces, it may be often remarked that each separate plank has become slightly convex in front: this is particularly observable in the picture of the Transfiguration by Raphael. The heat of candles on altars is supposed to have been the cause of this not uncommon defect; but heat, if considerable, would rather produce the contrary appearance. It would seem that the layer of paint, with its substratum, slightly operates to prevent the wood from contracting or becoming concave on that side; it might therefore be concluded that a similar protection at the back, by equalizing the conditions, would tend to keep the wood flat. The oak panel on which the picture by Van Eyck in the National Gallery is painted is protected at the back by a composition of gesso, size, and tow, over which a coat of black oil-paint was passed. This, whether added when the picture was executed or subsequently, has tended to preserve the wood (which is not at all worm-eaten), and perhaps to prevent its warping."—Ib. pp. 373, 374.
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On the white ground, scraped, when it was perfectly dry, till it was "as white as milk and as smooth as ivory" (Cennini), the outline of the picture was drawn, and its light and shade expressed, usually with the pen, with all possible care; and over this outline a coating of size was applied in order to render the gesso ground non-absorbent. The establishment of this fact is of the greatest importance, for the whole question of the true function and use of the gesso ground hangs upon it. That use has been supposed by all previous writers on the technical processes of painting to be, by absorbing the oil, to remove in some degree the cause of yellowness in the colors. Had this been so, the ground itself would have lost its brilliancy, and it would have followed that a dark ground, equally absorbent, would have answered the purpose as well. But the evidence adduced by Mr. Eastlake on this subject is conclusive:—
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"Pictures are sometimes transferred from panel to cloth. The front being secured by smooth paper or linen, the picture is laid on its face, and the wood is gradually planed and scraped away. At last the ground appears; first, the 'gesso grosso,' then, next the painted surface, the 'gesso sottile.' On scraping this it is found that it is whitest immediately next the colors; for on the inner side it may sometimes have received slight stains from the wood, if the latter was not first sized. When a picture which happens to be much cracked has been oiled or varnished, the fluid will sometimes penetrate through the cracks into the ground, which in such parts had become accessible. In that case the white ground is stained in lines only, corresponding in their direction with the cracks of the picture. This last circumstance also proves that the ground was not sufficiently hard in itself to prevent the absorption of oil. Accordingly, it required to be rendered non-absorbent by a coating of size; and this was passed over the outline, before the oil-priming was applied."—Ib. pp. 383, 384.
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The perfect whiteness of the ground being thus secured, a transparent warm oil-priming, in early practice flesh-colored, was usually passed over the entire picture. This custom, says Mr. Eastlake, appears to have been "a remnant of the old habit of covering tempera pictures with a warm varnish, and was sometimes omitted." When used it was permitted to dry thoroughly, and over it the shadows were painted in with a rich transparent brown, mixed with a somewhat thick oleo-resinous vehicle; the lighter colors were then added with a thinner vehicle, taking care not to disturb the transparency of the shadows by the unnecessary mixture of opaque pigments, and leaving the ground bearing bright through the thin lights. (?) As the art advanced, the lights were more and more loaded, and afterwards glazed, the shadows being still left in untouched transparency. This is the method of Rubens. The later Italian colorists appear to have laid opaque local color without fear even into the shadows, and to have recovered transparency by ultimate glazing.
125. Such are the principal heads of the method of the early Flemish masters, as stated by Mr. Eastlake. We have marked as questionable the influence of the ground in supporting the lights: our reasons for doing so we will give, after we have stated what we suppose to be the advantages or disadvantages of the process in its earlier stages, guiding ourselves as far as possible by the passages in which any expression occurs of Mr. Eastlake's opinion.
The reader cannot but see that the eminent character of the whole system is its predeterminateness. From first to last its success depended on the decision and clearness of each successive step. The drawing and light and shade were secured without any interference of color; but when over these the oil-priming was once laid, the design could neither be altered nor, if lost, recovered; a color laid too opaquely in the shadow destroyed the inner organization of the picture, and remained an irremediable blemish; and it was necessary, in laying color even on the lights, to follow the guidance of the drawing beneath with a caution and precision which rendered anything like freedom of handling, in the modern sense, totally impossible. Every quality which depends on rapidity, accident, or audacity was interdicted; no affectation of ease was suffered to disturb the humility of patient exertion. Let our readers consider in what temper such a work must be undertaken and carried through—a work in which error was irremediable, change impossible—which demanded the drudgery of a student, while it involved the deliberation of a master—in which the patience of a mechanic was to be united with the foresight of a magician—in which no license could be indulged either to fitfulness of temper or felicity of invention—in which haste was forbidden, yet languor fatal, and consistency of conception no less incumbent than continuity of toil. Let them reflect what kind of men must have been called up and trained by work such as this, and then compare the tones of mind which are likely to be produced by our present practice,—a practice in which alteration is admitted to any extent in any stage—in which neither foundation is laid nor end foreseen—in which all is dared and nothing resolved, everything periled, nothing provided for—in which men play the sycophant in the courts of their humors, and hunt wisps in the marshes of their wits—a practice which invokes accident, evades law, discredits application, despises system, and sets forth with chief exultation, contingent beauty, and extempore invention.
126. But it is not only the fixed nature of the successive steps which influenced the character of these early painters. A peculiar direction was given to their efforts by the close attention to drawing which, as Mr. Eastlake has especially noticed, was involved in the preparation of the design on the white ground. That design was secured with a care and finish which in many instances might seem altogether supererogatory.[18] The preparation by John Bellini in the Florentine gallery is completed with exhaustless diligence into even the portions farthest removed from the light, where the thick brown of the shadows must necessarily have afterwards concealed the greater part of the work. It was the discipline undergone in producing this preparation which fixed the character of the school. The most important part of the picture was executed not with the brush, but with the point, and the refinements attainable by this instrument dictated the treatment of their subject. Hence the transition to etching and engraving, and the intense love of minute detail, accompanied by an imaginative communication of dignity and power to the smallest forms, in Albert Duerer and others. But this attention to minutiae was not the only result; the disposition of light and shade was also affected by the method. Shade was not to be had at small cost; its masses could not be dashed on in impetuous generalization, fields for the future recovery of light. They were measured out and wrought to their depths only by expenditure of toil and time; and, as future grounds for color, they were necessarily restricted to the natural shadow of every object, white being left for high lights of whatever hue. In consequence, the character of pervading daylight, almost inevitably produced in the preparation, was afterwards assumed as a standard in the painting. Effectism, accidental shadows, all obvious and vulgar artistical treatment, were excluded, or introduced only as the lights became more loaded, and were consequently imposed with more facility on the dark ground. Where shade was required in large mass, it was obtained by introducing an object of locally dark color. The Italian masters who followed Van Eyck's system were in the constant habit of relieving their principal figures by the darkness of some object, foliage, throne, or drapery, introduced behind the head, the open sky being left visible on each side. A green drapery is thus used with great quaintness by John Bellini in the noble picture of the Brera Gallery; a black screen, with marbled veins, behind the portraits of himself and his brother in the Louvre; a crimson velvet curtain behind the Madonna, in Francia's best picture at Bologna. Where the subject was sacred, and the painter great, this system of pervading light produced pictures of a peculiar and tranquil majesty; where the mind of the painter was irregularly or frivolously imaginative, its temptations to accumulative detail were too great to be resisted—the spectator was by the German masters overwhelmed with the copious inconsistency of a dream, or compelled to traverse the picture from corner to corner like a museum of curiosities.
127. The chalk or pen preparation being completed, and the oil-priming laid, we have seen that the shadows were laid in with a transparent brown in considerable body. The question next arises—What influence is this part of the process likely to have had upon the coloring of the school? It is to be remembered that the practice was continued to the latest times, and that when the thin light had been long abandoned, and a loaded body of color had taken its place, the brown transparent shadow was still retained, and is retained often to this day, when asphaltum is used as its base, at the risk of the destruction of the picture. The utter loss of many of Reynolds' noblest works has been caused by the lavish use of this pigment. What the pigment actually was in older times is left by Mr. Eastlake undecided:—
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"A rich brown, which, whether an earth or mineral alone, or a substance of the kind enriched by the addition of a transparent yellow or orange, is not an unimportant element of the glowing coloring which is remarkable in examples of the school. Such a color, by artificial combinations at least, is easily supplied; and it is repeated, that, in general, the materials now in use are quite as good as those which the Flemish masters had at their command."—Ib. p. 488.
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At p. 446 it is also asserted that the peculiar glow of the brown of Rubens is hardly to be accounted for by any accidental variety in the Cassel earths, but was obtained by the mixture of a transparent yellow. Evidence, however, exists of asphaltum having been used in Flemish pictures, and with safety, even though prepared in the modern manner:—
* * *
"It is not ground" (says De Mayerne), "but a drying oil is prepared with litharge, and the pulverized asphaltum mixed with this oil is placed in a glass vessel, suspended by a thread [in a water bath]. Thus exposed to the fire it melts like butter; when it begins to boil it is instantly removed. It is an excellent color for shadows, and may be glazed like lake; it lasts well."—Ib. p. 463.
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128. The great advantage of this primary laying in of the darks in brown was the obtaining an unity of shadow throughout the picture, which rendered variety of hue, where it occurred, an instantly accepted evidence of light. It mattered not how vigorous or how deep in tone the masses of local color might be, the eye could not confound them with true shadow; it everywhere distinguished the transparent browns as indicative of gloom, and became acutely sensible of the presence and preciousness of light wherever local tints rose out of their depths. But however superior this method may be to the arbitrary use of polychrome shadows, utterly unrelated to the lights, which has been admitted in modern works; and however beautiful or brilliant its results might be in the hands of colorists as faithful as Van Eyck, or as inventive as Rubens; the principle on which it is based becomes dangerous whenever, in assuming that the ultimate hue of every shadow is brown, it presupposes a peculiar and conventional light. It is true, that so long as the early practice of finishing the under-drawing with the pen was continued, the gray of that preparation might perhaps diminish the force of the upper color, which became in that case little more than a glowing varnish—even thus sometimes verging on too monotonous warmth, as the reader may observe in the head of Dandolo, by John Bellini, in the National Gallery. But when, by later and more impetuous hands, the point tracing was dispensed with, and the picture boldly thrown in with the brown pigment, it became matter of great improbability that the force of such a prevalent tint could afterwards be softened or melted into a pure harmony; the painter's feeling for truth was blunted; brilliancy and richness became his object rather than sincerity or solemnity; with the palled sense of color departed the love of light, and the diffused sunshine of the early schools died away in the narrowed rays of Rembrandt. We think it a deficiency in the work before us that the extreme peril of such a principle, incautiously applied, has not been pointed out, and that the method of Rubens has been so highly extolled for its technical perfection, without the slightest notice of the gross mannerism into which its facile brilliancy too frequently betrayed the mighty master.
129. Yet it remains a question how far, under certain limitations and for certain effects, this system of pure brown shadow may be successfully followed. It is not a little singular that it has already been revived in water-colors by a painter who, in his realization of light and splendor of hue, stands without a rival among living schools—Mr. Hunt; his neutral shadows being, we believe, first thrown in frankly with sepia, the color introduced upon the lights, and the central lights afterwards further raised by body color, and glazed. But in this process the sepia shadows are admitted only on objects whose local colors are warm or neutral; wherever the tint of the illumined portion is delicate or peculiar, a relative hue of shade is at once laid on the white paper; and the correspondence with the Flemish school is in the use of brown as the ultimate representative of deep gloom, and in the careful preservation of its transparency, not in the application of brown universally as the shade of all colors. We apprehend that this practice represents, in another medium, the very best mode of applying the Flemish system; and that when the result proposed is an effect of vivid color under bright cool sunshine, it would be impossible to adopt any more perfect means. But a system which in any stage prescribes the use of a certain pigment, implies the adoption of a constant aim, and becomes, in that degree, conventional. Suppose that the effect desired be neither of sunlight nor of bright color, but of grave color subdued by atmosphere, and we believe that the use of brown for an ultimate shadow would be highly inexpedient. With Van Eyck and with Rubens the aim was always consistent: clear daylight, diffused in the one case, concentrated in the other, was yet the hope, the necessity of both; and any process which admitted the slightest dimness, coldness, or opacity, would have been considered an error in their system by either. Alike, to Rubens, came subjects of tumult or tranquillity, of gayety or terror; the nether, earthly, and upper world were to him animated with the same feeling, lighted by the same sun; he dyed in the same lake of fire the warp of the wedding-garment or of the winding-sheet; swept into the same delirium the recklessness of the sensualist, and rapture of the anchorite; saw in tears only their glittering, and in torture only its flush. To such a painter, regarding every subject in the same temper, and all as mere motives for the display of the power of his art, the Flemish system, improved as it became in his hands, was alike sufficient and habitual. But among the greater colorists of Italy the aim was not always so simple nor the method so determinable. We find Tintoret passing like a fire-fly from light to darkness in one oscillation, ranging from the fullest prism of solar color to the coldest grays of twilight, and from the silver tingeing of a morning cloud to the lava fire of a volcano: one moment shutting himself into obscure chambers of imagery, the next plunged into the revolutionless day of heaven, and piercing space, deeper than the mind can follow or the eye fathom; we find him by turns appalling, pensive, splendid, profound, profuse; and throughout sacrificing every minor quality to the power of his prevalent mood. By such an artist it might, perhaps, be presumed that a different system of color would be adopted in almost every picture, and that if a chiaroscuro ground were independently laid, it would be in a neutral gray, susceptible afterwards of harmony with any tone he might determine upon, and not in the vivid brown which necessitated brilliancy of subsequent effect. We believe, accordingly, that while some of the pieces of this master's richer color, such as the Adam and Eve in the Gallery of Venice, and we suspect also the miracle of St. Mark, may be executed on the pure Flemish system, the greater number of his large compositions will be found based on a gray shadow; and that this gray shadow was independently laid we have more direct proof in the assertion of Boschini, who received his information from the younger Palma: "Quando haveva stabilita questa importante distribuzione, abboggiava il quadro tutto di chiaroscuro;" and we have, therefore, no doubt that Tintoret's well-known reply to the question, "What were the most beautiful colors?" "Il nero, e il bianco," is to be received in a perfectly literal sense, beyond and above its evident reference to abstract principle. Its main and most valuable meaning was, of course, that the design and light and shade of a picture were of greater importance than its color; (and this Tintoret felt so thoroughly that there is not one of his works which would seriously lose in power if it were translated into chiaroscuro); but it implied also that Tintoret's idea of a shadowed preparation was in gray, and not in brown.
130. But there is a farther and more essential ground of difference in system of shadow between the Flemish and Italian colorists. It is a well-known optical fact that the color of shadow is complemental to that of light: and that therefore, in general terms, warm light has cool shadow, and cool light hot shadow. The noblest masters of the northern and southern schools respectively adopted these contrary keys; and while the Flemings raised their lights in frosty white and pearly grays out of a glowing shadow, the Italians opposed the deep and burning rays of their golden heaven to masses of solemn gray and majestic blue. Either, therefore, their preparation must have been different, or they were able, when they chose, to conquer the warmth of the ground by superimposed color. We believe, accordingly, that Correggio will be found—as stated in the notes of Reynolds quoted at p. 495—to have habitually grounded with black, white, and ultramarine, then glazing with golden transparent colors; while Titian used the most vigorous browns, and conquered them with cool color in mass above. The remarkable sketch of Leonardo in the Uffizii of Florence is commenced in brown—over the brown is laid an olive green, on which the highest lights are struck with white.
Now it is well known to even the merely decorative painter that no color can be brilliant which is laid over one of a corresponding key, and that the best ground for any given opaque color will be a comparatively subdued tint of the complemental one; of green under red, of violet under yellow, and of orange or brown therefore under blue. We apprehend accordingly that the real value of the brown ground with Titian was far greater than even with Rubens; it was to support and give preciousness to cool color above, while it remained itself untouched as the representative of warm reflexes and extreme depth of transparent gloom. We believe this employment of the brown ground to be the only means of uniting majesty of hue with profundity of shade. But its value to the Fleming is connected with the management of the lights, which we have next to consider. As we here venture for the first time to disagree in some measure with Mr. Eastlake, let us be sure that we state his opinion fairly. He says:—
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"The light warm tint which Van Mander assumes to have been generally used in the oil-priming was sometimes omitted, as unfinished pictures prove. Under such circumstances, the picture may have been executed at once on the sized outline. In the works of Lucas van Leyden, and sometimes in those of Albert Duerer, the thin yet brilliant lights exhibit a still brighter ground underneath (p. 389).... It thus appears that the method proposed by the inventors of oil-painting, of preserving light within the colors, involved a certain order of processes. The principal conditions were: first, that the outline should be completed on the panel before the painting, properly so called, was begun. The object, in thus defining the forms, was to avoid alterations and repaintings, which might ultimately render the ground useless without supplying its place. Another condition was to avoid loading the opaque colors. This limitation was not essential with regard to the transparent colors, as such could hardly exclude the bright ground (p. 398).... The system of coloring adopted by the Van Eycks may have been influenced by the practice of glass-painting. They appear, in their first efforts at least, to have considered the white panel as representing light behind a colored and transparent medium, and aimed at giving brilliancy to their tints by allowing the white ground to shine through them. If those painters and their followers erred, it was in sometimes too literally carrying out this principle. Their lights are always transparent (mere white excepted) and their shadows sometimes want depth. This is in accordance with the effect of glass-staining, in which transparency may cease with darkness, but never with light. The superior method of Rubens consisted in preserving transparency chiefly in his darks, and in contrasting their lucid depth with solid lights (p. 408).... Among the technical improvements on the older process may be especially mentioned the preservation of transparency in the darker masses, the lights being loaded as required. The system of exhibiting the bright ground through the shadows still involved an adherence to the original method of defining the composition at first; and the solid painting of the lights opened the door to that freedom of execution which the works of the early masters wanted." (p. 490.)
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131. We think we cannot have erred in concluding from these scattered passages that Mr. Eastlake supposes the brilliancy of the high lights of the earlier schools to be attributable to the under-power of the white ground. This we admit, so far as that ground gave value to the transparent flesh-colored or brown preparation above it; but we doubt the transparency of the highest lights, and the power of any white ground to add brilliancy to opaque colors. We have ourselves never seen an instance of a painted brilliant light that was not loaded to the exclusion of the ground. Secondary lights indeed are often perfectly transparent, a warm hatching over the under-white; the highest light itself may be so—but then it is the white ground itself subdued by transparent darker color, not supporting a light color. In the Van Eyck in the National Gallery all the brilliant lights are loaded; mere white, Mr. Eastlake himself admits, was always so; and we believe that the flesh-color and carnations are painted with color as opaque as the white head-dress, but fail of brilliancy from not being loaded enough; the white ground beneath being utterly unable to add to the power of such tints, while its effect on more subdued tones depended in great measure on its receiving a transparent coat of warm color first. This may have been sometimes omitted, as stated at p. 389; when it was so, we believe that an utter loss of brilliancy must have resulted; but when it was used, the highest lights must have been raised from it by opaque color as distinctly by Van Eyck as by Rubens. Rubens' Judgment of Paris is quoted at [p. 388] as an example of the best use of the bright gesso ground:—and how in that picture, how in all Rubens' best pictures, is it used? Over the ground is thrown a transparent glowing brown tint, varied and deepened in the shadow; boldly over that brown glaze, and into it, are struck and painted the opaque gray middle tints, already concealing the ground totally; and above these are loaded the high lights like gems—note the sparkling strokes on the peacock's plumes. We believe that Van Eyck's high lights were either, in proportion to the scale of picture and breadth of handling, as loaded as these, or, in the degree of their thinness, less brilliant. Was then his system the same as Rubens'? Not so; but it differed more in the management of middle tints than in the lights: the main difference was, we believe, between the careful preparation of the gradations of drawing in the one, and the daring assumption of massy light in the other. There are theorists who would assert that their system was the same—but they forget the primal work, with the point underneath, and all that it implied of transparency above. Van Eyck secured his drawing in dark, then threw a pale transparent middle tint over the whole, and recovered his highest lights; all was transparent except these. Rubens threw a dark middle tint over the whole at first, and then gave the drawing with opaque gray. All was opaque except the shadows. No slight difference this, when we reflect on the contrarieties of practice ultimately connected with the opposing principles; above all on the eminent one that, as all Van Eyck's color, except the high lights, must have been equivalent to a glaze, while the great body of color in Rubens was solid (ultimately glazed occasionally, but not necessarily), it was possible for Van Eyck to mix his tints to the local hues required, with far less danger of heaviness in effect than would have been incurred in the solid painting of Rubens. This is especially noticed by Mr. Eastlake, with whom we are delighted again to concur:—
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"The practice of using compound tints has not been approved by colorists; the method, as introduced by the early masters, was adapted to certain conditions, but, like many of their processes, was afterwards misapplied. Vasari informs us that Lorenzo di Credi, whose exaggerated nicety in technical details almost equaled that of Gerard Dow, was in the habit of mixing about thirty tints before he began to work. The opposite extreme is perhaps no less objectionable. Much may depend on the skillful use of the ground. The purest color in an opaque state and superficially light only, is less brilliant than the foulest mixture through which light shines. Hence, as long as the white ground was visible within the tints, the habit of matching colors from nature (no matter by what complication of hues, provided the ingredients were not chemically injurious to each other) was likely to combine the truth of negative hues with clearness."—Ib. p. 400.
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132. These passages open to us a series of questions far too intricate to be even cursorily treated within our limits. It is to be held in mind that one and the same quality of color or kind of brilliancy is not always the best; the phases and phenomena of color are innumerable in reality, and even the modes of imitating them become expedient or otherwise, according to the aim and scale of the picture. It is no question of mere authority whether the mixture of tints to a compound one, or their juxtaposition in a state of purity, be the better practice. There is not the slightest doubt that, the ground being the same, a stippled tint is more brilliant and rich than a mixed one; nor is there doubt on the other hand that in some subjects such a tint is impossible, and in others vulgar. We have above alluded to the power of Mr. Hunt in water-color. The fruit-pieces of that artist are dependent for their splendor chiefly on the juxtaposition of pure color for compound tints, and we may safely affirm that the method is for such purpose as exemplary as its results are admirable. Yet would you desire to see the same means adopted in the execution of the fruit in Rubens' Peace and War? Or again, would the lusciousness of tint obtained by Rubens himself, adopting the same means on a grander scale in his painting of flesh, have been conducive to the ends or grateful to the feelings of the Bellinis or Albert Duerer? Each method is admirable as applied by its master; and Hemling and Van Eyck are as much to be followed in the mingling of color, as Rubens and Rembrandt in its decomposition. If an award is absolutely to be made of superiority to either system, we apprehend that the palm of mechanical skill must be rendered to the latter, and higher dignity of moral purpose confessed in the former; in proportion to the nobleness of the subject and the thoughtfulness of its treatment, simplicity of color will be found more desirable. Nor is the far higher perfection of drawing attained by the earlier method to be forgotten. Gradations which are expressed by delicate execution of the darks, and then aided by a few strokes of recovered light, must always be more subtle and true than those which are struck violently forth with opaque color; and it is to be remembered that the handling of the brush, with the early Italian masters, approached in its refinement to drawing with the point—the more definitely, because the work was executed, as we have just seen, with little change or play of local color. And—whatever discredit the looser and bolder practice of later masters may have thrown on the hatched and penciled execution of earlier periods—we maintain that this method, necessary in fresco, and followed habitually in the first oil pictures, has produced the noblest renderings of human expression in the whole range of the examples of art: the best works of Raphael, all the glorious portraiture of Ghirlandajo and Masaccio, all the mightiest achievements of religious zeal in Francia, Perugino, Bellini, and such others. Take as an example in fresco Masaccio's hasty sketch of himself now in the Uffizii; and in oil, the two heads of monks by Perugino in the Academy of Florence; and we shall search in vain for any work in portraiture, executed in opaque colors, which could contend with them in depth of expression or in fullness of recorded life—not mere imitative vitality, but chronicled action. And we have no hesitation in asserting that where the object of the painter is expression, and the picture is of a size admitting careful execution, the transparent system, developed as it is found in Bellini or Perugino, will attain the most profound and serene color, while it will never betray into looseness or audacity. But if in the mind of the painter invention prevail over veneration,—if his eye be creative rather than penetrative, and his hand more powerful than patient—let him not be confined to a system where light, once lost, is as irrecoverable as time, and where all success depends on husbandry of resource. Do not measure out to him his sunshine in inches of gesso; let him have the power of striking it even out of darkness and the deep.
133. If human life were endless, or human spirit could fit its compass to its will, it is possible a perfection might be reached which should unite the majesty of invention with the meekness of love. We might conceive that the thought, arrested by the readiest means, and at first represented by the boldest symbols, might afterwards be set forth with solemn and studied expression, and that the power might know no weariness in clothing which had known no restraint in creating. But dilation and contraction are for molluscs, not for men; we are not ringed into flexibility like worms, nor gifted with opposite sight and mutable color like chameleons. The mind which molds and summons cannot at will transmute itself into that which clings and contemplates; nor is it given to us at once to have the potter's power over the lump, the fire's upon the clay, and the gilder's upon the porcelain. Even the temper in which we behold these various displays of mind must be different; and it admits of more than doubt whether, if the bold work of rapid thought were afterwards in all its forms completed with microscopic care, the result would be other than painful. In the shadow at the foot of Tintoret's picture of the Temptation, lies a broken rock-bowlder.[19] The dark ground has been first laid in, of color nearly uniform; and over it a few, not more than fifteen or twenty, strokes of the brush, loaded with a light gray, have quarried the solid block of stone out of the vacancy. Probably ten minutes are the utmost time which those strokes have occupied, though the rock is some four feet square. It may safely be affirmed that no other method, however laborious, could have reached the truth of form which results from the very freedom with which the conception has been expressed; but it is a truth of the simplest kind—the definition of a stone, rather than the painting of one—and the lights are in some degree dead and cold—the natural consequence of striking a mixed opaque pigment over a dark ground. It would now be possible to treat this skeleton of a stone, which could only have been knit together by Tintoret's rough temper, with the care of a Fleming; to leave its fiercely-stricken lights emanating from a golden ground, to gradate with the pen its ponderous shadows, and in its completion, to dwell with endless and intricate precision upon fibers of moss, bells of heath, blades of grass, and films of lichen. Love like Van Eyck's would separate the fibers as if they were stems of forest, twine the ribbed grass into fanciful articulation, shadow forth capes and islands in the variegated film, and hang the purple bells in counted chiming. A year might pass away, and the work yet be incomplete; yet would the purpose of the great picture have been better answered when all had been achieved? or if so, is it to be wished that a year of the life of Tintoret (could such a thing be conceived possible) had been so devoted? |
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