Colouring white; so that white is not a colour per se, as the learned Da Vinci (so far, it seems, the precursor of Newton) expressly affirms, but an assemblage of colours. Now, these colours, which compose light, although immutable in themselves, and ended with various qualities, are continually, however, separating from each other in their reflection from and passage through other substances, and thus become manifest to the eye. Glass, for example, reflects only green rays, or rather reflects green rays in greater number than it does those of any other colour; one kind of wine transmits red rays, and another yellowish rays: and from this kind of separation arises that variety of colours with which nature has diversified her various productions. Man, too, has contrived to separate the rays of light by making a portion of the sun's beams pass through a glass prism; for after passing through it, they appear divided into seven pure and primitive colours, placed in succession one by the other, like so many colours on a painter's pallet.

Now, though Titian, Corregio, and Van Dyke, have been excellent colourists, without knowing anything of these physical subtleties, that is no reason why others should neglect them. For it cannot but be of great service to a painter to be well acquainted with the nature of what he is to imitate, and of those colours with which he is to give life and perfection to his designs; not to speak of the pleasure there is in being able to account truly and fully for the various effects and appearances of light. From a due tempering, for example, and degrading, of the tints in a picture; from making colours partake of each other, according to the reflection of light from one object to another; there arises, in some measure, that sublime harmony which may be considered as the true music of the eye. And this harmony has its foundation in the genuine principles of optics. Now this could not happen in the system of those philosophers who held, that colours did not originally exist in light, but were, on the contrary, nothing else than so many modifications which it underwent in being reflected from other substances, or in passing through them; thus subject to alterations without end, and every moment liable to perish. Were that the case, bodies could no more receive any hues one from another, nor this body partake of the colour of that, than scarlet, for example; because it has the power of changing into red all the rays of the sun or sky which immediately fall upon it, has the power of changing into red all the other rays reflected to it from a blue or any other colour in its neighbourhood. Whereas, allowing that colours are in their own nature immutable one into another, and that every body reflects, more or less, every sort of coloured rays, though those rays in the greatest number which are of the colour it exhibits, there must necessarily arise, in colours placed near one another, certain particular hues or temperaments of colour; nay, this influence of one colour upon another may be so far traced, that three or four bodies of different colours, and likewise the intenseness of the light falling upon each, being assigned, we may easily determine in what situations and how much they would tinge each other. We may thus, too, by the same principle of optics, account for several other things practised by painters; insomuch that a person, who has carefully observed natural effects with an eye directed by solid learning, shall be able to form general rules, where another can only distinguish particular cases.

But after all, the pictures of the best colourists are, it is universally allowed, the books in which a young painter must chiefly look for the rules of colouring; that is, of that branch of painting which contributes so much to express the beauty of objects, and is requisite to represent them as what they really are. Giorgio and Titian seem to have discovered circumstances in nature which others have entirely overlooked; and the last in particular has been happy enough to express them with a pencil as delicate as his eye was quick and piercing. In his works we behold that sweetness of colouring which is produced by union; that beauty which is consistent with truth; and all the insensible transmutations, all the soft transitions, in a word, all the pleasing modulations, of tints and colours. When a young painter has, by close application, acquired from Titian, whom he can never sufficiently dwell upon, that art which, of all painters, he has best contrived to hide, he would do well to turn to Bassano and Paolo, on account of the beauty, boldness, and elegance of their touches. That richness, softness, and freshness of colouring, for which the Lombard school is so justly cried up, may likewise be of great service to him. Nor will he reap less benefit by studying the principles and practice of the Flemish school; which, chiefly by means of her varnishes, has contrived to give a most enchanting lustre and transparency to her colours.

But whatever pictures a young painter may choose to study the art of colouring upon, he must take great care that they are well preserved. There are very few pieces which have not suffered more or less by the length, not to say the injuries, of time; and perhaps that precious patina, which years alone can impart to paintings, is in some measure akin to that other kind which ages alone impart to medals; insomuch as, by giving testimony to their antiquity, it renders them proportionally beautiful in the superstitious eyes of the learned. It must indeed be allowed, that if, on the one hand, this patina bestows, as it really does, an extraordinary degree of harmony upon the colours of a picture, and destroys, or at least greatly lessens, their original rawness, it, on the other hand, equally impairs the freshness and life of them. A piece seen many years after it has been painted, appears much as it would do, immediately after painting, behind a dull glass. It is no idle opinion, that Paolo Veronese, attentive above all things to the beauty of his colours, and what is called firefino, left entirely to time the care of harmonizing them perfectly, and (as we may say) mellowing them. But most of the old masters took that task upon themselves; and never exposed their works to the eyes of the public, until they had ripened and finished them with their own hands. And who can say whether the Cibrilli of Moneta, or the Nativity of Bassano, have been more improved or injured (if we may so speak) by the touchings and retouchings of time, in the course of more than two centuries? It is indeed impossible to be determined. But the studious pupil may make himself ample amends for any injuries which his originals may have received from the hands of time, by turning to truth, and to Nature which never grows old.

Coloring, old, but constantly retains its primitive flavor of youth, and was itself the model of the models before him. As soon, therefore, as a young painter has laid a proper foundation for good coloring, by studying the best masters, he should turn all his thoughts to truth and nature. And it would perhaps be well worth while to have, in the academies of painting, models for coloring as well as designing; that as from the one the pupils learn to give their due proportion to the several members and muscles, they may learn, from the other to make their carnations rich and warm, and faithfully copy the different local hues which appear quite distinct in the different parts of a fine body. To illustrate still farther the use of such a model, let us suppose it placed in different lights; now in that of the sun, now in that of the sky, and now again in that of a lamp or candle; one time placed in the shade, and another in a reflected light. Hence the pupil may learn all the different effects of the complection in different circumstances, whether the livid, the lucid, or transparent; and, above all, that variety of tints and half tints, occasioned in the color of the skin by the epidermis having the bones immediately under it in some places, and in others a greater or less number of blood-vessels or quantity of fat. An artist who had long studied such a model, would run no risk of degrading the beauties of nature by any particularity of style, or of giving into that preposterous fulness and floridity of colour which is at present so much the taste. He would not feed his figures with roses, as an ancient painter of Greece strangely expressed it, but with good beef; a difference, which the learned eye of a modern writer could perceive between the colouring of Barocci and that of Titian. To practice in that manner, is, according to a great master, no better than inuring one's self to the commission of blunders. What statues are in design, nature is in colouring; the fountain head of that perfection to which every artist, ambitious to excel, should constantly aspire: and accordingly the Flemish painters, in consequence of their aiming solely to copy nature, are in colouring as excellent as they are wont to be awkward in designing. The best model for the tone of colours and the degradation of shades is furnished by means of the camera-obscura. See DIOPTRICS, Sect. 6th and 9th.

Sect. VI. Of Drapery.

Drapery is one of the most important branches of the whole art, and accordingly demands the greatest attention and study. It seldom happens that a painter has nothing but naked figures to represent; nay, his subjects generally consist of figures clothed from head to foot. Now the flowing of the folds in every garment depends chiefly upon the relief of the parts that lie under it. A certain author, we forget his name, observes, that as the inequalities of a surface are discoverable by the inequalities in the water that runs over it, so the posture and shape of the members must be discernible by the folds of the garment that covers them. Those idle windings and gatherings, with which some painters have affected to cover their figures, make the clothes made up of them look as if the body had fled from under them, and left nothing in its place but a heap of empty bubbles, fit emblems of the brain that conceived them. As from the trunk of a tree there issue here and there boughs of various forms, so from one mitreless fold there always flow many lesser ones; and as it is on the quality of the tree that the elegance, compactness, or openness of its branches chiefly depends; it is, in like manner, by the quality of the stuff of which a garment is made, that the number, order, and size of its folds must be determined. To sum up all in two words, the drapery ought to be natural and easy, so as to show what stuff it is, and what parts it covers. It ought, as a certain author expresses it, to cover the body, as it were merely to show it.

It was formerly the custom with some of our masters to draw all their figures naked, and then drape them from the same principle that they first drew the skeletons of their figures, and afterwards covered them with muscles. And it was by proceeding in this manner that they attained to such a degree of truth in expressing the folds of their drapery, and the joints and direction of the principal members that lay under it, so as to exhibit in a most striking manner the attitude of the person to whom they belonged. That the ancient sculptors clothed their statues with equal truth and grace, appears from many of them that are still in being; particularly a Flora lately dug up in Rome, whose drapery is executed with so much judgment, and in so grand and rich a style, that it may vie with the finest of their naked statues, even with the Venus of Medicis. The statues of the ancients had so much beauty when naked, that they retained a great deal when clothed. But here it must be considered, that it was usual with them to suppose their originals clothed with wet garments, and of an extreme fineness and delicacy, that, by lying close to the parts, and in a manner clinging to them, they might the better show what these parts were. For this reason a painter is not to confine himself to the study of the ancient statues, lest he should contract a dry style, and even fall into the same faults with some great masters who, accustomed to drapery with such light stuffs as fit close to the body, have afterwards made the coarsest lie in the same manner, so as plainly to exhibit the muscles underneath them. It is therefore proper to study nature herself, and those modern masters who have come nearest to her in this branch; such as Paolo Veronese, Andrea del Sarto, Rubens, and above all, Guido Reni. The flow of their drapery is soft and gentle; and the gatherings and paits are so contrived, as not only not to hide the body, but to add grace and dignity to it. Their gold, silk, and woollen stuffs, are so distinguishable one from another, by the quality of their several lustres, and the peculiar light and shade belonging to each, but above all by the form and flow of their folds, that the age and sex of their figures are hardly more discoverable by their faces. Albert Durer is another great master in this branch, inasmuch that Guido himself was not ashamed to study him. There are still extant several drawings made with the pen by this great man, in which he has copied whole figures from Albert, and scrupulously retained the flow of his drapery as far as his own peculiar style, less harsh and sharp, but more easy and graceful, would allow. It may be said that Draper. he made the same use of Albert that our modern writers ought to make of the best authors of the 13th century.

To drape a figure well, it is necessary that the folds be large and few in number; because large folds produce great masses of light and shadow, while small ones multiply the objects of view and distract the attention. But if the character of the drapery or kind of stuff require small folds, they should at least be distributed in groups, in such a manner that a great number of small folds shall be subordinate to an equal mass formed by a principal fold.

It is also proper to observe, that the colour of the drapery contributes to the harmony of the whole, and produces effects which the chiaroscuro cannot do alone. At the same time, the principles of the chiaroscuro should preside over, or at least regulate, the art of drapery. If the folds of the stuff which cover the members exposed to the light are too strongly shaded, they will appear to enter into the members, and cut them.

Drapery contributes to the life, to the character, to the expression of the figures, provided all the movements of the folds announce the lively or more tranquil movement of those figures. The colour, and the kind of stuff, concur also to promote the general expression; brilliant or fine drapery cannot be properly introduced in a mournful subject, nor the opposite in a gay one.

The drapery must also agree with the age and character of the figures: And if nature in any instance is found to contradict those principles, it is because they relate to the ideal of the art; and it is this ideal which carries it to the greatest perfection.

Great attention is also necessary to the situation in which the figures are placed, and the actions about which they are employed. If they are in the act of ascending, a column of air weighs down the drapery; if, on the contrary, they are descending, the drapery is supported and spread out. The folds placed on every member, and the general play of the drapery, should indicate whether the figure is in action or about to be so; whether action be beginning or ending; and whether it be slow, or quick, or violent. All this is agreeable to nature; but it also partakes of the ideal, since nature never can be copied in such fluctuating situations. The practice of the Roman schools, first to draw after nature, and then to paint after the drawing, cannot be adopted by colourists; because nature, according to the kind of the stuffs, produces tones and lights which give more perfection and truth to the work. Meanwhile Raphael, who followed this practice, enjoys the first reputation for giving play to his drapery, and disposing the folds in the best order. In this part he has even attained the height of ideal beauty. He is the greatest painter of drapery, as the Venetians are the greatest in painting stuffs.

Raphael, says Mengs, imitated at first his master Perugino's manner of drapery; and he brought this manner to perfection, by studying the works of Masaccio and of Bartholomew; but he departed entirely from the taste of the school in which he was educated when he had seen the works of the ancients. It was the bas-relief of antiquity which pointed out to him the true flowing of drapery, and he was not backward to introduce it. He discovered, by attending to the principles of the ancients, that the naked is the principal part; that drapery is to be regarded altogether as an accessory, and that it is intended to cover, not to conceal; that it is employed from necessity, not caprice; that of consequence the clothes should not be so narrow as to constrain the members, nor so ample as to embarrass them; but that the artist should adapt them to the size and attitude of the figures intended to wear them.

He understood that the great folds should be placed at the large places of the body; and where the nature of the drapery required small folds, that it was necessary to give them a projection, which indicates a subordination to the principal parts.

He made his ample draperies without useless folds, and with bendings at the articulations. It was the form of the naked figure which pointed out to him the form of his folds, and on the great muscles he formed great masses. When any part required to be foreshortened, he covered it with the same number of folds as if it had been straight; but then he crowded them in proportion to the foreshortening.

He frequently discovered the border of his drapery, to show that his figures were not dressed in a simple sack. The form of the principal parts, and the specific weight of the air, were always the causes of his folds. It was easy to discover in his works, by the folds of his drapery, the attitude of the figure previous to the one in which it was placed; and whether, for example, the arm was extended or otherwise, immediately before the action. This was an expression which he had carefully studied on all occasions, because he found it in nature.

When the drapery was to cover the leg or arm but half, or in an imperfect manner, he made it cut obliquely the member which was partly to be covered. His folds were of a triangular form. The reason of this form is in nature: for all drapery has a tendency to enlarge itself and be extended; and as at the same time its own weight obliges it to fall back on itself, it is naturally formed into triangles.

He knew perfectly, that the movements of the body and of its members are the causes of the actual situation of drapery, and of the formation of its folds. All his practice is nothing else but the unfolding and demonstrating of this theory; and drapery executed in any other manner must be in a false and vicious taste.

Sect. VII. Of Landscape and Architecture.

When our young painter has made a sufficient progress in those principal branches of his art, the designing, perspective, colouring, and drapery of human figures, he should turn his thoughts to landscape and architecture; for, by studying them, he will render himself universal, and qualified to undertake any subject; so as not to resemble certain literati, who, though great masters in some articles, are mere children in everything else.

The most eminent landscape-painters are Poussin, Lorentz, and Titian.

Poussin was remarkable for his great diligence. His pieces are quite exotic and uncommon; being set off with buildings in a beautiful but singular style; and with learned episodes, such as poets reciting their verses to the woods, and youths exercising themselves in the several gymnastic games of antiquity; by which it plainly appears, that he was more indebted for his subjects to the descriptions of Pauanians than to nature and truth.

Lorenese applied himself chiefly to express the various phenomena of light, especially those perceivable in the heavens. And, thanks to the happy climate of Rome, where he studied and exercised his talents, he has left us the brightest skies, and the richest and most gloriously cloud-tinted horizons, that can be well conceived. Nay, the sun himself, which, like the Almighty, can be represented merely by his effects, has scarcely escaped his daring and ambitious pencil.

Titian, the great confidant of nature, is the Homer of landscape. His scenes have so much truth, so much variety, and such a bloom in them, that it is impossible to behold them, without wishing, as if they were real, to make an excursion into them. And perhaps the finest landscape that ever issued from mortal hands, is the background of his Martyrdom of St Peter; where by the difference between the bodies and the leaves of his trees, and the disposition of their branches, one immediately discovers the difference between the trees themselves; where the different soils are so well expressed, and so exquisitely clothed with their proper plants, that a botanist has much ado to keep his hands from them. See Part II. Sect. ii.

Paolo Veronese is in architecture what Titian is in landscape. To excel in landscape, we must, above all things, study nature. To excel in architecture, we must chiefly regard the finest works of art; such as the fronts of ancient edifices, and the fabrics of those moderns who have best studied and best copied antiquity. Next to Brunelleschi and Alberti, who were the first revivers of architecture, came Bramante, Giulio Romano, Sanfino, Sanmicheli, and lastly Palladio, whose works the young painter should above all the rest diligently study and imprint deeply on his mind. Nor is Vignola to be forgot; for some think he was a more scrupulous copier of antiquity, and more exact, than Palladio himself, inso much that most people consider him as the first architect among the moderns. For our part, to speak of him, not as fame, but as truth seems to require, we cannot help thinking, that rather than break through the generality of the rules contrived by him to facilitate practice, he has in some instances deviated from the most beautiful proportions of the antique, and is rather barren in the distribution and disposition of certain members. Moreover, the extraordinary height of his pedestals and cornices hinders the column from showing in the orders designed and employed by him, as it does in those of Palladio. Amongst that great variety of proportions to be met with in ancient ruins, Palladio has been extremely happy in choosing the best. His profiles are well contrasted, yet easy. All the parts of his buildings hang well together. Grandeur, elegance, and beauty, walk hand in hand in them. In short, the very blemishes of Palladio, who was no slave to conveniency, and sometimes perhaps was too profuse in his decorations, are picturesque. And we may reasonably believe, that it was by following so great a master, whose works he had continually before his eyes, that Paolo Veronese formed that fine and masterly taste which enabled him to embellish his compositions with such beautiful structures.

The study of architecture cannot fail, in another respect, of being very useful to the young painter, inasmuch as it will bring him acquainted with the form of the temples, thermae, basilicas, theatres, and other buildings of the Greeks and Romans. Besides, from the basso-relievo with which it was customary to adorn these buildings, he may gather, with equal delight and profit, the nature of their sacrifices, arms, military ensign, and dyes. The study of landscape, too, will render familiar to him the form of the various plants peculiar to each soil and climate, and such other things as serve to characterize the different regions of the earth. Thus by degrees he will learn what we call co-flume one of the chief requisites in a painter; since by means of it he may express with great precision the time and place in which his scenes are laid.

Sect. VIII. Of the Expression of the Passions.

That language which above all others a painter should carefully endeavour to learn, and from nature herself, is the language of the passions. Without it the finest works must appear lifeless and inanimate. It is not enough for a painter to be able to delineate the most exquisite forms, give them the most graceful attitudes, and compose them well together; it is not enough to dress them out with propriety, and in the most beautiful colours; it is not enough, in fine, by the powerful magic of light and shade, to make the canvas vanish. No; he must likewise know how to clothe his figures with grief, with joy, with fear, with anger; he must, in some sort, write on their faces what they think and what they feel; he must give them life and speech. It is indeed in this branch that painting truly fears, and in a manner rises superior to itself; it is in this branch she makes the spectator apprehend much more than what she expresses.

The means employed in her imitations by painting, are the circumvention of terms, the chiaro-scuro, and colours; all which appear solely calculated to strike the visual faculty. Notwithstanding which, she contrives to represent hard and soft, rough and smooth surfaces, which are objects of the touch; and this by means of certain tints, and a certain chiaro-scuro, which has a different look in marble, in the bark of trees, in downy and delicate substances. Nay, she contrives to express sound and motion, by means of light and shade, and certain particular configurations. In some landscapes of Diderich, we almost hear the water murmur, and see it tremble along the sides of the river and of the boats upon it. In the Battle of Bargoigne, we are really apt to fancy that the trumpet sounds; and we see the horse, who has thrown his rider, scamper along the plain. But what is still more wonderful, painting, in virtue of her various colours and certain particular gestures, expresses even the sentiments and most hidden affections of the soul, and renders her visible, so as to make the eye not only touch and hear, but even kindle into passion and reason.

Many have written, and amongst the rest the famous Le Brun, on the various changes that, according to the various passions, happen in the muscles of the face, which is, as it were, the dumb tongue of the soul. They They observe, for example, that in fits of anger the face reddens, the muscles of the lips puff out, the eyes sparkle; and that, on the contrary, in fits of melancholy, the eyes grow motionless and dead, the face pale, and the lips sink in. It may be of service to a painter to read these and such other remarks; but it will be of infinitely more service to study them in nature itself, from which they have been borrowed, and which exhibits them in that lively manner which neither tongue nor pen can express.

Upon Le Brun's Treatise on the Passions, we have the following just, though severe, criticism by Winkelman. "Expression, though precarious in its nature (says he), has been reduced into a system, in a Treatise on the Passions by Charles le Brun, a work generally put into the hands of young artists. The plates which accompany this treatise do not only give to the face the affections of the soul in too high a tone, but there are many of the heads in which the passions are represented in an outrageous manner. He appears to give instructions in expression, as Diogenes gave examples of morality: I act like musicians, said that cynic, who give a high tone, in order to indicate a true one. But the fervour of youth has naturally more inclination to seize the extreme than the middle; and hence it is difficult for the young artist, in copying after Le Brun, to seize the true tone. Youth in general may be supposed to have that regard for the calm and moderate in the arts, which they have for the precepts of wisdom and virtue."

Other French writers have given instructions respecting the expression of the passions, equally exceptional with those of Le Brun. All of them whom we have consulted make many divisions and subdivisions of passions, that a philosopher cannot follow them in metaphysical theory, nor a painter exhibit their effects upon canvas. Nature therefore must be his guide, particularly in treating those very minute and almost imperceptible differences, by which, however, things very different from each other are often expressed. This is particularly the case with regard to the passions of laughing and crying; as in these, however contrary, the muscles of the face operate nearly in the same manner. As the famous Pietro de Cortona was one day finishing the face of a crying child in a representation of the Iron Age, with which he was adorning the floor called the Hot-bath in the royal palace of Pitti, Ferdinand II. who happened to be looking over him for his amusement, could not forbear expressing his approbation, by crying out, "Oh how well that child cries!" To whom the artist,—"Has your majesty a mind to see how easily it is to make children laugh? Behold, I'll prove it in an instant." And taking up his pencil, by giving the contour of the mouth a concave turn downwards, instead of the convex upwards which it before had, and with little or no alteration in any other part of the face, he made the child, who a little before seemed ready to burst its heart with crying, appear in equal danger of bursting its sides with immoderate laughter; and then, by restoring the altered features to their former position, he soon set the child a-crying again."

The different expressions of laughter and weeping are thus described by Le Brun. "The movements of laughter are expressed by the eye-brows elevated towards the middle of the eye, and lowered towards the fides of the nose: the eyes almost shut, appear sometimes moistened with tears: the mouth a little open, allows the teeth to be seen: the extremities of the mouth drawn back, make a dimple in the cheeks, which appear to be swelled: the nostrils are open: and the face becomes red. The changes which weeping occasions are equally visible. The eye-brow is lowered on the middle of the forehead; the eyes are almost shut, moistened and lowered towards the fides of the cheeks: the nostrils are swelled, and the veins of the forehead very apparent: the mouth shut, by the looseness of its fides, occasions wrinkles in the cheeks; the under lip is turned down, and presses at the same time the upper lip: the whole countenance is wrinkled and becomes red; especially the eye-brows, the eyes, the nose, and the cheeks."

According to Leonardo da Vinci, the best masters that a painter can have recourse to in this branch are those dumb men who have found out the method of expressing their sentiments by the motion of their hands, eyes, eye-brows, and in short every other part of the body. If this advice be at all proper, such gestures must be imitated with great sobriety and moderation, lest they should appear too strong and exaggerated; and the piece should show nothing but pantomimes, when speaking figures alone are to be exhibited; and so become theatrical and second-hand, or, at best, look like the copy of a theatrical and second-hand nature.

The artist will reap greater benefit from studying such fine ancient heads as those of Mithridates, Senecca, Alexander dying, Cleopatra, Niobe, &c. and above all, from attentively observing such movements of nature as we daily meet with in the world. But let him chiefly consult his looking-glass, and study after his own face, what, in certain expressions, are the muscles, the lineaments, the tints, and the accidental circumstances which characterize the situation of the soul. It rarely happens that a model, which is affected with no sentiment, presents that to us which we ourselves feel, and which we are capable of expressing when we are our own model. Puget executed the legs of his Milo after his own; and many ingenious artists have had recourse to a similar expedient. In short, to be affected ourselves is the true secret of affecting the spectator.

We must not neglect, at the same time, to secure the fleeting characters which nature presents to us on a thousand occasions. We must distrust our memory, and all the resources which are not easily employed when we happen to stand in need of them. It is necessary to watch the circumstances from which we can derive any useful hint; to seize them when they present themselves; and to be careful never to lose, by an irreparable negligence, the fruit of a happy incident.

Let us also endeavour to possess the feeling of what we are to express; whether it be by forming the image of a thing absent as if it were present, or by being affected with the lively idea of a situation which we have either experienced, or with which we have seen another person remarkably affected. We must never forget, that all the terrible or agreeable, the violent or flight movements, are to be treated in a natural manner, and bear a relation to the age, condition, Expression, sex, and dignity of the person. Those gradations, which art varies according to the nature of the situation, and the character of men, compose the principal ingredients of discernment, knowledge, and taste. They have been the objects of attention and inquiry to the most eminent painters of every age; and they were of the last importance in afflicting them to arrive at that degree of excellence to which they have carried expression.

We are told strange things of the ancient painters of Greece in regard to expression; especially of Ariades; who, in a picture of his, representing a woman wounded to death at a siege, with a child crawling to her breast, makes her appear afraid, lest the child, when she was dead, should, for want of milk, suck her blood. A Medea murdering her children, by Timotheus, was likewise much cried up, as the ingenious artist contrived to express, at once, in her countenance, both the fury that hurried her on to the commission of so great a crime, and the tenderness of a mother that seemed to withhold her from it. Rubens attempted to express such a double effect in the face of Mary of Medicis, still in pain from her past labour, and at the same time full of joy at the birth of a Dauphin. And in the countenance of Sancta Polonia, painted by Tiepolo for St Anthony's church at Padua, one may clearly read a mixture of pain from the wound given her by the executioner, and of pleasure from the prospect of paradise opened to her by it.

Few, to say the truth, are the examples of strong expression afforded by the Venetian, Flemish, or Lombard schools. Deprived of that great happiness, the happiness of being able to contemplate, at leisure, the works of the ancients, the purest sources of perfection in point of design, expression, and character; and having nothing but nature constantly before their eyes; they made strength of colouring, blooming complections, and the grand effects of the chiaro scuro, their principal study: they aimed more at charming the senses than at captivating the understanding. The Venetians, in particular, seem to have placed their whole glory in setting off their pieces with all that rich variety of personages and drapery, which their capital is continually receiving by means of its extensive commerce, and which attracts so much the eyes of all those who visit it. It is much to be doubted, if, in all the pictures of Paolo Veronese, there is to be found a bold and judicious expression, or one of those attitudes which, as Petrarch expresses it, speak without words; unless, perhaps, it be that remarkable one in his Marriage Feast of Cana of Galilee. At one end of the table, and directly opposite to the bridegroom, whose eyes are fixed upon her, there appears a woman in red, holding up to him the skirt of her garment; as much as to say, we may suppose, that the wine miraculously produced was exactly of the colour with the stuff on her back. And in fact it is red wine we see in the cups and pitchers. But all this while the faces and attitudes of most of the company betray not the least sign of wonder at so extraordinary a miracle. They all, in a manner, appear intent upon nothing but eating, drinking, and making merry. Such, in general, is the style of the Venetian school. The Florentine, over which Michael Angelo presided, above all things curious of design, was most minutely and scrupulously exact in point of anatomy. On this he set her heart, and took singular pleasure in displaying it. Not only elegance of form, and nobleness of invention, but likewise strength of expression, triumph in the Roman school, nursed as it were amongst the works of the Greeks, and in the bosom of a city which had once been the seminary of learning and politeness. Here it was that Domenichino and Poussin, both great masters of expression, refined themselves, as appears more particularly by the St Jerome of the one, and the Death of Germanicus, and the Slaughter of the Innocents, by the other. Here it was that Raphael wrote, the sovereign master of them all. One would imagine, that pictures, which are generally considered as the books of the ignorant, and of the ignorant only, he had undertaken to make the instructors even of the learned. One would imagine, that he intended, in some measure, to justify Quintilian *, who affirms, that painting has more power over us than all the arts of rhetoric. There is not, xi cap. 3 indeed, a single picture of Raphael's, from the study of which those who are curious in point of expression may not reap great benefit; particularly his Martyrdom of St Felicitas, his Transfiguration, his Joseph explaining to Pharaoh his dream, a piece so highly rated by Poussin. His School of Athens, in the Vatican, is, to all intents and purposes, a school of expression. Among the many miracles of art with which this piece abounds, we shall single out that of the four boys attending on a mathematician, who, stooping to the ground with his compasses in his hand, is giving them the demonstration of a theorem. One of the boys, recollecting within himself, keeps back, with all the appearance of profound attention to the reasoning of the master; another, by the briskness of his attitude, discovers a greater quickness of apprehension; while the third, who has already seized the conclusion, is endeavouring to beat it into the fourth, who, standing motionless, with open arms, a staring countenance, and an unspeakable air of stupidity in his looks, will never perhaps be able to make any thing of the matter. And it is probably from this very group that Albani, who studied Raphael so closely, drew the following precept of his: "That it behoves a painter to express more circumstances than one by every attitude; and so to employ his figures, that, by barely seeing what they are actually about, one may be able to guess, both what they have been already doing, and are next going to do." This is indeed a difficult precept; but it is only by a due observance of it that the eye and the mind can be made to hang in suspense on a painted piece of canvas. It is expression that a painter, ambitious to soar in his profession, must, above all things, labour to perfect himself in. It is the last goal of his art, as Xanthus, Socrates proves to Parrhasius. It is in expression that Memnon's dumb poetry consists, and what the prince of our poets calls a visible language.

Sect. IX. Of Invention.

As the operations of a general should all ultimately tend to battle and conquest, so should all the thoughts of a painter to perfect invention. Now, the studies which we have been hitherto recommending, will prove so many wings by which he may raise himself, as it were, from the ground, and soar on high, when Invention, when desirous of trying his strength this way, and producing something from his own fund. Invention is the finding out probable things, not only such as are adapted to the subject in hand, but such, besides, as by their futurity and beauty are most capable of exciting suitable sentiments in the spectator, and of making him, when they happen to be well executed, fancy that it is the subject itself in its greatest perfection, and not a mere representation of it, that he has before him. We do not say true things, but probable things; because probability or verisimilitude is, in fact, the truth of those arts which have the fancy for their object. It is, indeed, the business and duty of both naturalists and historians to draw objects as they find them, and represent them with all those imperfections and blemishes, to which, as individuals, they are subject. But an ideal painter, and such alone is a true painter, resembles the poet: instead of copying, he imitates; that is, he works with his fancy, and represents objects endued with all that perfection which belongs to the species, and may be conceived in the archetype.

"'Tis nature all, but nature methodiz'd," says an eminent poet, speaking of poetry: And the same may be said of painting; it is nature methodized, and made perfect. Infomuch, that the circumstances of the action, exalted and sublimed to the highest degree of beauty and holiness they are susceptible of, may, though possible, have never happened exactly such as the painter fancies and thinks proper to represent them. Thus, the piety of Æneas, and the anger of Achilles, are things so perfect in their kind, as to be merely probable. And it is for this reason that poetry, which is only another word for invention, is more philosophical, more instructive, and more entertaining, than history.

Here it is proper to observe, what great advantages the ancient had over the modern painters. The history of the times they lived in, fraught with great and glorious events, was to them a rich mine of the most noble subjects, which, besides, often derived no small splendour and pathos from the mythology upon which their religion was founded. So far were their gods from being immaterial, and placed at an infinite distance above their worshippers; so far was their religion from recommending humility, penance, and self-denial, that, on the contrary, it appeared calculated merely to flatter the senses, inflame the passions, and poison the fancy. By making the gods partake of our nature, and subjecting them to the same passions, it gave man hopes of being able to mix with those who, though greatly above him, resembled him, notwithstanding, in so many respects. Besides, those deities of theirs were in a manner visible, and to be met at every step. The sea was crowded with Tritons and Nereids, the rivers with Naiads, and the mountains with Dryads. The woods swarmed with Fauns and Nymphs, who, in these obscure retreats, fought an asylum for their stolen embraces. The most potent empires, the most noble families, the most celebrated heroes, all derived their pedigree from the greater divinities. Nay, gods interested themselves in all the concerns of mankind. Apollo, the god of long arrows, stood by the side of Hector in the fields of Troy, and inspired him with new strength and courage to batter down the walls and burn the ships of the Greeks. Invention, on the other hand, were led on to the fight and animated by Minerva, preceded by Terror, and followed by Death. Jove nods, his divine locks shake on his immortal head; Olympus trembles. With that countenance, which allays the tempest, and restores serenity to the heavens, he gathers kisses from the mouth of Venus, the delight of gods and of men. Among the ancients, everything sported with the fancy; and in those works which depend entirely on the imagination, some of our greatest masters have thought they could do better than borrow from the Pagans, if we may be allowed to say it, their pictures of Tartarus, in order to render their own drawings of hell more striking.

After all, there have not been wanting able inventors in painting among the moderns. Michael Angelico, notwithstanding the depth and boldness of his own fancy, is not ashamed, in some of his compositions, to Danteze; as Phidias and Apelles may be said formerly to have Homerized. Raphael, too, tutored by the Greeks, has found means, like Virgil, to extract the quintessence of truth; has leavened his works with grace and nobleness, and exalted nature, in a manner, above herself, by giving her an aspect more beautiful, more animating, and more full-time, than she is in reality accustomed to wear. In point of invention, Domenichino and Hannibal Carracci come very near Raphael, especially in the pieces painted by them in Rome; nor does Poussin fall very short of him in some of his pictures, particularly in his Esther before Abimelech, and his Death of Germanicus, the richest jewel belonging to the Barberine family. Of all the painters who have acquired any extraordinary degree of reputation, no one studied less to set off his pieces by bold and beautiful circumstances, or was more a stranger to what is called poetical perfection, than Jacopo Bassano. Among the numberless instances we could produce of his carelessness this way, let it suffice to mention a Preaching of St Paul printed by him in a place, near that of his birth, called Maroflaga. Instead of representing the apostle full of a divine enthusiasm, as Raphael has done, and thundering against the superstitions of the heathen in an assembly of Athenians; instead of exhibiting one of his auditors struck to the quick, another prostrated, a third inflamed; he makes him hold forth, in a village of the Venetian state, to a parcel of poor peasants and their wives, who take not the least notice of him; the women especially, who seem to mind nothing but the country labours in which he had found them employed.

With regard to invention, painting and poetry resemble each other so much in many other respects, besides that of combining in every action all the beauty and elegance it will admit, that they well deserve the name of sister arts. They differ, however, in one point, and that too of no small importance. It is this. The poet, in the representation of his story, relates what has already happened, prepares that which is still to come, and to proceeds, step by step, through all the circumstances of the action; and, to produce the greater effect on his hearers, avails himself of the succession of time and place. The painter, on the contrary, deprived of such helps, must be content to depend. pend upon one single moment. But what a moment! A moment, in which he may conjure up, at once, to the eyes of the spectator, a thousand objects; a moment, teeming with the most beautiful circumstances that can attend the action; a moment, equivalent to the successive labours of the poet. This the works of the greatest masters, which are everywhere to be seen, sufficiently evince; among others, the St Paul at Lystra, by Raphael, whom it is impossible not to praise as often as this picture is mentioned. In order to give the spectator a thorough insight into the subject of this piece, the painter has placed, in the front of it, the cripple already restored to his limbs by the apostle, fired with gratitude towards his benefactor, and exciting his countrymen to yield him all kinds of honour. Round the cripple are some figures lifting up the skirts of his coat, in order to look at the legs reduced to their proper shape, and acknowledging by gestures full of astonishment the reality of the miracle; an invention, says a certain author, a professed admirer of antiquity, which might have been proposed as an example in the happiest age of Greece.

We have another shining instance of the power of painting to introduce a great variety of objects on the scene at the same time, and of the advantage it has in this respect over poetry, in a drawing by the celebrated La Page. This drawing represents the descent of Æneas into hell. The field is the dark caverns of Pluto's kingdom, through the middle of which creeps slowly the muddy and melancholy Acheron. Nearly in the centre of the piece appears Æneas with the golden bough in his hand, and with an air of astonishment at what he sees. The Sybil, who accompanies him, is answering the questions which he asks her. The personage there is the ferryman of the pitchy lake, by which even the gods themselves are afraid to swear. Those who, crowding in to the banks of the river, numberless as the leaves shaken off the trees by autumnal blasts, express, with outstretched hands, an impatience to be ferried to the opposite shore, are the unhappy mariners, who, for want of burial, are unqualified for that happiness. Charon, accordingly, is crying out to them, and with his lifted-up oar driving them from his boat, which has already taken in a number of those who had been honoured with the accustomed funeral rites. Behind Æneas and the Sybil we discover a confused group of wretched souls, lamenting bitterly their misfortune in being deprived a passage; two of them wrapped up in their clothes, end, in a fit of despair, sunk upon a rock. Upon the first lines of the piece stands a third group of uninhumed shades, Leucaspis, Orontes, and, in the midst of them, the good old Palinurus, formerly master and pilot of the hero's own vessel, who with joined hands most carefully desires to be taken along with him into the boat, that, after death, at least, he may find some repose, and his dead body no longer remain the sport of winds and waves. Thus, what we see scattered up and down in many verses by Virgil, is here, as it were, gathered into a focus, and concentrated by the ingenious pencil of the painter, so as to form a subject well worthy of being exposed, in more shapes than one, to the eyes of the public.

When a painter takes a subject in hand, be it historical, be it fabulous, he should carefully peruse the books which treat of it, imprint well on his mind all the circumstances that attend it, the persons concerned in it, and the passions with which they must have been feverishly animated; not omitting the particulars of time and place. His next business is to create it, as it were, anew, observing the rules already laid down for that purpose: From what is true, choosing that which is most striking; and clothing his subject with such accessory circumstances and actions, as may render it more conspicuous, pathetic, and noble, and best display the powers of the inventive faculty. But, in doing this, great discretion is requisite; for, let his imagination grow ever so warm, his hand is never to execute any thing that is not fully approved by his judgment. Nothing low or vulgar should appear in a lofty and noble argument; a fault, of which some of the greatest masters, even Lampieri and Poussin, have been now and then guilty.

The action must be one, the place one, the time one. We need not say anything of those painters, who, like the writers of the Chinese and Spanish theatre, cram a variety of actions together, and so give us, at once, the whole life of a man. Such blunders, it is presumed, are too gross to be feared at present. The politeness and learning of the age seem to demand considerations of a more refined nature; such as, that the episodes introduced in the drama of a picture, the better to fill and adorn it, should be not only beautiful in themselves, but indispensably requisite. The games celebrated at the tomb of Anchises, in Sicily, have a greater variety in them, and more sources of delight, than those that had been before celebrated at the tomb of Patroclus under the walls of Troy. The arms forged by Vulcan for Æneas, if not better tempered, are at least better engraved, than those which the same god had forged several ages before for Achilles. Nevertheless, in the eyes of judges, both the games and the arms of Homer are more pleasing than those of Virgil, because the former are more necessary in the Iliad than the latter in the Æneid. Every part should agree with, and have a relation to, the whole. Unity should reign even in variety; for in this beauty consists. This is a fundamental maxim in all the arts whose object it is to imitate the works of nature.

Pictures often borrow no small grace and beauty from the fictions of poetry. Albani has left us, in several of his works, sufficient proofs of the great share the belles lettres had in refining his taste. But Raphael, above all others, may in this branch too be considered as a guide and matter. To give but one instance out of many; what a beautiful thought was it to represent the river himself, in a Passage of Jordan, supporting his waters with his own hands, in order to open a way to the army of the Israelites! Nor has he displayed less judgment in reviving, in his designs engraved by Agostino of Venice, the little loves of Æsop, the greatest advantage; the first by his picture of Calumny *, the second by that of the Genius of the Nat. Hist. Athenians †. The ancient painter called Galaton gave likewise c. 15. Invention, likewise a fine proof of his genius in this branch, by representing a great number of poets greedily quenching their thirst in the waters gulping from the mouth of the sublime Homer. And to this allegory, according to Guigni, Pliny * has an eye, when he calls that prince of poets the fountain of wits. But it is, after all, no way surprising that we should often meet such fine flights of fancy in the ancient artists. They were not guided in their works by a blind practice: they were men of polite education; conversant with the letters of the age in which they lived; and the companions, rather than the servants, of the great men who employed them. The finest allegorical painter among the moderns was Rubens; and he was accordingly much celebrated for it. The best critics, however, find fault with his uniting in the Luxembourg gallery, the queen-mother, in council, with two cardinals and Mercury. Nor is there less propriety in his making Tritons and Nereids, in another piece of the same gallery, swim to the queen's vessel through the galleys of the knights of St Stephen. Such freedoms are equally disagreeing with the prophecies of Sanmazaro's Proteus, concerning the mystery of the incarnation, or the Indian kings of Camoens, reasoning with the Portuguese on the adventures of Ulysses.

The best modern performances in picturesque allegory are certainly those of Poussin; who availed himself, with great discretion and judgment, of the vast treasures with which, by a close study of the ancients, he had enriched his memory. On the other hand, Le Brun, his countryman, has been very unhappy this way. Ambitious to have every thing his own, instead of allegories, he has filled the gallery of Versailles with enigmas and riddles, of which none but himself was qualified to be the Ædipus. Allegory must be ingenious, it is true; but then it must be equally perspicuous; for which reason, a painter should avoid all vague and indeterminate allusions, and likewise those to history and heathen mythology, which are too abstruse to be understood by the generality of spectators. The best way, perhaps, to symbolize moral and abstract things, is to represent particular events: as See Rolleri's Caracci did, by advice of Monfignore Aguechi, in Life of Car. the Farnesian palace. For example, what can better express a hero's love towards his country, than the virtuous Decius consecrating himself boldly to the infernal gods, in order to secure victory to his countrymen over their enemies? What finer emblems can we devise of emulation, and an insatiable thirst for glory, than Julius Cæsar weeping before the statue of Alexander in the temple of Hercules at Gades? of the inconstancy of fortune, than Marius sitting on the ruins of Carthage, and receiving, instead of the acclamations of an army joyfully saluting him imperator, orders from a lector of Sextilius to quit Africa? of indiscernition, than Candaules, who, by showing the naked beauties of his wife to his friend Giges, kindled a passion that soon made him repent his folly? Such representations as these require no comment; they carry their explanation along with them. Besides, supposing, and it is the worst we can suppose, that the painter's aim in them should happen not to be understood, his piece would still give delight. It is thus that the fables of Ariosto prove so entertaining, even to those who understand nothing of the moral couched under them; and likewise the Æneas, though Dispersion all do not comprehend the allusions and double intent of the poet.

Sect. X. Of Disposition.

So much for invention. Disposition, which may be considered as a branch of invention, consists in the proper stationing of what the inventive faculty has imagined, so as to express the subject in the most lively manner. The chief merit of disposition may be said to consist in that disorder, which, wearing the appearance of mere chance, is in fact the most studied effect of art. A painter, therefore, is equally to avoid the dryness of those ancients who always planted their figures like so many couples in a procession, and the affectation of those moderns who jumble them together as if they were met merely to fight and squabble. In this branch Raphael was happy enough to choose the just medium, and attain perfection. The disposition of his figures is always exactly such as the subject requires. In the Battle of Constantine, they are confusedly clustered with as much art, as they are regularly marshalled in Christ's commitment of the keys to St Peter and constituting him prince of the apostles.

Let the inferior figures of a piece be placed as they will, the principal figure should strike the eye most, and stand out, as it were, from among the rest. This may be effected various ways, as by placing it on the foremost lines, or in some other conspicuous part of the piece; by exhibiting it, in a manner, by itself; by making the principal light fall upon it; by giving it the most resplendent drapery: or, indeed, by several of these methods, nay, by all of them together. For, being the hero of the picturesque fable, it is but just that it should draw the eye to itself, and lord it, as it were, over all the other objects.

According to Leon Battista Alberti, painters should follow the example of comic writers, who compose their fable of as few persons as possible. For, in fact, a crowded picture is apt to give as much pain to the spectator, as a crowded road to the traveller.

Some subjects, it must be granted, require a number, nay, a nation, as it were, of figures. On these occasions, it depends entirely on the skill of the painter to dispose of them in such a manner, that the principal ones may always make the principal appearance; and contrive matters so, that the piece be not overcrowded, or want convenient rests and pauses. He must, in a word, take care that his piece be full, but not charged. In this respect, the Battles of Alexander by Le Brun are master-pieces which can never be sufficiently studied; whereas nothing, on the other hand, can be more unhappy than the famous Paradiso of Tintoret, which covers one entire side of the great council-chamber at Venice. It appears no better than a confused heap of figures, a swarm, a cloud, a chaos, which pains and fatigues the eye. What a pity it is that he did not dispose this subject after a model of his own, now in the gallery of Bevilacqua at Verona! In this last, the several choirs of martyrs, virgins, bishops, and other saints, are judiciously thrown into so many clusters, parted here and there by a fine fleece of clouds; so as to exhibit the innumerable host of hea-

ven drawn up in a way that makes a most agreeable and glorious appearance. There goes a story, to our purpose, of a celebrated matter, who in a drawing of the Universal Deluge, the better to express the immensity of the waters that covered the earth, left a corner of his paper without figures. Being asked, if he did not intend to fill it up: No, said he; do not you see that my leaving it empty is what precisely constitutes the picture?

The reason for breaking a composition into several groups is, that the eye, passing freely from one object to another, may the better comprehend the whole. But the painter is not to stop here; for these groups are, besides, to be so artfully put together, as to form rich clusters, give the whole composition a singular air of grandeur, and afford the spectator an opportunity of discerning the piece at a distance, and taking the whole in, as it were, at a single glance. These effects are greatly promoted by a due regard to the nature of colours, so as not to place together those which are apt to pain by their opposition, or distract by their variety. They should be so judiciously disposed as to temper and qualify each other.

A proper use of the chiaro-oscuro is likewise of great service on this occasion. The groups are easily parted, and the whole picture acquires a grand effect, by introducing some strong falls of shade, and, above all, one principal beam of light. This method has been followed with great success by Rembrandt in a famous picture of his, representing the Virgin at the foot of the cross on mount Calvary; the principal light darting upon her through a break of the clouds, while the rest of the figures about her stand more or less in the shade. Tintoret, too, acquired great reputation, as well by that bricklews with which he enlivened his figures, as by his masterly manner of shading them; and Polidoro de Caravaggio, though he scarce painted any thing but bas-reliefs, was particularly famous for introducing with great skill the effects of the chiaro-oscuro, a thing first attempted by Mantegna in his Triumph of Julius Caesar. It is by this means that his compositions appear so strikingly divided into different groups, and, among their other perfections, afford so much delight through the beautiful disposition that reigns in them.

In like manner, a painter, by the help of perspective, especially that called aerial, the opposition of local colours, and other contrivances which he may expect to hit upon by studying nature, and those who have best studied her before him, will be able not only to part his groups, but make them appear at different distances, so as to leave sufficient passages between them.

But the greatest caution is to be used in the pursuit of the methods here laid down; especially in the management of the chiaro-oscuro, that the effects attributed to light and shade, and to their various concomitants, may not run counter to truth and experience. This is a capital point. For this purpose, a painter would do well to make, in little figures, as Tintoret and Poussin used to do, a model of the subject that he intends to represent, and then illuminate it by lamp or candle-light. By this means he may come to know with certainty, if the chiaro-oscuro, which he has formed in his mind, does not clash with the reason of things.

By varying the height and direction of his light, he may easily discover such accidental effects as are most likely to recommend his performance, and so establish a proper system for the illuminating it. Nor will he afterwards find it a difficult matter to modify the quality of his shades, by softening or strengthening them, according to the situation of his scene, and the quality of the light falling upon it. If it should happen to be a candle or lamp-light scene, he would then have nothing to do but consider his model well, and faithfully copy it.

In the next place, to turn a group elegantly, the best pattern is that of a bunch of grapes adopted by Titian. As, of the many grains that compose a bunch of grapes, some are struck directly by the light, and those opposite to them are in the shade, whilst the intermediate ones partake of both light and shade in a greater or less degree; so, according to Titian, the figures of a group should be so disposed, that, by the union of the chiaro-oscuro, several things may appear as it were but one thing. And in fact it is only from his having pursued this method, that we can account for the very grand effect of his pieces this way, in which it is impossible to study him too much.

The mannerists, who do not follow nature in the track of the matters just mentioned, are apt to commit many faults. The reason of their figures casting their shades in this or that manner seldom appears in the picture, or at least does not appear sufficiently probable. They are, besides, wont to trespass all bounds in splashing their pieces with light, that is, in enlivening those parts which we usually term the deafs of a picture. This method, no doubt, has sometimes a very fine effect; but it is, however, to be used with no small discretion, as otherwise the whole loses that union, that pause, that majestic silence, as Carracci used to call it, which affords so much pleasure. The Hagarth's analysis of Beauty.

Guido Reni, who has imparted to his paintings that gaiety and splendor in which he lived, seems enamoured with a bright and open light; whereas Michael Angelo da Caravaggio, who was of a full and savage disposition, appears fond of a gloomy and clouded sky: so that neither of them were qualified to handle indifferently all objects. The chiaro-oscuro may likewise prove of great service to a painter in giving his composition a grand effect; but, nevertheless, the light he chooses must be adapted to the situation of the scene where the action is laid: nor would he be less faulty, who in a grotto or cavern, where the light entered by a chink, should make his shades soft and tender, than he who should represent them strong and bold in an open sky-light.

But this is by no means the only fault which mannerists are apt to be guilty of in historical pieces, and particularly in the disposition of their figures. To say nothing of their favourite group of a woman lying on the ground with one child at her breast, and another playing about her, and the like, which they generally place on the first lines of their pieces; nor of those half-figures in the back ground peeping out from the hollows contrived for them: they make a common practice Part I.

Disposition. Tice of mixing naked with clothed figures; old men with young; placing one figure with its face towards you, and another with its back; they contrast violent motions with languid attitudes, and seem to aim at opposition in every thing; whereas oppositions never please, but when they arise naturally from the subject, like antitheses in a discourse.

As to foreshortened figures, too much affectation in using or avoiding them is equally blamable. The attitudes had better be composed than otherwise. It very seldom happens that there is any occasion for making them so impetuous as to be in danger of losing their equilibrium; a thing too much practised by some painters.

In regard to drapery, equal care should be taken to avoid that poverty, which makes some masters look as if, through mere penury, they grudged clothes to their figures; and that profusion which Albani imputed to Guido, saying, that he was rather a tailor than a painter. The ornaments of dress should be used with great sobriety; and it will not be amiss to remember what was once said to an ancient painter: "I pity you greatly; unable to make Helen handsome, you have taken care to make her fine."

Let the whole, in a word, and all the different parts of the disposition, possess probability, grace, costume, and the particular character of what is to be represented. Let nothing look like uniformity of manner; which does not appear less in the composition than it does in colouring, drapery, and design; and is, as it were, that kind of accent, by which painters may be as readily distinguished as foreigners are, by pronouncing in the same manner all the different languages they happen to be acquainted with.

Sect. XI. Of Illusion.

Among painters, and the writers on painting, there is one maxim universally admitted and continually inculcated; it is, that nature ought to be imitated, and objects are said to be represented naturally, when they have such relief that they may seem real. If we inquire to what degree painting may carry this illusion, we shall find that it deceives the eye, and obliges the spectator to employ the touch in mouldings and in basso-relievo where they are a little projected; but that it is weakened and the effect partly destroyed where the projection is one or two feet. It is possible also to make it in the highest degree complete in pictures of flowers, fruits, and other representations of still life, provided they be seen in a certain point of view, and at a considerable distance; but there is no example of a picture containing a number of figures, and placed in a proper light, being mistaken for real life. We are told, indeed, of a bust of an abbe painted by Charles Coypel, which, placed in a certain direction behind a table, and in a certain light, deceived several persons so completely as to induce them to salute it; but, without admitting anything very extraordinary in the projection or illusion of this painting, it is evident, from the circumstances attending the relation, that the deception arose from surprise and inattention, which might happen to a production of an inferior artist. And hence we may conclude, that it is vain to pretend to perfect the illusion, especially in pictures consisting of a number of figures, and with considerable distances imposed between them.

Among the obstacles which are opposed to the perfection of this branch of the art, we shall chiefly attend to those which naturally proceed from our habits of thinking and judging on all occasions. These, together with the experience we daily have of light on all kinds of surfaces, and of all colours, are sufficient to demonstrate the want of reality in the mere representation of any scenes.

It has been elsewhere shown, that distance, figure, and magnitude, are not naturally objects of perception by the sense of sight; that we judge of these things by the eye only, in consequence of associations early formed between the perceptions of touch and the corresponding impressions on the retina and optic nerve by the rays of light; and that a painter makes his picture resemble the original, merely by laying his colours on a plain surface in such a manner, as that they reflect the same rays of light with the convex or concave original, when the spectator stands at the proper distance (see Metaphysics, no. 49, 50, 51, 52, and 95). But if this be admitted, illusion in painting can never be made perfect, on account of the inevitable futility of the shades which mark the most distant parts of the picture. The painter can only imitate those shades by obscure colours, laid on a plane surface, and susceptible of reflecting the light with a degree of force relative to the real distance. Now our eyes give us the true plane of this surface, opposed to the idea of deepening which the painter wishes to produce, a contrariety which prevents the deception. On this account, the faults found in the works of the greatest masters, with regard to the effects produced by the whole, most frequently relate to their manner of shading, which is sufficient to prove, that the want of illusion in painting depends chiefly on the imperfection of the shades.

This defect, though it cannot be wholly avoided, may yet be rendered less perceptible. There has yet, indeed, been no painter able to imitate shadow, nor is it probable that any one will ever perfectly accomplish this task. Shadow in nature is not a body, but the privation of light, which destroys colours in a greater or less degree, in proportion as it is more or less complete. Now the painter can only imitate this privation and real darknels, by colours which must from their very nature be capable of reflecting light.—The colours may be more or less obscure, but they preserve always something which gives a mixture of reflection. To carry the imitation of shadow to the highest degree of perfection, it would be necessary to apply a colour capable of darkening all others, more or less as there should be occasion, and which might have no visible trace of its existence, that is, no one part of it which reflected one coloured ray more strongly than another. Perhaps this kind of negative colour might be found in practice to be of service to the art; but it would not render the surface totally invisible, for it would be necessary, farther, that it should have the property of not reflecting a single ray of light when exposed to it; which is altogether impossible, as there is no colour or body in nature without reflection in such a situation.

We shall be further convinced of the impossibility of painting shadow, if we attend to the pictures of the greatest masters, with regard to the imitation of truth. Every part, when taken by itself, connected with light, or with demi-tints, presents a perfect imitation. Even the different degrees of light or the objects are sufficiently exact; but notwithstanding this assemblage of circumstances corresponding with truth, and of which the result should be perfect illusion, yet in considering the whole, we are never to completely deceived, as to take a picture for a reality; from which we may conclude, that the want of illusion proceeds almost entirely from the imperfection of shading.

Illusion then, in the strictest sense, cannot exist in painting; but there is another kind of illusion, perhaps improperly so called, which is one of the principal parts of the art, and worthy of the greatest attention: It is, that the picture shall resemble truth to such a degree by the justness of its forms, by the combination of colours, and by all its general effects, that the image shall give all the pleasure to be expected from the imitation of truth. This is not illusion in the proper sense of the word, since it exists as well in pictures on a small scale as in those of equal dimensions with the original; but it is that truth of imitation of which painting is susceptible, even in pictures containing any number of figures at any reasonable distance from each other.

But it remains to be considered whether this imitation of truth, taken by itself, be the highest attainable perfection in painting. It is generally granted, that the greatest beauty is that which not only pleases at first view, but on the nearest and most critical examination. But if illusion, such as we have described it, were the sole merit of the art, it would follow, that the person who was least acquainted with its beauties would experience the same pleasure as he who had studied them most. Farther, in examining the works of the greatest masters, it is easy to perceive, that it is not their illusion which has excited the attention and admiration of the critic. Even the works of the divine Raphael do not deceive the eye in any point of view more completely than those of an ordinary painter. Raphael, pure in his character and design, is, without doubt, very deficient in this part of the art. Meanwhile the grandeur of his ideas in composition, and the choice of his forms; the beauty of his heads, wherein one does not admire simply the imitation of any known truth; his ingenious and noble manner in drapery, which yet does not resemble any known stuff, or the garb of any nation; in short, all his beauties are superior to the simple imitation of truth, and contradict the sentiment of the greatest pleasure arising from illusion.

If we pass to those who have pursued colouring with the greatest success, we shall find them, doubtless, approach nearer to illusion than those who have neglected it; and it is also a fact, that their works have been more universally admired.

At the same time it is not the illusion occasioned by colours which has altogether excited this admiration. The exquisite demi-tints and the freshness of Correggio and Titian, which excel the ordinary beauties of nature, and even imitate her most perfect productions, may perhaps not be considered as destroying illusion; but it is no less a fact, that weaker and less precious colouring would carry it to greater perfection. Besides, this large, easy, and exquisite manner of painting, this harmony, of which they have given us the best examples, are owing to qualities in them much more excellent than what would be sufficient to produce the simple imitation of truth. Guido, Corotona, and some others, appear to approach nearer to illusion. But even those masters prove by their works, that the most estimable beauties in painting do not all tend to this branch of the art; for notwithstanding the high character which they have gained, they are much inferior to Raphael, Correggio, and Titian, although the first failed in colouring and in the knowledge of the chiaroscuro, the second in point of correctness, and the third in the choice of noble subjects.

From this we may conclude, that the nearest resemblance to truth is not the sole object in painting; that it acquires a superior degree of elevation by the art of adding beauty and perfection to the most exact resemblance; and that it is this art which distinguishes and characterizes extraordinary men.

If we run over the great branches of painting, we shall find a number of essential beauties different from those which are capable of carrying illusion to the greatest possible height. In composition, we principally admire the extent of genius, the choice of picturesque and graceful attitudes, the ingenious combination of groups, whether in uniting the light and shade in order to obtain the greatest effect, or in disposing a whole in such a manner as to make no part superfluous; and finally, that kind of practical talent by which the mind takes possession of nature, and forces it to produce all the beauties of which the art is susceptible. In this enumeration of particulars it is easy to perceive that the beauties of composition are very distant from those of illusion.

To obtain illusion in design, there is no occasion for correctness nor taste beyond what is perceived in nature by the most ignorant spectator. And with regard to colouring, that is not always most admired which is most natural. What departs widely from truth, indeed, is not of consequence beautiful, but many qualities are required besides the simple imitation of truth. Freshness, ease, and transparency in certain tones, are deemed absolutely requisite; and the most esteemed colourists have carried their beauties in all these respects beyond what they have seen in nature. If some tones in the fleshly parts have approached towards vermilion, to a light-blue, or a silver-grey, they have made them more apparent; not only to point them out to the spectator, but to show their knowledge in the discovery and their art in painting them. This would have been going beyond the limits of perfection, if these had confined in simple illusion.

The opposition of colour, of light, and of shade, would have been in this case also superfluous; for nature is always true, without any pointed attempt to make her more engaging. The supposition of certain lights, which truth would require, and which art extinguishes, in order to augment the harmony of effect, would be also worthy of censure, whatever pleasure would result from it.

Finally, Finally, one of the greatest beauties of the art, namely the peculiar manner of a great master, has no relation to illusion. This is not even founded in nature, but depends on the genius or singularity of the artist. It is this manner which distinguishes the original of a great master from the most exact copy; and which characterizes the talents of the artist so well, that the smallest part of the picture, and even the least interesting, is sufficient to discover the painter. The distinction between the beautiful and illusive in painting has made Sir Joshua Reynolds, in express terms, recommend a perfection superior to the imitation of nature. "The principle now laid down (says he), that the perfection of the art does not consist in mere imitation, is far from being new or singular. It is, indeed, supported by the general opinion of the enlightened part of mankind. The poets, orators, and rhetoricians of antiquity, are continually enforcing this position, that all the arts receive their perfection from an ideal beauty, superior to what is to be found in individual nature. They are ever referring to the practice of the painters and sculptors of their times, particularly Phidias the favourite artist of antiquity, to illustrate their assertions. As if they could not sufficiently express their admiration of his genius by what they knew, they have recourse to poetical enthusiasm. They call it inspiration; a gift from heaven. The artist is supposed to have ascended the celestial regions to furnish his mind with this perfect idea of beauty. 'He (says Proclus) who takes for his model such forms as nature produces, and confines himself to an exact imitation of them, will never attain to what is perfectly beautiful. For the works of nature are full of disproportion, and fall short of the true standard of beauty. So that Phidias, when he formed his Jupiter, did not copy any object ever presented to his sight; but contemplated only that image which he had conceived in his mind from Homer's description.'

"It is not easy to define in what this great style consists, nor to describe by words the proper means of acquiring it, if the mind of the student should be at all capable of such an acquisition. Could we teach taste or genius by rules, they would be no longer taste and genius. But though there neither are nor can be any precise invariable rules for the exercise or the acquisition of these great qualities; yet we may truly say that they always operate in proportion to our attention in observing the works of nature, to our skill in selecting, and to our care in digesting, methodizing, and comparing our observations. There are many beauties in our art that seem at first to lie without the reach of precept, and yet may easily be reduced to practical principles. Experience is all in all; but it is not every one that profits by experience: and most people err not so much from want of capacity to find their object, as from not knowing what object to pursue. This great ideal perfection and beauty are not to be sought in the heavens, but upon the earth. They are about us, and upon every side of us: But the power of discovering what is deformed in nature, or, in other words, what is particular or uncommon, can be acquired only by experience; and the whole beauty and grandeur of the art consists in being able to get above all singular forms, local customs, particularities, and details of every kind."

After these opinions, however, derived from the practice of the art, and this high authority, it may not be improper to hazard a few observations. Although illusion can be distinguished from many of the most excellent parts of the art taken separately, yet it does not follow that it shall not add in every picture to the beauty of the whole. It is impossible to state it in opposition to design, to composition, to colouring, or to the peculiar manner of a great artist; because all these may exist where there also exists the most perfect illusion. This is evident from the works of art; which have real reliefs, and which at the same time are capable of perfection in all those branches, and of showing the peculiar manner of the artist. Again, it appears evident, that illusion, properly so called, should be a proper object of attention in painting. We may rate the ideal beauty very high, and with great justice; but it still consists in overcoming the defects in individual objects in nature, and not in departing from the truth of representation. And perhaps it may be alleged, that the impossibility of giving perfect illusion on a plain surface has pushed the greatest masters too far, and made them crowd artificial beauties into their pictures to conceal their want of power to give real ones. It is not improbable, that on this very account the art is less perfect than otherwise it might have been: For in all subjects thought to be impossible, there is not only great room for exertion, but the person carries the art to greater perfection as he comes nearer to show that it may not be impossible. And if the works of Raphael, in point of illusion, are not superior to an ordinary artist, we may be permitted to say that there is great room for improvement in this branch.

Sect. XII. Of the Costume.

The costume in painting corresponds with the unities of time, place, and action, in tragedy and in epic poetry. It is chiefly confined to history-painting; and regards the customs of different periods, the manners, the dress, and the colour, of different nations. Great exactness in the costume is scarcely practicable; but too sensible a departure from it denotes unpardonable negligence. It frequently happens that a piece composed of picturesque figures derives considerable advantage from certain liberties which are calculated to please both the artist and the spectator; for the judges of painting are not habitually occupied with the details of ancient and modern history, or profoundly versed in all the circumstances which make a departure from the costume conspicuous. On the other hand, if they were so ignorant as not to understand, or so indifferent as not to regard those circumstances, this branch of the art would be altogether arbitrary. The road of the painter is between these two extremes, not to despise beauty on the one hand, nor probability on the other. But in pursuing this part of the art, it is in vain to seek for perfect models in ancient or modern painting.

"When Raphael in his cartoons introduces monks and Swiss guards; when he puts into a boat more figures iii. p. 564, &c." gures than it is evident the boat could actually contain; when in the chastisement of Heliodorus, who attempted to despoil the temple of Jerusalem, Pope Julius II. is depicted as being present; when, in the donation of Constantine in the Vatican, a naked boy is placed conspicuous in the fore-ground, astride upon a dog in the immediate presence of the pope and the emperor; when Venetian senators are introduced while Pope Alexander excommunicates Barbarossa; when Aristotle, Plato, Dante, and Petrarch, are brought together in the school of Athens, to omit the lesser improprieties of those less apostles, &c.—every person must acknowledge that such offences as these against truths so obvious, if they do not arise from a defect of understanding, are instances of inexcusable carelessness.

"In like manner, when the same great master paints the dreams of Joseph and his fellow-prisoners in circles over their heads; when similar contrivances to express future events are used by Albani, Pameggiiano, and Fuseli—is it not evident that no possibility can make the fiction true; and that real and feigned existences are unnaturally introduced in one narration?

"When Polydore chooses to represent the death of Cato, and exposes to the spectator the hero of the piece with his bowels gushing out; when Paul Veronese, at a banquet painted with his usual magnificence, places before us a dog gnawing a bone, and a boy making water; however such disgusting circumstances may be forgiven in the chef-d'œuvre of a Michael Angelo, had he represented these instead of the horrible figures of his Day of Judgment, the performance of an inferior artist cannot atone for them.

"So also when one of the first rate among the modern painters, we mean Paul Veronese, introduces Benedictine monks at the marriage of Cana; when, in a picture of the crucifixion, he puts the Roman soldiers in the jerkins of the 16th century, and adorns their heads with turbans; when Guido, in a painting of Jesus appearing to his mother after his resurrection, places St Charles Borromeo in a kind of desk in the back-ground as witness to the interview; when Titoret, at the miraculous fall of manna, arms the Israelites with fulsils; and Correggio appoints St Jerome as the instructor of the child Jesus—common sense revolts at the impropriety; and we are compelled to exclaim, Quicquid offendas mihi sic, incredulus odi!

"The mythological tale of the learned Poussin is well known; but Rubens seems to claim the merit of having presented to the world a still greater number of supreme absurdities in this learned style: nor is it easy to conceive a more heterogeneous mixture of circumstances, real and imaginary, sacred and profane, than the Luxembourg gallery, and the other works of that great master, perpetually exhibit.

"When so great an authority as Sir Joshua Reynolds* contends for the rejection of common sense in favour of somewhat he terms a higher sense; when he laments, indirectly, that art is not in such high estimation with us, as to induce the generals, lawgivers, and kings of modern times, to suffer themselves to be represented naked, as in the days of ancient Greece; when he defends even the ridiculous aberrations from possibility, which the extravagant pencil of Rubens has so plentifully produced—it is not surprising that the artists of the present day should be led to reject the company of common sense; or that Sir Joshua's performances should furnish examples of his own precepts.

"Mrs Siddons is represented by Sir Joshua in the character (as it is said) of the tragic muse: She is placed in an old-fashioned arm chair; this arm-chair is supported by clouds, suspended in the air; on each side of her head is a figure not unapt to suggest the idea of the attendant imps of an enchantress: of these figures, one is supposed to represent Comedy, and the other Tragedy; Mrs Siddons herself is decently attired in the fashionable habiliments of 20 or 30 years ago.

"If this be a picture of the tragic muse, she ought not to appear in a modern dress, nor ought she to be seated in an old arm chair. If this be a portraiture of Mrs Siddons, she has no buffets in the clouds, nor has she any thing to do with aerial attendants. If this be Mrs Siddons in the character of the tragic muse, the first set of objections apply; for she is placed in a situation where Mrs Siddons could never be.

"In the death of Dido, Sir Joshua Reynolds introduces her sister, lamenting over the corpse of the unfortunate queen. This is possible; but he has also introduced Atropos cutting Dido's hair with a pair of scissors, a being equally real and apparent in the painting with Dido or her sister. This (continues our author) appears to me a gross offence against mythological probability; nor is it the only offence against the costume with which that picture is chargeable.

"There is one other breach of the costume, however common among painters, more gross and offensive than any of the instances hitherto alleged; we mean the perpetual and unnecessary display of the naked figure. We shall not stay to enquire whether more skill can be shown in painting the human body clothed or unclothed. If the personages introduced in any picture are more naked in the representation than can be justified by the probability of the times, persons, places, or circumstances, it is a breach of the costume proportionate to the deviation. This fault, however, is so common, as hardly to be noticed; so slight indeed, when compared with that general taste for voluptuous imagery and obscene representation, which has so long disgraced the art of painting in every stage of its progress, that science and morality are callous to the slightest offence.

"This depravity of imagination, this prostitution of the pencil to the base purposes of lascivious inclination, was a subject of much complaint among the ancients. Nor is there less reason to complain in modern times, that this delightful art, which might be employed in exciting the noblest sentiments, and become subservient to the best interests of society, should so often be exercised upon subjects solely calculated to please the eye of the voluptuary and debauchee. It is hardly possible to pass through any admired collection without meeting with some of these; of which, however excellent the performance may be, the common feelings of decency and morality (if we are neither professed artists nor connoisseurs) prevent us from viewing them without a mixture of disgust."

Et pudor averlos tequit velamine vulvis*. It is impossible to express how much a picture suffers by such looseness of fancy, and links as a bastard of the art in the esteem of good judges. Some people, indeed, are of opinion, that so scrupulous an observance of the costume is apt to hurt pictures, by depriving them of a certain air of truth arising, they think, from those features and habits to which we are accustomed; and which are therefore apt to make a greater impression, than can be expected from things drawn from the remote sources of antiquity; adding withal, that a certain degree of licence has ever been allowed those artists who in their works must make fancy their chief guide. See, say they, the Greeks; that is, the masters of Raphael and Poussin themselves. Do they ever trouble their heads about such niceties? The Rhodian statuaries, for example, have not scrupled to represent Laocoon naked; that is, the priest of Apollo naked in the very act of sacrificing to the gods, and that too in presence of a whole people, of the virgins and matrons of Ilium. Now, continue they, if it was allowable in the ancient statuaries to neglect probability and decency to such a degree, to have a better opportunity of displaying their skill in the anatomy of the human body; why may it not be allowable in modern painters, the better to attain the end of their art, which is deception, to depart now and then a little from the ancient manners and the too rigorous laws of the costume? But these reasons, we beg leave to observe, are more absurd than they are ingenious. What! are we to draw conclusions from an example, which, far from deciding the dispute, gives occasion to another? The learned are of opinion, that those Rhodian masters would have done much better had they looked out for a subject in which, without offending so much against truth, and even probability, they might have had an equal opportunity of displaying their knowledge of the naked. And certainly no authority or example whatever should tempt us to do anything contrary to what both decency and the reason of things require, unless we intend, like Carpioni, to represent

*Sogni d'infirmi, e fole di romanzo.*

The dreams of sick men, and the tales of fools.

No; a painter, the better to attain the end of his art, which is deception, ought carefully to avoid mixing the antique with the modern, the domestic with the foreign; things, in short, repugnant to each other, and therefore incapable of gaining credit. A spectator will never be brought to consider himself as actually present at the scene, the representation of which he has before him, unless the circumstances which enter it perfectly agree among themselves, and the field of action, if we may use the expression, in no shape belies the action itself. For instance, the circumstances, or, if you please, the accessories, in a *Finding of Moses*, are not, surely, to represent the borders of a canal planted with rows of poppies, and covered with country-houses in the European taste; but the banks of a great river shaded with clusters of palm-trees, with a Sphinx or an Anubis in the adjacent fields, and here and there Books for a Painter in the back-ground a towering pyramid. And indeed the painter, before he takes either canvas or paper in hand, should on the wings of fancy transport himself to Egypt, to Thebes, or to Rome; and summoning to his imagination the physiognomy, the dress, the plants, the buildings, suitable to his subject, with the particular spot where he has chosen to lay his scene, to manage his pencil, as, by the magic of it, to make the enraptured spectators fancy themselves there along with him.

**Sect. XIII. Of proper Books for a Painter.**

From what has been already said, it may be easily gathered, that a painter should be neither illiterate nor unprovided with books. Many are apt to imagine, that the Iconologia of Ripa, or some such collection, is alone sufficient for this purpose; and that all the apparatus he stands in need of, may be reduced to a few calls of the remains of antiquity, or rather to what Rembrandt used to call his *antiques*, being nothing more than coats of mail, turbans, sherds of stuff, and all manner of old household trumpery and wearing apparel. Such things, no doubt, are necessary to a painter, and perhaps enough for one who wants only to paint half-lengths, or is willing to confine himself to a few low subjects. But they are by no means sufficient for him who would soar higher; for a painter who would attempt the Universe, and represent it in all its parts, such as it would appear, had not matter proved refractory to the intentions of the sovereign Artift. Such a painter alone is a true, an universal, a perfect painter.—No mortal, indeed, must ever expect to rise to that sublimity; yet all should aspire to it, on the pain of otherwise ever continuing at a very mortifying distance from it: as the orator, who wishes to make a figure in his profession, should propose to himself no less a pattern than that perfect orator described by Tully; nor the courtier, than that perfect courtier delineated by Catiglione. It cannot, therefore, appear surprising, if we insist on the propriety of reckoning a good collection of books as part of such a painter's implements. The Bible, the Greek and Roman historians, the works of Homer that prince of poets, and of Virgil, are the most classical. To these let him add the Metamorphoses of Ovid, some of our best poets, the voyage of Pausanias, Vinci, Vafari, and others, upon painting.

It will also be of considerable advantage to him to have a well-chosen collection of drawings by the best masters (p), in order to trace the progress and history of his art, and make himself acquainted with the various styles of painting which have been, and now are, in the greatest vogue. The prince of the Roman school was not ashamed to hang up in his study the drawings of Albert Durer; and spared no pains or expense to acquire

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(b) We have formerly (see Anatomy, p. 672, column 2.) mentioned a great anatomical work carrying on by Andrew Bell, Esq.; in Edinburgh, of the figures of which, as they are engraved under the inspection of so able an anatomist as Mr Fyfe, and with the approbation of Dr Monro, we may at least form a favourable opinion; and if well executed, of which there can be but little doubt, they will unquestionably be of essential service to the painter. acquire all the drawings he could meet with that were taken from basso relievos; things which the art of engraving has since rendered so common as to be in every one's hands. This art of multiplying drawings by means of the graver is of the same date, and boasts the same advantages, with the art of printing, by means of which the works of the mind are multiplied, as it were, at one stroke, and dispersed over the whole world.

The sight of fine subjects treated by able masters, and the different forms which the same subjects assume in different hands, cannot fail both of enlightening and enflaming the mind of the young painter. The same may be said of the perusal of good poets and historians, with the particulars and proofs of what they advance; not to mention those ideas and flights of invention, with which the former are wont to clothe, beautify, and exalt every thing they take in hand. Bouchardon, after reading Homer, conceived, to use his own words, that men were three times taller than before, and that the world was enlarged in every respect. It is very probable, that the beautiful thought of covering Agamemnon's face with the skirt of his mantle at the sacrifice of Iphigenia, was suggested to Timantes by the tragedy of Euripides. And the sublime conceit of Raphael, who, in a Creation of his, represents God in the immense space, with one hand reaching to the sun and the other to the moon, may be considered as the child of the following words of the Psalmist:

*The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament sheweth his handy-work.*

This thought of Raphael has been, indeed, censured by Mr Webb. "A God (says this gentleman), extending one hand to the sun, and another to the moon, destroys that idea of imminency which should accompany the work of creation, by reducing it to a world of a few inches." But the opinion of Count Algarotti is very different. "For my part (says that elegant critic), I cannot discover in this painting a world of a few inches, but a world on a much greater scale; a world of millions and millions of miles: and yet this so immense a world, by means of that act of the Godhead, in which with one hand he reaches to the sun, and with the other to the moon, shrinks, in my imagination, to a mere nothing, in respect to the imminency of God himself; which is all that the powers of painting can pretend to. This invention is, though in a contrary scale, of the same kind with that of Timantes, who, to express the enormous size of a sleeping Polyphemus, placed round him some satires measuring the monster's thumb with a thyrsus. Hence Pliny, who relates the fact, takes occasion to tell us, that his works always imply more than they express; and that how great soever he may be in execution, he is still greater in invention: *Atque in omnibus ejus operibus intelligitur plus semper quam pingitur; et cum ars summa sit, ingenium tamen ultra artem est.*" Nat. Hist. lib. xxxv. c. 10.

The perusal of good authors cannot but be very serviceable to a painter in another respect; as, among the great number of subjects afforded by history and poetry, he may expect to meet with many on which his talents may display themselves to the greatest advantage. A painter can never be too nice in the choice of his arguments; for on the beauty of them, that of his piece will greatly depend. How much to be pitied, therefore, were our first masters, in being so often obliged to receive their subjects from the hands of simple and illiterate persons! and what is worse, to spend all the riches of their art upon barren or unworthy subjects! Such are the representations of those saints, who, though they never had the least intercourse with each other, and perhaps even lived in different ages, are, notwithstanding, to be introduced, *etc.* etc., as it were, in the same picture. The mechanic of the art may, indeed, display itself on these occasions; but by no means the ideal. The disposition may be good and praiseworthy, as in the works of Cortoni and Lanfranc; but we are not to expect in them either invention or expression, which require for their basis the representation of some fact capable of producing such effects. Who does not, on the bare mention of this abuse, immediately recollect many sad instances of it? Such as the famous St Cecilia of Raphael, surrounded by St Paul, St Mary Magdalen, St John, and St Augustin; and the picture of Paolo Veronese, in the vestry of the Nuns of St Zachary at Venice, in which St Francis of Assizium, St Catharine, and St Jerome richly habited in his cardinal's robes, form a ring round the Virgin seated on a throne with the child Jesus in her arms; perhaps the most beautiful and picturesque of all the insipid and insignificant pieces with which Italy abounds. It is very shocking to think, that young painters should be obliged to study their art from such wretched compositions.

The subjects in which the pencil triumphs most, and with which a judicious painter may stock himself by the perusal of good books, are, no doubt, those which are most universally known, which afford the largest field for a display of the passions, and contain the greatest variety of incidents, all concurring, in the same point of time, to form one principal action. Of this the story of Coriolanus besieging Rome, as related by Livy, is a shining example. Nothing can be imagined more beautiful than the scene of action itself, which ought to take in the praetorium in the camp of the Volscians, the Tiber behind it, and the seven hills, among which the towering Capitol is, as it were, to lord it over the rest. It is impossible to conceive a greater variety, than what must appear in that crowd of soldiers, women, and children, all which are to enter the composition; unless, perhaps, it be that of the different passions with which they are severally agitated; some wishing that Coriolanus may raise the siege, others fearing it, others again suspecting it. But the principal group forms the picturesque part of the piece. Coriolanus, hastily descending from his tribunal, and hurried on by filial affection, to embrace his mother, stops short through shame, on her crying out to him, Hold! let me first know, if it is a son, or an enemy, I am going to embrace? Thus a painter may imitate this part novelty to the most hackneyed subject, by taking for his guides those authors who possess the happy talent of adding grace and dignity, by their beautiful and sublime descriptions, even to the most common and trifling transactions. Sect. XIV. Of the Painter's Balance.

The celebrated De Piles, who by his writings has thrown so much light upon painting, in order to assist young painters in forming a right judgment of those masters who hold the first rank in the profession, and to reduce such judgment to the greater precision, be-thought himself of a pictorical balance, by means of which a painter's merit may be weighed with the greatest exactness. This merit he divides into Composition, Design, Colouring, and Expression; and in each of these branches he has assigned to every painter that share to which he thought him intitled, according as he approached more or less the highest degree of excellence and summit of perfection; so that, by summing up the numbers which, standing against each master's name, express his share of merit in each of these branches, we have his total merit or value in the art, and may hence gather what rank one painter holds in regard to another. Several objections, it is true, have been started to this method of calculation, by a famous mathematician of our days, who, among other things, insists, that it is the product of the above numbers multiplied by each other, and not the sum of them, that gives the merit of the artist. But this is not a place to enter into such niceties, nor indeed would the doing of it be of any service to the art. The only thing worth our notice is, whether the original numbers, standing for the painter's merit in the several branches of his art, are such as he is really intitled to, without suffering ourselves to be baffled by any partiality, as De Piles has been, in favour of the prince of the Flemish school; the consequence of which, strange as it may appear, is, that in his balance Raphael and Rubens turn out exactly of the same weight.

The idea of the painter's balance is doubtless curious, and therefore deserved to be mentioned; but as the merits of the most eminent painters have been already appreciated under the second section of the historical part of our article, to which we refer, it is needless to be more particular here, or to repeat what has been already treated of at sufficient length.

Sect. XV. Practical Observations.

Having thus laid down the principles of the art, and ventured to give the student some directions with respect to his studies, we shall conclude this part of the subject with a few observations relative wholly to practice.

And, 1. The young painter must be careful not to be led astray by the ambition of composing easily, or attaining what is called a masterly handling of the chalk or the pencil; a pernicious attempt, by which students are excluded from all power of advancing in real excellence. To this attempt, however, young men have not only the frivolous ambition of being thought masterly, inciting them on the one hand, but also their natural sloth tempting them on the other. They are terrified at the prospect before them, and of the toil required to obtain exactness; whilst the lives of the most eminent painters furnish us with examples of the most unceasing industry. When they conceived a subject, they first made a variety of sketches; then a finished drawing of the whole; after that a more correct drawing of every separate part; heads, hands, feet, and pieces of drapery; they then painted the picture, and after all retouched it from the life. The pictures thus wrought with such care, now appear like the effects of enchantment, and as if some mighty genius had struck them off at a blow.

But a student is not always advancing because he is employed; he must apply his strength to that part of the art where the real difficulties lie; to that part which distinguishes it as a liberal art, and not by mistaken industry lose his time in that which is merely ornamental. The students, instead of vying with each other who shall have the readiest hand, should be taught to labour who shall have the purest and most correct outline; instead of striving who shall produce the brightest tint, or endeavouring to give the glofs of stuffs so as to make them appear real, let their ambition be directed to contend, who shall dispose his drapery in the most graceful folds, and give the greatest dignity to the human form.

He who endeavours to copy accurately the figure before him, not only acquires a habit of exactness and precision, but is continually advancing in his knowledge of the human figure; and though he seems to superficial observers to make a slower progress, he will be found at last capable of adding (without running into capricious wildness) that grace and beauty which is necessary to be given to his more finished works, and which cannot be got by the moderns, as it was not acquired by the ancients, but by an attentive and well-directed study of the human form.

2. It is, in the next place, a matter of great importance, that the drawings on which the young artist first exercises his talents be of the most excellent kind. Let the profiles, the hands, and the feet given him to copy, be of the best masters, so as to bring his eye and his hand early acquainted with the most elegant forms and the most beautiful proportions. A painter who has early acquired a fine taste, finds it an easy matter to give dignity to the meanest features, while even the works of a Praxiteles or a Glycon are seen to suffer in the hands of another. A vessel will ever retain the scent which it has first contracted.

3. It would be proper also to make the pupil copy some fine heads from the Greek and Roman medals; not so much for the reason just laid down, as to make him acquainted, if we may use the expression, with those personages which in time he may have occasion to introduce into his pieces, and, above all, to improve him early in the art of copying from relief. Hence he will learn the rationale of light and shade, and the nature of that chiaro-scuro by which it is, properly speaking, that the various forms of things are distinguished.

There is no danger of studying too much the works of the greatest masters, either in painting or sculpture; but how they may be studied to advantage is an inquiry of great importance. "Some (says Sir Joshua Reynolds), who have never raised their minds to the consideration of the real dignity of the art, and who rate the works of an artist in proportion as they excel or are defective in the mechanical parts, look on theory as something that may enable them to talk, but not to paint better; and, confining themselves entirely to mechanical practice, very assiduously toil in the drudgery of copying, and think they make a rapid progress, while they faithfully exhibit the minutest part of a favourite picture. This appears to me a very tedious, and, I think, a very erroneous method of proceeding. Of every large composition, even of those which are most admired, a great part may be truly said to be common place. This, though it takes up much time in copying, conduces little to improvement. I consider general copying as a delusive kind of industry: the student satisfies himself with the appearance of doing something; he falls into the dangerous habit of imitating without selecting, and of labouring without any determinate object: as it requires no effort of the mind, he sleeps over his work; and those powers of invention and composition which ought particularly to be called out, and put in action, lie torpid, and lose their energy for want of exercise.

"However, as the practice of copying is not entirely to be excluded, since the mechanical practice of painting is learned in some measure by it, let those choice parts only be selected which have recommended the work to notice. If its excellence consists in its general effect, it would be proper to make slight sketches of the machinery and general management of the picture. Those sketches should be kept always by you, for the regulation of your style. Instead of copying the touches of those great masters, copy only their conceptions. Instead of treading in their footsteps, endeavour only to keep the same road. Labour to invent on their general principles and way of thinking. Possess yourself with their spirit. Consider with yourself how a Michael Angelo or a Raphael would have treated this subject, and work yourself into a belief that your picture is to be seen and criticised by them when completed. Even an attempt of this kind will rouse your powers."

The same great master recommends to students to keep their minds fixed on the highest excellencies.— "If you compass them, and compass nothing more, you are still in the first class. We may regret the innumerable beauties which you may want: you may be very imperfect; but still you are an imperfect person of the highest order.

"I inculcate as frequently as I can your forming yourselves upon great principles and great models.— Your time will be much mispent in every other pursuit. Small excellencies should be viewed, not flattered; they ought to be viewed, because nothing ought to escape a painter's observation, but for no other reason.

"There is another caution which I wish to give you. Be as select in those whom you endeavour to please, as in those whom you endeavour to imitate. Without the love of fame you can never do anything excellent; but by an excessive and undistinguishing thirst after it, you will come to have vulgar views; you will degrade your style; and your taste will be entirely corrupted. It is certain that the lowest style will be the most popular, as it falls within the compass of ignorance itself, and the vulgar will always be pleased with what is natural in the confined and misunderstood sense of the word."

Genius he considers as an improveable talent, never to be destroyed by the most excessive, if well directed, application, and displaying the elegancies of the art in proportion to the number of ideas which have been carefully collected and digested in the mind.

He cautions painters, therefore, in every stage of their progress, to beware of that false opinion, but too prevalent among artists, of the imaginary power of native genius, and its sufficiency in great works.

This opinion, according to the temper of mind it meets with, almost always produces, either a vain confidence or a sluggish despair, both equally fatal to all proficiency. "Study, therefore, the great works of the greatest masters for ever. Study, as nearly as you can, in the order, in the manner, on the principles on which they studied. Study nature attentively, but always with those masters in your company; consider them as models which you are to imitate, and at the same time as rivals whom you are to combat."

PART II. Of the Different Classes of Painting.

Sect. I. General Enumeration.

As all the objects in nature are susceptible of imitation by the pencil, the masters of this art have applied themselves to different subjects, each one as his talents, his taste, or inclination, may have led him.— From whence have arisen the following classes.

I. History-painting: which represents the principal events in history sacred and profane, real or fabulous; and to this class belongs allegorical expression. These are the most sublime productions of the art; and in which Raphael, Guido, Rubens, Le Brun, &c. have excelled.

II. Rural-history; or the representation of a country life, of villages and hamlets, and their inhabitants. This is an inferior class; and in which Teniers, Breughel, Watteau, &c. have great reputation, by rendering it at once pleasing and graceful.

III. Portrait-painting; which is an admirable branch of this art, and has engaged the attention of the greatest masters in all ages, as Apelles, Guido, Van Dyke, Rembrandt, Regauds, Pefne, Kneller, La Tour, &c.

IV. Grotesque histories; as the nocturnal meetings of witches; sorceries and incantations; the operations of mountebanks, &c. a sort of painting in which the younger Breughel, Teniers, and others, have exercised their talents with success.

V. Battle-pieces; by which Huchtenberg, Wouwerman, &c. have rendered themselves famous.

VI. Landscapes; a charming species of painting, that has been treated by masters of the greatest genius in every nation.

VII. Landscapes diversified with waters, as rivers, lakes, cataracts, &c.; which require a peculiar talent, to express the water sometimes smooth and transparent, VIII. Sea-pieces; in which are represented the ocean, harbours, and great rivers; and the vessels, boats, barges, &c. with which they are covered; sometimes in a calm, sometimes with a fresh breeze, and at others in a storm. In this class Backhuyzen, Vandervelde, Plome, and many others, have acquired great reputation.

IX. Night-pieces; which represent all sorts of objects, either as illuminated by torches, by the flames of a conflagration, or by the light of the moon. Schalck, Vandermeer, Vanderpool, &c. have here excelled.

X. Living Animals: A more difficult branch of painting than is commonly imagined; and in which Rosa, Carré, Vandervelde, and many others, have succeeded marvellously well.

XI. Birds of all kinds; a very laborious species, and which requires extreme patience minutely to express the infinite variety and delicacy of their plumage.

XII. Culinary pieces; which represent all sorts of provisions, and animals without life, &c. A species much inferior to the rest, in which nature never appears to advantage, and which requires only a servile imitation of objects that are but little pleasing. The painting of fishes is naturally referred to this class.

XIII. Fruit-pieces, of every kind, imitated from nature.

XIV. Flower-pieces; a charming class of painting, where Art in the hands of Huyzum, P. Segerts, Merian, &c. becomes the rival of Nature. Plants and insects are usually referred to the painters of flowers, who with them ornament their works.

XV. Pieces of architecture; a kind of painting in which the Italians excel all others. Under this class may be comprehended the representations of ruins, sea-ports, streets, and public places; such as are seen in the works of Canaletti, and other able masters.

XVI. Instruments of music, pieces of furniture, and other inanimate objects; a trifling species, and in which able painters only accidentally employ their talents.

XVII. Imitations of bas-reliefs; a very pleasing kind of painting, and which may be carried by an able hand to a high degree of excellence.

XVIII. Hunting pieces; these also require a peculiar talent, as they unite the painting of men, horses, dogs, and game, to that of landscapes.

It will not be expected that we should here give the rules that the painter is to observe in handling each particular subject. What has been said on historical painting (Part I.*) may throw some light on the rest, and the particular rules must be learned from the study of the art itself. Good masters, academies of reputation, and a rational practice, are the sources from whence the young painter must derive the detail of his art. We shall however insert some rules and observations relative to Landscape and Portrait; these, with History-painting (already pretty fully treated), forming the principal branches of the art.

Sect. II. Of Landscapes.

Landscape-painting includes every object that the country presents; and is distinguished into the heroic, and the pastoral or rural; of which indeed all other styles are but mixtures.

The heroic style is a composition of objects, which in their kinds draw both from art and nature every thing that is great and extraordinary in either. The situations are perfectly agreeable and surprising. The only buildings are temples, pyramids, ancient places of burial, altars consecrated to the divinities, pleasure-houses of regular architecture; and if nature appear not there as we every day casually see her, she is at least represented as we think she ought to be. This style is an agreeable illusion, and a sort of enchantment, when handled by a man of fine genius and a good understanding, as Poussin was, who has so happily expressed it. But if, in the course of this style, the painter has not talent enough to maintain the sublime, he is often in danger of falling into the childish manner.

The rural style is a representation of countries, rather abandoned to the caprice of nature, than cultivated; we there see nature simple, without ornament, and without artifice; but with all those graces wherewith she adorns herself much more when left to herself than when constrained by art.

In this style, situations bear all sorts of varieties; sometimes they are very extensive and open, to contain the flocks of the shepherds; at others very wild, for the retreat of solitary persons, and a cover for wild beasts.

It rarely happens that a painter has a genius extensive enough to embrace all the parts of painting: there is commonly some one part that pre-engages our choice, and so fills our mind, that we forget the pains that are due to the other parts; and we seldom fail to see, that those whose inclination leads them to the heroic style, think they have done all, when they have introduced into their compositions such noble objects as will raise the imagination, without ever giving themselves the trouble to study the effects of good colouring. Those, on the other hand, who practise the pastoral, apply closely to colouring, in order to represent truth more lively. Both these styles have their sectaries and partisans. Those who follow the heroic, supply by their imagination what it wants of truth, and they look no farther.

As a counterbalance to heroic landscape, it would be proper to put into the pastoral, besides a great character of truth, some affecting, extraordinary, but probable effect of nature, as was Italian custom.

There is an infinity of pieces wherein both these styles happily meet; and which of the two has the ascendant, will appear from what we have been just observing of their respective properties. The chief parts of landscapes are, their openings or situations, accidents, skies and clouds, off-skips and mountains, verdure or turfing, rocks, grounds, or lands, terraces, fabrics, waters, fore-grounds, plants, figures, and trees; of all which in their places.

Of Openings or Situations. The word site, or situation, signifies the "view, prospect, or opening of a country." It is derived from the Italian word sito; and our painters have brought it into use, either because they were used to it in Italy, or because, as we think, they found it to be very expressive.

Situations ought to be well put together; and so dif- engaged in their make, that the conjunction of grounds may not seem to be obstructed though we should see but a part of them.

Situations are various, and represented according to the country the painter is thinking of: as either open or close, mountainous or watery, tilled and inhabited, or wild and lonely; or, in fine, variegated by a prudent mixture of some of these. But if the painter be obliged to imitate nature in a flat and regular country, he must make it agreeable by a good disposition of the claro-obscuro, and such pleasing colouring as may make one foil unite with another.

It is certain, that extraordinary situations are very pleasing, and cheer the imagination by the novelty and beauty of their makes, even when the local colouring is but moderately performed: because, at worst, such pictures are only looked on as unfinished, and wanting to be completed by some skilful hand in colouring; whereas common situations and objects require good colouring and absolute finishing, in order to please.

It was only by these properties that Claude Lorrain has made amends for his insipid choice in most of his situations. But in whatever manner that part be executed, one of the best ways to make it valuable, and even to multiply and vary it without altering its form, is properly to imagine some ingenious accident in it.

Of Accidents. An accident in painting is an obstruction of the sun's light by the interposition of clouds, in such manner, that some parts of the earth shall be in light and others in shade, which, according to the motion of the clouds, succeed each other, and produce such wonderful effects and changes of the claro-obscuro, as seem to create so many new situations. This is daily observed in nature. And as this newness of situations is grounded only on the shapes of the clouds, and their motions, which are very inconstant and unequal, it follows, that these accidents are arbitrary; and a painter of genius may dispose them to his own advantage when he thinks fit to use them: For he is not absolutely obliged to do it; and there have been some able landscape-painters who have never practised it, either through fear or custom, as Claude Lorrain and some others.

Of the Sky and Clouds. The sky, in painters terms, is the ethereal part over our heads; but more particularly the air in which we breathe, and that where clouds and storms are engendered. Its colour is blue, growing clearer as it approaches the earth, because of the interposition of vapours arising between the eye and the horizon; which, being penetrated by the light, communicates it to objects in a greater or lesser degree, as they are more or less remote.

But we must observe, that this light being either yellow or reddish in the evening, at sunset, these same objects partake not only of the light, but of the colour: thus the yellow light mixing with the blue, which is the natural colour of the sky, alters it, and gives it a tint more or less greenish, as the yellowness of the light is more or less deep.

This observation is general and infallible: but there is an infinity of particular ones, which the painter must make upon the natural, with his pencil in his hand, when occasion offers; for there are very fine and singular effects appearing in the sky, which it is difficult to make one conceive by physical reasons. Who can tell, for example, why we see, in the bright part of some clouds, a fine red, when the source of the light which plays upon them is a most lively and distinguishing yellow? Who can account for the different reds seen in different clouds, at the very moment that these reds receive the light but in one place? for these colours and surprising appearances seem to have no relation to the rainbow, a phenomenon for which the philosopher pretends to give solid reasons.

These effects are all seen in the evening when the weather is inclining to change, either before a storm, or alter it, when it is not quite gone, but has left some remains of it to draw our attention.

The property of clouds is to be thin and airy, both in shape and colour: their shapes, though infinite, must be studied and chosen after nature, at such times as they appear fine. To make them look thin, we ought to make their grounds unite thinly with them, especially near their extremities, as if they were transparent: And if we would have them thick, their reflections must be so managed, as, without destroying their thinness, they may seem to wind and unite, if necessary, with the clouds that are next to them. Little clouds often discover a little manner, and seldom have a good effect, unless when, being near each other, they seem altogether to make but one object.

In short, the character of the sky is to be luminous; and, as it is even the source of light, every thing that is upon the earth must yield to it in brightness: If, however, there is any thing that comes near it in light, it must be waters, and polished bodies which are susceptible of luminous reflections.

But whilst the painter makes the sky luminous, he must not represent it always shining throughout.

On the contrary, he must contrive his light so, that the greatest part of it may fall only upon one place: and, to make it more apparent, he must take as much care as possible to put it in opposition to some terrestrial object, that may render it more lively by its dark colour; as a tree, tower, or some other building that is a little high.

This principal light might also be heightened, by a certain disposition of clouds having a supposed light, or a light ingeniously inclosed between clouds, whose sweet obscurity spreads itself by little and little on all hands. We have a great many examples of this in the Flemish school, which felt underwood landscape; as Paul Bril, Brugel, Saveri: And the Sadeler and Merian's prints give a clear idea of it, and wonderfully awaken the genius of those who have the principles of the claro-obscuro.

Of Offskips and Mountains. Offskips have a near affinity with the sky; it is the sky which determines either the force or faintness of them. They are darkest when the sky is most loaded, and brightest when it is most clear. They sometimes intermix their shapes and lights; and there are times, and countries, where the clouds pass between the mountains, whose tops rise and appear above them. Mountains that are high, and covered with snow, are very proper to produce extraordinary effects in the offskip, which are advantageous to the painter, and pleasing to the spectator.

The disposition of offskips is arbitrary; let them only only agree with the whole together of the picture, and the nature of the country we would represent. They are usually blue, because of the interposition of air between them and the eye; but they lose this colour by degrees, as they come nearer the eye, and so take that which is natural to the objects.

In distancing mountains, we must observe to join them insensibly by the roundings off, which the reflections make probable; and must, among other things, avoid a certain edginess in their extremities, which makes them appear in slices, as if cut with scissors, and stuck upon the cloth.

We must further observe, that the air, at the feet of mountains, being charged with vapours, is more susceptible of light than at their tops. In this case, we suppose the main light to be set reasonably high, and to enlighten the mountains equally, or that the clouds deprive them of the light of the sun. But if we suppose the main light to be very low, and to strike the mountains, then their tops will be strongly enlightened, as well as every thing else in the same degree of light.

Though the forms of things diminish in bigness, and colours lose their strength, in proportion as they recede from the first plan of the picture, to the most remote object, as we observe in nature and common practice; yet this does not exclude the use of the accidents. These contribute greatly to the wonderful in landscape, when they are properly introduced, and when the artist has a just idea of their good effects.

Of Verdure, or Turfing. By turfing is meant the greenness with which the herbs colour the ground: This is done several ways; and the diversity proceeds not only from the nature of plants, which, for the most part, have their particular verdures, but also from the change of seasons, and the colour of the earth, when the herbs are but thin fown. By this variety, a painter may choose or unite, in the same tract of land, several sorts of greens, intermixed and blended together, which are often of great service to those who know how to use them; because this diversity of greens, as it is often found in nature, gives a character of truth to those parts, where it is properly used. There is a wonderful example of this part of landscape, in the view of Mechlin, by Rubens.

Of Rocks. Though rocks have all sorts of shapes, and participate of all colours, yet there are, in their diversity, certain characters which cannot be well expressed without having recourse to nature. Some are in banks, and let off with beds of shrubs; others in huge blocks, either projecting or falling back; others consist of large broken parts, contiguous to each other; and others, in short, of an enormous size, all in one stone, either naturally, as free-stone, or else through the injuries of time, which in the course of many ages has worn away their marks of separation. But, whatever their form be, they are usually set out with clefts, breaks, hollows, bushes, mosses, and the stains of time; and these particulars, well managed, create a certain idea of truth.

Rocks are of themselves gloomy, and only proper for solitudes; but where accompanied with bushes, they inspire a fresh air; and, when they have waters, either proceeding from, or washing them, they give an infinite pleasure, and seem to have a soul which animates them, and makes them sociable.

Of Grounds or Lands. A ground or land, in painters terms, is a certain distinct piece of land, which is neither too woody nor hilly. Grounds contribute, more than any thing, to the gradation and distancing of landscape; because they follow one another, either in shape, or in the claro-obscur, or in their variety of colouring, or by some insensible conjunction of one with another.

Multiplicity of grounds, though it be often contrary to grand manner, does not quite destroy it; for, besides the extent of country which it exhibits, it is susceptible of the accidents we have mentioned, and which, with good management, have a fine effect.

There is one nicety to be observed in grounds, which is, that in order to characterize them well, care must be taken, that the trees in them have a different verdure and different colours from those grounds; though this difference, withal, must not be too apparent.

Of Terraces. A terrace, in painting, is a piece of ground, either quite naked or having very little herbage, like great roads and places often frequented. They are of use chiefly in the foregrounds of a picture, where they ought to be very spacious and open, and accompanied, if we think fit, with some accidental verdure, and also with some stones, which, if placed with judgment, give a terrace a greater air of probability.

Of Buildings. Painters mean by buildings any structures they generally represent, but chiefly such as are of a regular architecture, or at least are most conspicuous. Thus building is not to proper a name for the houses of country-people, or the cottages of shepherds, which are introduced into the rural taste, as for regular and showy edifices, which are always brought into the heroic.

Buildings in general are a great ornament in landscapes, even when they are Gothic, or appear partly inhabited and partly ruinous: they raise the imagination by the use they are thought to be designed for; as appears from ancient towers, which seem to have been the habitations of fairies, and are now retreats for shepherds and owls.

Poussin has very elegantly handled the Roman manner of architecture in his works, as Bourdon has done the Gothic; which, however Gothic, fails not to give a sublime air to his landscapes. Little Bernard has introduced into his sacred history what may be called a Babylonian manner; which, extraordinary as it is, has its grandeur and magnificence. Nor ought such pieces of architecture to be quite rejected: they raise the imagination; and perhaps would succeed in the heroic style, if they were placed among half-distant objects, and if we knew how to use them properly.

Of Waters. Much of the spirit of landscape is owing to the waters which are introduced in it. They appear in divers manners; sometimes impetuous, as when a storm makes them overflow their banks; at other times rebounding, as by the fall of a rock; at other times, through unusual pressure, gushing out and dividing into an infinity of silver streams, whose motion and murmuring agreeably deceive both the eye and ear; ear; at other times calm and purling in a sandy bed; at other times so still and standing, as to become a faithful looking-glass, which doubles all the objects that are opposite to it; and in this state they have more life than in the most violent agitation. Consult Bourdon's works, or at least his prints, on this subject: he is one of those who have treated of waters with the greatest spirit and best genius.

Waters are not proper for every situation; but to express them well, the artist ought to be perfect master of the exactness of watery reflections; because they only make painted water appear as real; for practice alone, without exactness, destroys the effect, and abates the pleasure of the eye. The rule for these reflections is very easy, and therefore the painter is less punishable for neglecting it.

But it must be observed, that though water be as a looking-glass, yet it does not faithfully represent objects but when it is still; for if it be in any motion, either in a natural course or by the driving of the wind, its surface, becoming uneven, receives on its surges such lights and shades as, mixing with the appearance of the objects, confound both their shapes and colours.

Of the Foreground of a Picture. As it is the part of the foreground to usher the eye into the piece, great care must be taken that the eye meet with good reception; sometimes by the opening of a fine terrace, whose design and workmanship may be equally curious; sometimes by a variety of well-distinguished plants, and those sometimes flowered; and at other times, by figures in a lively taste, or other objects, either admirable for their novelty or introduced as by chance.

In a word, the artist cannot too much study his foreground objects, since they attract the eye, impress the first character of truth, and greatly contribute to make the artifice of a picture successful, and to anticipate our esteem for the whole work.

Of Plants. Plants are not always necessary in foregrounds, because, as we have observed, there are several ways of making those grounds agreeable. But if we resolve to draw plants there, we ought to paint them exactly after the life; or at least, among such as we paint practically, there ought to be some more finished than the rest, and whose kinds may be distinguished by the difference of design and colouring, to the end that, by a probable supposition, they may give the others a character of truth. What has been said here of plants may be applied to the branches and barks of trees.

Of Figures. In composing landscape, the artist may have intended to give it a character agreeable to the subject he has chosen, and which his figures ought to represent. He may also, and it commonly happens, have only thought of his figures, after finishing his landscape. The truth is, the figures in most landscapes are made rather to accompany than to suit them.

It is true, there are landscapes so disposed and situated, as to require only passing figures; which several good masters, each in his style, have introduced, as Poussin in the heroic, and Fouquier in the rural, with all probability and grace. It is true also, that resting figures have been made to appear inwardly active. And these two different ways of treating figures are not to be blamed, because they act equally, though in a different manner. It is rather inaction that ought to be blamed in figures; for in this condition, which robs them of all connection with the landscape, they appear to be pasted on. But without obstructing the painter's liberty in this respect, undoubtedly the best way to make figures valuable is, to make them so to agree with the character of the landscape, that it may seem to have been made purely for the figures. We would not have them either indistinct or indifferent, but to represent some little subject to awaken the spectator's attention, or else to give the picture a name of distinction among the curious.

Great care must be taken to proportion the size of the figures to the sizes of the trees, and other objects of the landscape. If they be too large, the picture will discover a little manner; and if too small, they will have the air of pigmies; which will destroy the worth of them, and make the landscape look enormous. There is, however, a greater inconvenience in making figures too large than too small; because the latter at least gives an air of greatness to all the rest. But as landscape figures are generally small, they must be touched with spirit, and such lively figures as will attract, and yet preserve probability and a general union. The artist must, in fine, remember, that as the figures chiefly give life to a landscape, they must be disposed as conveniently as possible.

Of Trees. The beauty of trees is perhaps one of the greatest ornaments of landscape; on account of the variety of their kinds, and their freshness, but chiefly their lightness, which makes them seem, as being exposed to the air, to be always in motion.

Though diversity be pleasing in all the objects of landscape, it is chiefly in trees that it shows its greatest beauty. Landscape considers both their kinds and their forms. Their kinds require the painter's particular study and attention, in order to distinguish them from each other; for we must be able at first sight to discover which are oaks, elms, firs, sycamores, poplars, willows, pines, and other such trees, which, by a specific colour, or touching, are distinguishable from all other kinds. This study is too large to be acquired in all its extent; and, indeed, few painters have attained such a competent exactness in it as their art requires. But it is evident, that those who come nearest to perfection in it, will make their works infinitely pleasing, and gain a great name.

Besides the variety which is found in each kind of tree, there is in all trees a general variety. This is observed in the different manners in which their branches are disposed by a sport of nature; which takes delight in making some very vigorous and thick, others more dry and thin; some more green, others more red or yellow. The excellence of practice lies in the mixture of these varieties: but if the artist can distinguish the sorts but indifferently, he ought at least to vary their makes and colours; because repetition in landscape is as tiresome to the eye, as monotony in discourse is to the ear.

The variety of their makes is so great, that the painter would be inexcusable not to put it in practice upon occasion, especially when he finds it necessary to awaken the spectator's attention; for, among trees, we discover the young and the old, the open and close, tapering and squat, bending upwards and downwards, stooping

A description of the works of great masters: a little reflection on nature will be of more service than all that can be said on this head. By great masters, we mean such as have published prints; for those will give better ideas to young copyists than even the paintings themselves.

Among the many great masters of all schools, De Piles prefers Titian's wooden prints, where the trees are well shaped; and those which Cornelius Cort and Agostino Carracci have engraved. And he affirms, that beginners can do no better than contract, above all things, an habit of imitating the touches of these great masters, and of considering at the same time the perspective of the branches and foliages, and observing how they appear, either when rising and seen from below, or when sinking and seen from above, or when fronting and viewed from a point, or when they appear in profile; and, in a word, when set in the various views in which nature presents them, without altering their characters.

After having studied and copied, with the pen or crayon, first the prints, and then the designs of Titian and Carracci, the student should imitate with the pencil those touches which they have most distinctly specified, if their paintings can be procured; but since they are scarce, others should be got which have a good character for their touching; as those of Fouquier, who is a most excellent model; Paul Bril, Breugel, and Bourdon, are also very good; their touching is neat, lively, and thin.

After having duly weighed the nature of trees, their spread and order, and the disposition of their branches, the artist must get a lively idea of them, in order to keep up the spirit of them throughout, either by making them apparent and distinct in the foregrounds, or obscure and confused in proportion to their distance.

After having thus gained some knowledge in good manner, it will next be proper to study after nature, and to choose and rectify it according to the idea which the aforesaid great masters had of it. As to perfection, it can only be expected from long practice and perseverance. On the whole, it is proper for those who have an inclination for landscape, above all things to take the proper methods for beginning it well.

As for those who have made some advances in this part of painting, it is proper they should collect the necessary materials for their further improvement, and study those objects at least which they shall have most frequent occasion to represent.

Painters usually comprise, under the word study, anything whatever which they either design or paint separately after the life; whether figures, heads, feet, hands, draperies, animals, mountains, trees, plants, flowers, fruits, or whatever may confirm them in the just imitation of nature: the drawing of these things is what they call study; whether they be for instruction in design, or only to assure them of the truth, and to perfect their work. In fact, this word study is the more properly used by painters, as in the diversity of nature they are daily making new discoveries, and confirming themselves in what they already know.

As the landscape-painter need only study such objects as are to be met with in the country, we would recommend... recommend to him some order, that his drawings may be always at hand when he wants them. For instance, he should copy after nature, on separate papers, the different effects of trees in general, and the different effects of each kind in particular, with their trunks, foliage, and colours. He should also take the same method with some sorts of plants, because their variety is a great ornament to terraces on fore-grounds. He ought likewise to study the effects of the sky in the several times of the day and seasons of the year, in the various dispositions of clouds, both in serene, thundering, and stormy weather; and in the offskip, the several sorts of rocks, waters, and other principal objects.

These drawings, which may be made at different times, should be collected together; and all that relate to one matter be put into a book, to which the artist may have recourse at any time for what he wants.

Now, if the fine effects of nature, whether in shape or colour, whether for an entire picture or a part of one, be the artist's study; and if the difficulty lies in choosing those effects well, he must for this purpose be born with good sense, good taste, and a fine genius; and this genius must be cultivated by the observations which ought to be made on the works of the best masters, how they choose nature, and how, while they corrected her, according to their art, they preserved her character. With these advantages, derived from nature and perfected by art, the painter cannot fail to make a good choice; and, by distinguishing between the good and the bad, must needs find great instruction even from the most common things.

To improve themselves in this kind of studies, painters have taken several methods.

There are some artists who have designed after nature, and in the open fields; and have there quite finished those parts which they had chosen, but without adding any colour to them.

Others have drawn, in oil colours, in a middle-tint, on strong paper; and found this method convenient, because, the colours sinking, they could put colour on colour, though different from each other. For this purpose they took with them a flat box, which commodiously held their pallet, pencils, oil, and colours. This method, which indeed requires several implements, is doubtless the best for drawing nature more particularly, and with greater exactness, especially if, after the work be dry and varnished, the artist return to the place where he drew, and retouch the principal things after nature.

Others have only drawn the outlines of objects, and slightly washed them in colours near the life, for the sake of their memory. Others have attentively observed such parts as they had a mind to retain, and contented themselves with committing them to their memory, which upon occasion gave them a faithful account of them. Others have made drawings in pastil and wash together. Others, with more curiosity and patience, have gone several times to the places which were to their taste: the first time they only made choice of the parts, and drew them correctly; and the other times were spent in observing the variety of colouring, and its alterations through change of light.

Now these several methods are very good, and each may be practised as best suits the student and his temper; but they require the necessaries of painting, as colours, pencils, pastils, and leisure. Nature, however, at certain times, presents extraordinary but transient beauties, and such as can be of no service to the artist who has not as much time as is necessary to imitate what he admires. The best way, perhaps, to make advantage of such momentary occasions, is this:

The painter being provided with a quire of paper, and a black-lead pencil, let him quickly, but slightly, design what he sees extraordinary; and, to remember the colouring, let him mark the principal parts with characters, which he may explain at the bottom of the paper, as far as is necessary for himself to understand them: A cloud, for instance, may be marked A, another cloud B, a light C, a mountain D, a terrace E, and so on. And having repeated these letters at the bottom of the paper, let him write against each that it is of such or such a colour; or for greater brevity, only blue, red, violet, grey, &c. or any other shorter abbreviation. After this, he must go to painting as soon as possible; otherwise most of what he has observed will, in a little time, slip out of his memory. This method is the more useful, as it not only prevents our losing an infinity of sudden and transitory beauties, but also helps, by means of the aforementioned marks and characters, to perfect the other methods we have mentioned.

If it be asked, Which is the properest time for these studies? the answer is, That nature should be studied at all times, because she is to be represented at all seasons; but autumn yields the most plentiful harvest for her fine effects: the mildness of that season, the beauty of the sky, the richness of the earth, and the variety of objects, are powerful inducements with the painter to make the proper inquiries for improving his genius and perfecting his art.

But as we cannot see or observe every thing, it is very commendable to make use of other men's studies, and to look upon them as if they were our own. Raphael sent some young men into Greece to design such things as he thought would be of service to him, and accordingly made use of them to as good purpose as if he himself had designed them on the spot: for this, Raphael is so far from deserving censure, that he ought, on the contrary, to be commended; as an example, that painters ought to leave no way untried for improving in their professions. The landscape-painter may, accordingly, make use of the works of all those who have excelled in any kind, in order to acquire a good manner; like the bees, which gather their variety of honey from different flowers.

General Remarks on Landscapes. As the general rules of painting are the basis of all the several kinds of it, we must refer the landscape-painter to them, or rather suppose him to be well acquainted with them. We shall here only make some general remarks on this kind of painting.

I. Landscape supposes the knowledge and practice of the principal rules in perspective, in order to maintain probability.

II. The higher the leaves of trees are to the earth, the larger they are, and the greener; as being aptest to receive, in abundance, the sap which nourishes them; and the upper branches begin first to take the redness. Part II.

X. As there are styles of thought, so there are also Portraiture styles of execution. We have handled the two relating to thought, viz. the heroic and pastoral; and find that there are two also with regard to execution, viz. the firm style, and the polished; these two concern the pencil, and the more or less ingenious way of conducting it. The firm style gives life to work, and excuse for bad choice; and the polished finishes and brightens every thing; it leaves no employment for the spectator's imagination, which pleases itself in discovering and finishing things which it ascribes to the artist, tho' in fact they proceed only from itself. The polished style degenerates into the soft and dull, if not supported by a good opening or situation; but when those two characters meet, the picture is fine.

Sect. III. Of Portraiture.

If painting be an imitation of nature, it is doubly so in a portrait; which not only represents a man in general, but such an one as may be distinguished from all others. And as the greatest perfection of a portrait is extreme likeness, so the greatest of its faults is to resemble a person for whom it was not made; since there are not in the world two persons quite like one another. But before we proceed to the particulars which let us into the knowledge of this imitation, it is necessary, for shortening this part of our subject, to attend to some general propositions.

1. Imitation is the essence of painting; and good choice is to this essence what the virtues are to a man; they raise the value of it. For this reason, it is extremely the painter's interest to choose none but good heads, or favourable moments for drawing them, and such positions as may supply the want of a fine natural.

II. There are views of the natural, more or less advantageous; all depends upon turning it well, and taking it in the favourable moment.

III. There is not a single person in the world who has not a peculiar character both in body and face.

IV. Simple and genuine nature is more proper for imitation; and is a better choice than nature much formed, and embellished too artificially.

V. To adorn nature too much is doing it a violence; and the action which attends it can never be free when its ornaments are not easy. In short, in proportion as we adorn nature, we make it degenerate from itself, and bring it down to art.

VI. Some means are more advantageous than others to come at the same end.

VII. We must not only imitate what we do see in nature, but also what we may possibly see that is advantageous in art.

VIII. Things are valuable by comparison; and it is only by this we are enabled to make a right judgment of them.

IX. Painters easily accustom themselves to their own tints, and the manner of their matters; and after this habit is rooted in them, they view nature not as she really is, but as they are used to paint her.

X. It is very difficult to make a picture, the figures of which are as big as the life, to have its effect near as at a distance. A learned picture pleases the ignorant only when it is at some distance; but judges... Portraiture will admire its artifice near, and its effect at a distance.

XI. Knowledge makes work pleasant and easy. The traveller who knows his road, comes to his journey's end with more speed and certainty than he who inquires and gropes it out.

XII. It is proper, before we begin a work, to meditate upon it, and to make a nice coloured sketch of it, for our own satisfaction, and an help to the memory.

We cannot too much reflect on these propositions; and it is necessary to be well acquainted with them, that they may present themselves to our mind, of their own accord, without our being at the trouble to recall them to our memory when we are at work.

There are four things necessary to make a portrait perfect; air, colouring, attitude, and dress.

Of Air. The air respects the lines of the face, the head attire, and the size.

The lines of the face depend upon exactness of draught, and agreement of the parts; which all together must represent the physiognomy of the person painted in such a manner, that the picture of his body may seem to be also that of his mind.

It is not exactness of design in portraits that gives spirit and true air, so much as the agreement of the parts at the very moment when the disposition and temperament of the sitter are to be hit off. We see several portraits which, though correctly designed, have a cold, languishing, and stupid air; whilst others, less correct in design, strike us, however, at first sight with the sitter's character.

Few painters have been careful enough to put the parts well together: Sometimes the mouth is smiling, and the eyes are sad; at other times, the eyes are cheerful, and the cheeks lank: by which means their work has a false air, and looks unnatural. We ought therefore to remember, that, when the sitter puts on a smiling air, the eyes close, the corners of the mouth draw up towards the nostrils, the cheeks swell, and the eyebrows widen: but in a melancholy air, these parts have a contrary effect.

The eye brows, being raised, give a grave and noble air; but if arched, an air of astonishment.

Of all the parts of the face, that which contributes most to likeness is the nose; it is therefore of great moment to set and draw it well.

Though the hair of the head seems to be part of the dress which is capable of various forms without altering the air of the face; yet the head-attire which one has been most accustomed to creates such a likeness, that we scarce know a familiar acquaintance on his putting on a periwig somewhat different from that which he used to wear. It is necessary therefore, as far as possible, to take the air of the head-ornament, and make it accompany and set off that of the face, if there be no reason to the contrary.

As to the stature, it contributes so much to likeness, that we very often know people without seeing their face: It is therefore extremely proper to draw the size after the sitter himself, and in such an attitude as we think fit; which was Vandyke's method. Here let us remark, that, in sitting, the person appears to be of a less free make, through the heaving of his shoulders; wherefore, to adjust his size, it is proper to make him stand for a small time, swaying in the posture we colouring would give him, and then make our observation. But here occurs a difficulty, which we shall endeavour to examine: "Whether it is proper, in portraiture, to correct the defects of nature?"

Likeness being the essence of portraiture, it would seem that we ought to imitate defects as well as beauties, since by this means the imitation will be more complete: It would be even hard to prove the contrary to one who would undertake the defence of this position. But ladies and gentlemen do not much approve of those painters who entertain such sentiments, and put them in practice. It is certain that some complaisance in this respect is due to them; and there is little doubt but their pictures may be made to resemble, without displeasing them; for the effectual likeness is a just agreement of the parts that are painted with those of nature; so that we may be at no loss to know the air of the face, and the temper of the person whose picture is before us. All deformities, therefore, when the air and temper may be discovered without them, ought to be either corrected or omitted in women and young men's portraits. A nose somewhat awry may be helped, or a shrivelled neck, or high shoulders, adapted to a good air, without going from one extreme to another. But this must be done with great discretion: for, by endeavouring to correct nature too much, we infensibly fall into a method of giving a general air to all our portraits; just as, by confusing ourselves too much to the defects and littlenesses of nature, we are in danger of falling into the low and tasteless manner.

But in the faces of heroes and men of rank, distinguished either by dignities, virtues, or great qualities, we cannot be too exact, whether the parts be beautiful or not: for portraits of such persons are to be standing monuments to posterity; in which case, everything in a picture is precious that is faithful. But after whatever manner the painter acquires himself in this point, let him never forget good air nor grace; and that there are, in the natural, advantageous moments for hitting them off.

Of Colouring.—Colouring, in portraiture, is an effusion of nature, discovering the true tempers of persons; and the temper being essential to likeness, it ought to be handled as exactly as the design. This part is the more valuable, as it is rare and difficult to hit. A great many painters have come to a likeness by strokes and outlines; but certainly they are few who have shown in colours the tempers of persons.

Two points are necessary in colouring; exactness of tints, and the art of setting them off. The former is acquired by practice, in examining and comparing the colours we see in life with those by which we would imitate it: and the art of those tints consists in knowing what one colour will produce when set by another, and in making good what either distance or time may abate of the glow and freshness of the colours.

A painter who does nothing more than what he sees, will never arrive at a perfect imitation; for though his work may seem, on the face, to be good to him, it may not appear so to others, and perhaps even to himself, at a distance. A tint which, near, appears disjoined, and of one colour, may look of another at a distance, and be confounded in the mass it belongs to. If you would have your work, therefore, to produce a good Attitude, good effect in the place where it is to hang, both the colours and lights must be a little loaded; but learnedly, and with discretion. In this point consult Titian, Rubens, Vandyke, and Rembrandt's methods; for indeed their art is wonderful.

The tints usually require three times of observation. The first is at the person's first sitting down, when he has more spirit and colour than ordinary; and this is to be noted in the first hour of his sitting. The second is when, being composed, his look is as usual; which is to be observed in the second hour. And the third is when, through tiresomeness by sitting in one posture, his colour alters to what weariness usually creates. On which account, it is best to keep to the sitter's usual tint, a little improved. He may also rise, and take some turns about the room, to gain fresh spirits, and shake off or prevent tiresomeness.

In draperies, all sorts of colours do not suit all sorts of persons. In men's portraits, we need only observe great truth and great force; but in women's there must also be charms; whatever beauty they have must appear in a fine light, and their blemishes must by some means or other be softened. For this reason, a white, lively, and bright tint, ought never to be set off by a fine yellow, which would make it look like plaster; but rather by colours inclining to green, blue, or grey, or such others as, by their opposition, may make the tint appear more fleshy than usual in fair women. Vandyke often made a fillet-coloured curtain for his ground; but that colour is soft and brown. Brown women, on the other hand, who have yellow enough in their tints to support the character of fleshiness, may very well have yellow with draperies, in order to bring down the yellow of their tints, and make them look the fresher; and near very high-coloured and lively carnations linen does wonders.

In grounds, two things are observable; the tone and the colour. The colour is to be considered in the same manner as those of draperies, with respect to the head. The tone must be always different from the mass it supports, and of which it is the ground, that the objects coming upon it may not seem transparent, but solid and raised. The colour of the hair of the head usually determines the tone of the ground; and when the former is a bright chestnut, we are often embarrassed, unless helped by means of a curtain, or some accident of the chiaroscuro, supposed to be behind, or unless the ground is a sky.

We must further observe, that where a ground is neither curtain nor landscape, or such like, but is plain and like a wall, it ought to be very much party-coloured, with almost imperceptible patches or stains; for, besides its being so in nature, the picture will look the more grand.

Of Attitude, or Posture.—Attitudes ought to suit the ages and qualities of persons and their tempers. In old men and women, they should be grave, majestic, and sometimes bold; and generally, in women, they ought to have a noble simplicity and modest cheerfulness; for modesty ought to be the character of women; a charm infinitely beyond coquetry! and indeed coquettes themselves care not to be painted such.

Attitudes are of two kinds: one in motion, the other at rest. Those at rest may suit every person; but those in motion are proper for young people only, and are hard to be expressed; because a great part of practice in the hair and drapery must be moved by the air; motion, in painting, being never better expressed than by such agitations. The attitudes at rest must not appear so much at rest as to seem to represent an inactive person, and one who sits for no other purpose but to be a copy. And though the figure that is represented be at rest, yet the painter, if he thinks fit, may give it a flying drapery, provided the scene or ground be not a chamber or close place.

It is above all things necessary that the figures which are not employed should appear to satisfy the spectator's curiosity; and for this purpose show themselves in such an action as suits their tempers and conditions, as if they would inform him what they really were: and as most people pretend to sincerity, honesty, and greatness of mind, we must avoid, in attitudes, all manner of affectation; every thing there must appear easy and natural, and discover more or less spirit, nobleness, and majesty, in proportion to the person's character and dignity. In a word, the attitudes are the language of portraits; and the skilful painter ought to give great attention to them.

But the best attitudes are such as induce the spectator to think that the sitter took a favourable opportunity of being seen to advantage, and without affectation. There is only one thing to be observed with regard to women's portraits, in whatever attitude they are placed; which is, that they sway in such a manner as to give their face but little shade; and that we carefully examine whether the lady appear most beautiful in a smiling or in a serious air, and conduct ourselves accordingly. Let us now proceed to the next article.

Of Practice in Portraiture.—According to De Piles, portraiture requires three different fittings and operations; to wit, dead-colouring, second-colouring, and retouching or finishing. Before the painter dead-colours, he must attentively consider what aspect will best suit the sitter, by putting him in different positions, if we have not any settled design before us; and when we have determined this, it is of the last consequence to put the parts well together, by comparing always one part with another; for not only the portrait acquires a greater likeness when well designed, but it is troublesome to make alterations at the second fitting, when the artist must only think of painting, that is, of disposing and uniting his colours.

Experience tells us, that the dead-colouring ought to be clean, because of the slope and transparency of the colours, especially in the shades: and when the parts are well put together, and become clammy, they must be judiciously sweetened and melted into each other; yet without taking away the air of the picture, that the painter may have the pleasure of finishing it, in proportion as he draws. But if fiery geniuses do not like this method of scumbling, let them only mark the parts slightly, and so far as is necessary for giving an air.

In dead colouring, it is proper to put in rather too little than too much hair about the forehead; that, in finishing, we may be at liberty to place it where we please, and to paint it with all possible softness and delicacy. If, on the contrary, you sketch upon the forehead a lock which may appear to be of a good taste, and becoming the work, you may be puzzled in finishing it, and not find the life exactly in the same position as you would paint it. But this observation is not meant for men of skill and consummate experience, who have nature in their heads, and make her submit to their ideas.

The business of the second sitting is, to put the colours well in their places, and to paint them in a manner that is suitable to the sitter and to the effect we propose: But before they are made clumsy, we ought to examine afresh whether the parts are rightly placed, and here and there to give some touches towards likeness, that, when we are assured of it, the work may go on with greater satisfaction. If the painter understands what he is about, and the portrait be justly designed, he ought as much as possible to work quick; the sitter will be better pleased, and the work will by this means have the more spirit and life. But this readiness is only the effect of long study and experience; for we may well be allowed a considerable time to find out a road that is easy, and such as we must often travel in.

Before we retouch or finish, it is proper to terminate the hair, that, on finishing the carnations, we may be able to judge of the effect of the whole head.

If, at the second sitting, we cannot do all we intended, which often happens, the third makes up the loss, and gives both spirit, physiognomy, and character.

If we would paint a portrait at once, we must load the colouring; but neither sweeten nor drive, nor very much oil it; and if we dip the pencil in varnish as the work advances, this will readily enable us to put colour on colour, and to mix them without driving.

The use and sight of good pictures give greater light into things than words can express: What hits one artist's understanding and temper may be disagreeable to another's; and almost all painters have taken different ways, though their principles were often the same.

We are told that a friend of Vandyke's having observed to him how little time he bestowed on his portraits, Vandyke answered, "That at first he worked hard, and took great pains, to acquire a reputation, and also to get a swift hand, against the time he should work for his kitchen." Vandyke's custom is said to have been this: He appointed both the day and hour for the person's sitting, and worked not above an hour on any portrait, either in rubbing in or finishing; so that as soon as his clock informed him that the hour was out, he rose up, and made a bow to the sitter, to signify, that he had done enough for that day, and then appointed another hour some other day; whereupon his servant came to clean his pencils, and brought a fresh pallet, whilst he was receiving another sitter, whose day and hour he had before appointed. By this method he worked on several pictures the same day, with extraordinary expedition.

After having lightly dead-coloured the face, he put the sitter into some attitude which he had before contrived; and on a grey paper, with white and black crayons, he designed, in a quarter of an hour, his shape and drapery, which he disposed in a grand manner, and an exquisite taste. After this, he gave the judgment drawing to the skilful people he had about him, to paint after the sitter's own clothes, which, at Vandyke's request, were sent to him for that purpose. When his disciples had done what they could to these draperies, he lightly went over them again; and so, in a little time, by his great knowledge, displayed the art and truth which we at this day admire in them. As for hands, he had in his house people of both sexes, whom he paid, and who served as models.

This conduct of Vandyke, however, is mentioned rather to gratify the reader's curiosity, than to excite his imitation; he may choose as much of it as he pleases, and as suits his own genius, and leave the rest.

We must observe by the way, that there is nothing so rare as fine hands, either in the design or colouring. It is therefore convenient to cultivate, if we can, a friendship with some women who will take pleasure in serving for a copy: The way to win them is, to praise their beauty exceedingly. But if an opportunity serves of copying hands after Vandyke, it must not be let slip; for he drew them with a surprising delicacy, and an admirable colouring.

It is of great service to copy after the manners which come nearest to nature; as are those of Titian and Vandyke. We must, at such times, believe them to be nature itself; and, at some distance, consider them as such, and say to ourselves—What colour and tint shall I use for such a part? And then, coming near the picture, we ought to examine whether we are right or not; and to make a fixed rule of what we have discovered, and did not practise before without uncertainty.

It is recommended, before we begin colouring, to catch the very first moments, which are commonly the most agreeable and most advantageous, and to keep them in our memory for use when we are finishing: for the sitter, growing tired with being long in the same place, loses those spirits, which, at his first sitting down, gave beauty to the parts, and conveyed to the tint more lively blood, and a fresher colour. In short, we must join to truth a probable and advantageous possibility, which, far from abating likeness, serves rather to set it off. For this end, we ought to begin with observing the ground of a tint, as well what it is in lights as in shades; for the shades are only beautiful as they are proportioned to the light. We must observe, if the tint be very lively, whether it partake of yellowness, and where that yellowness is placed; because usually, towards the end of the sitting, fatigue diffuses a general yellowness, which makes us forget what parts were of this colour, and what were not, unless we had taken due notice of it before. For this reason, at the second sitting, the colours must be everywhere readily clasped in, and such as appear at the first sitting down; for these are always the finest.

The surest way to judge of colours is by comparison; and to know a tint, nothing is better than to compare it with linen placed next it, or else placed next to the natural object, if there is occasion.—We say this only to those who have little practised nature.

The portrait being now supposed to be as much finished

Different finished as you are able, nothing remains, but, at some reasonable distance, to view both the picture and fitter together, in order to determine with certainty, whether there is any thing still wanting to perfect the work.

SECT. IV. Of Theatric Decorations; the Designs for Furniture, Embroidery, Carriages, &c.

Of Theatrical Decorations.—This is a particular art which unites several of the general parts of painting with the knowledge of architecture, perspective, &c. They who apply themselves to it would do well to design their decorations by day, and to colour them by candle-light, as they will be much better able to judge of the effect of a painting intended to be viewed by that light. It is proper also to caution the young painter to avoid, as much as possible, the uniting the imitations of nature with nature itself; that is, he should not introduce with his decorations living horses, or other animals, real fountains or cascades, trees, or statues, &c. For such combinations are the effect of ignorance and a bad taste; they are the resource of painters of little ability; they discover a sterility of invention, and produce great inconvenience in the representation. Those pieces which they call moving pictures, where the painted landscape remains immovable, and the figures move by means of springs, form a part of these decorations; and there are some of them, as those of Antwerp and Ghent, that have a pleasing effect.

The designs for furniture, carriages, porcelain, and other branches of manufacture, form also a very important article of painting in general, and of academy painting in particular. This is a distinct branch of the art; and without doubt not the least useful of its parts, as it conveys so essentially to the success of manufactures, and consequently to the prosperity of a state; and it is an art, to which it were much to be wished that youth of ability and invention would apply themselves. See the articles JAPANNING and PORCELAIN.

SECT. V. Enumeration of the different Methods of Painting, or the different Means and Materials that Painters make use of to imitate all visible Objects on a plane Surfaces.

Those now in practice are,

1. Painting in oil; which is preferable to all other methods, as it is more susceptible of all sorts of expressions, of more perfect gradations of colours, and is at the same time more durable.

2. Mosaic painting; an invention truly wonderful; it is composed of a great number of small pieces of marble of different colours, joined together with stucco. The works of this kind are made principally at Rome, where this art has been carried so far as to resemble the paintings of the greatest masters; and of these are made monuments for the last posterity.

3. Painting in fresco; which is by drawing, with colours diluted with water, on a wall newly plastered, and with which they so incorporate, that they perish only with the stucco itself. This is principally used on ceilings.

4. Painting in water-colours; that is, with colours mixed with water and gum, or paste, &c.

5. Miniature painting; which differs from the preceding as it represents objects in the least discernible magnitudes.

6. Painting in crayons; for which purpose colours, either simple or compound, are mixed with gum, and made into a kind of hard paste like chalk, and with which they draw on paper or parchment.

7. Painting in enamel; which is done on copper or gold, with mineral colours that are dried by fire, and become very durable. The paintings on the porcelain of China and Europe, on Delight ware, &c., are so many sorts of enamel.

8. Painting in wax, or encaustic painting: This is a new or rather an old invention renewed, in which there are in France performances highly pleasing. It is done with wax mixed with varnish and colours.

9. Painting on glass; of which there are various kinds.

See all the articles here enumerated, explained in the order of the alphabet. On one of them, however, some additional observations may here be subjoined.

§ I. Of painting in Fresco.

Of all kinds of painting fresco is the most ancient, the most durable, the most speedily executed, and the most proper to adorn great buildings. It appears, that the fragments of ancient painting handed down to us by the Romans are all in fresco. Norden, quoted by Winklemann, speaks of the ruins of Egyptian palaces and temples, in which are Colossian paintings on walls 80 feet high. The description which those authors have given of these paintings, of the prepared ground, and of the manner in which the colours have been employed, &c., shows plainly that they have been executed in fresco.

The stability of fresco is demonstrated by the existence of those fragments of the highest antiquity. There are no other kinds of painting which could equally have resisted the injuries of the weather, the excessive aridity of certain elements, the moisture of subterraneous situations, and the encroachments of barbarians.

There are different opinions concerning the climate most proper to preserve this kind of painting. "It is observed (says Falibien), that the colours in fresco fade sooner in Italy and Languedoc than at Paris; perhaps from less heat in the last mentioned place, or better lime." M. Falconet contradicts this assertion in his notes on Pliny, vol. i. p. 223, of his miscellaneous works, published at Paris 1787. Painting in fresco, according to this author, is longer preserved in dry and warm, than in northern and moist climates. However opposite the sentiments of these two authors may appear to be, it is possible to reconcile them, when we consider, that the exposure to a burning sun is capable of operating a great change of the colours on the one hand, and that the frost in a cold climate inevitably destroys the paintings of fresco on the other. Frost is capable of bursting stones, of corroding the petrified veins of earth in the heart of coloured marble, and, in short, nothing can resist its destructive operation.

These observations on fresco paintings lead us to conclude, that the choice of place, when they are without doors, is of the greatest importance. In countries where where there is little or no frost, an exposure to the north is the most favourable; and in cold climates a western exposure should be made choice of, because the first rays of the rising sun have a very pernicious effect after frost. We are not, however, wholly to adopt the sentiment of M. Falconet with regard to the pernicious effects of moisture on fresco paintings: for,

1. The ancient paintings recovered from moist places, in which they were buried for many ages, have, under enormous heaps of earth, preserved all their colours. Those from the ruins of Herculaneum have been observed, on the contrary, to lose their colours in a short time after they have been dried by the exterior air.

2. The mortar which composes the ground of this painting is not destroyed in our rainy climates. It is necessary frequently to use powder in removing pieces of this mortar, which are now found to obstruct some buildings in Paris.

After the choice of place, the choice of materials is the next thing of importance in executing fresco. To make it durable, the ground is the object of chief attention; and to make this perfect, the mortar used by the ancients, now unknown, would be necessary.

It is easy to perceive, that a minute detail of forms, an extensive mixture and gradation of tints, and the merit of a delicate and gentle touch, can make no part of the excellencies of this kind of painting. It cannot bear a close examination like a picture in oil. There is always something dry and rough which displeases. An artist who would flatter himself with success in a fresco placed near the eye would be grossly deceived: a common spectator would find it coarse and badly finished.

Fresco is chiefly employed in palaces, temples, and public edifices. In these vast places no kind of painting can be preferred to it; large, vivid in its strokes, and constantly fresh, it enriches the architecture, animates it, and gives relief to the eye from the repetition of the same forms, and the monotony of colour in a place where coloured marbles and bronzes are not employed. Still more a fine fresco gives the greatest effect to a lofty building, since this building serves as a frame and support to this enchanting art, which fixes the attention of every person of sensibility and taste.

We shall afterwards have occasion to show the manner of executing fresco, as well as the nature and application of the colours employed in it: it is necessary to demonstrate here, that it has a freshness, splendour, and vigour not to be found in oil or water colours.

A known principle in all kind of painting is, that the colouring is more perfect in proportion as it approaches to the lights and shades in nature. As colours applied to any subject can never reach this degree of perfection, the allusion which painters produce consists in the comparison and opposition of the tones of colours among themselves.

If the white of the finest and purest oil appears heavy and grey, compared with great lights in natural white, it follows, that, in order to copy them with fidelity, the tones which follow the first white must be degraded in an exact proportion. Thus it is necessary that the shades of a picture be considerably deeper than those of the model; especially if, from the greatest lights to the browns, one hath proportionally followed the distance which is found between the colours on the pallet and the tones of the object copied.

Now if the white of fresco be infinitely more bright than that of oil, the same effect will be obtained in a brown tone. On the other side, if it constantly happens that the brown tones of fresco are much more vigorous than those of water colours, and equal even to the browns of oil itself, it is certain that it possesses a splendor and vigour more extensive than any other kind of painting. Thus in the hands of an artist who is well acquainted with the colours fit for fresco, it is more susceptible of the general effect, and more capable than any other kind of giving projection and the semblance of life to the figures.

If we were to inquire why painting in fresco is now scarcely or never practised, we should perhaps ascribe it to the great talents required to execute it. "Many of our painters (says Valari in his treatise on painting) excel in oil and water colours, and yet fail in fresco; because of all kinds this requires the greatest strength of genius, boldness in the strokes, and resolution." If in an age abounding in great matters, it was difficult to excel in this kind, it must be much more so in ours; but we should not require the characters of sublimity and style to which men were accustomed in the time of Valari.

We should execute in fresco as we do in oils; for Italy herself, along with Michael Angelo and Zuccaro, had Cortoni Giardano and Franciscini as middling fresco-painters. And in France, Laforet, Bon Boulouge, and Perur, performed several works in fresco which might be imitated by the painters of our times. But let us proceed to the real causes for abandoning this art. These proceed from the want of knowledge and taste in the persons who employ the artists, and from the manners of the age. As a pleasant or licentious conceit, unfinished colouring, and bold effects of shade, are the chief objects of consideration, a very smooth painting enlivened by gentle touches completely gratifies the person who pays the price; and therefore the philosophical principles of the art, which require study, are not cultivated.

We shall now attend to the mechanical process of this useful and beautiful kind of painting. Before painting, it is necessary to apply two layers. If the wall on which you are to paint is of brick, the layer is easily applied; but if it is of freestone closely united, it is necessary to make excavations in the stone, and to drive into them nails or pegs of wood in order to hold the first layer.

The first layer is made of good lime and a cement of pounded brick, or, which is still better, river-sand: this latter forms a layer more uneven, and better fitted to retain the second smooth and polished layer applied to its surface.

There should be experiments to discover a layer still more compact, and more independent of the variations of the air; such, for example, as covers the aqueducts and ancient reservoirs constructed by the Romans in the neighbourhood of Naples.

Before applying the second layer, or what you are to paint, it is necessary that the first be perfectly dry; for there issues from the lime, when it is moist, a smell both disagreeable and pernicious to the artist. When the first layer is perfectly dry, it is wet with water in proportion to its dryness, that the second layer may the more easily incorporate with it.

The second layer is composed of lime, flaked in the air, and exposed for a year, and of river-sand, of an equal grain, and moderately fine.

It requires an active and intelligent mason to apply this layer, as the surface must be altogether equal. The operation is performed with a trowel; and the operator requires to have a small piece of wood to take away the large grains of sand, which, remaining, might render the surface uneven.

To give a fine polish to this layer, one ought to take a sheet of paper, apply it to the wall, and pass and repass the trowel over the paper. By this means the little inequalities which hurt the exactness of the stroke, and which produce false appearances at a distance, are entirely smoothed.

The artist must not lay more than the painter can finish in a day, as this kind of painting must be executed on a fresh ground.

The layer being thus prepared, the painter begins his operation; but as painting in fresco must be executed rapidly, and as there is no time to retouch any of the strokes, the painter, as we have observed under the article Fresco, takes care to provide himself with large cartoons, on which he has drawn, with exactness, and in their full size, the figures which he is to paint, which leaves him nothing to do but to copy them on the wall.

The cartoons are composed of several sheets of large paper pasted one on another, neither too thick nor too slender.

The painter traces the tracks of the figures on the plaster, by passing a steel point over the tracks in the cartoons, or in pricking them.

Having in this manner attained an exact and speedy drawing, it now remains to execute the painting.

But it is essential, when one wishes to finish any small work of this kind, in the first place to be informed of the proper colours, and of those which cannot be used.

In general, the colours which are extracted from earths, and those which have passed through the fire, are the only ones which can be employed in this kind of painting.

The colours are white, made of lime, the white of egg-shells, ultramarine, the black of charcoal, yellow ochre, burnt vitriol, red earth, green of Verona, Venetian black, and burnt ochre.

There are others which require to be used with great precaution, such as enamel blue, cinnabar, and white marble dust.

When enamel blue is used, it requires to be applied instantaneously, and when the lime is very moist, otherwise it does not incorporate with the plaster; and if one retouch with this colour, it must be done an hour or more after the first application, to increase its lustre.

With regard to the white marble dust, it is subject to turn black if it be not mixed up with a convenient quantity of white lime.

Cinnabar, which has a splendor almost superior to all other colours, loses it almost entirely when mixed with lime. At the same time, it may be employed in places not exposed to the air, with a little care in the preparation. Reduce a quantity of the purest cinnabar to powder, put it into an earthen vessel, and pour lime-water on it for two or three times. By this process the cinnabar receives some impression of lime-water, which makes it capable of being employed in fresco-painting.

One of the best colours, and the one most used in fresco for the gradation of tints, and for giving the requisite tone, is white of lime. This white is prepared by mixing lime flaked long before with good water. The lime deposits a sediment at the bottom of the vessel; when the water is poured off, this sediment is the white of lime.

Another kind of white might be used, the effects of which would be known by experience, namely, the white of egg-shells. To prepare this white, one must take a great quantity of shells of eggs, which must be pounded and boiled in water along with a quantity of quicklime; after this they are put into a strainer, and washed repeatedly with fountain-water.

The shells are again pounded until the water employed for that purpose become pure and limpid; and when they are in this manner reduced to powder, this powder is grinded in water, and formed into small pieces, and dried in the sun.

All the different kinds of ochres make excellent colours for fresco, and take different shades, being previously burned in iron chests.

With regard to the Naples yellow, it is dangerous to use it where the painting is much exposed to the air. The blacks of charcoal, of peach-stones, and of vine twigs, are good; but that extracted from bones is of no value.

Roman vitriol gathered at the furnaces, and which is called burnt vitriol, grinded afterwards in spirit of wine, resists the air extremely well when employed in lime. There is also a red extracted from this preparation somewhat like that produced from lac.

This colour is very proper for preparing the layers to be coloured with cinnabar; and the draperies painted with these two colours will vie in splendor with those painted with fine lac in oil.

The ultramarine is the most faithful colour; and it not only never changes, but it communicates this precious quality to those colours with which it is mixed.

The manner of employing those colours, is to grind them in water, and to begin by arranging them into the principal tints you are to employ: these are afterwards put into pots; and it is necessary to use a great many pallets raised at the edges, to form the intermediate shades, and to have under your eye all the shades you require.

As all the tints, except burnt ochre, violet, red, and blacks of all kinds, are apt to become clear, the painter must have beside him some pieces of brick or new tile very dry. A dash of the colours is applied to one of these with the pencil before using them; and as the instantaneous imbibes the water, one perceives what the shade will be after the fresco is dry.

§2. Elydoric Painting, invented by M. Vincent of Montpetit.

This new kind of painting is little known, and capable of great improvement. Its principal advantages are, that the artist is able to give the greatest finishing possible to small figures in oil; to add to the mellowness of oil painting, the greatest beauty of water-colours in miniature, and to do it in such a manner that it appears like a large picture seen through a glass which diminishes objects.

This kind of painting takes its name from two Greek words expressive of oil and water; because these two liquids are employed in the execution. The following is the manner of proceeding: A piece of very fine linen, or of white taffety, is sized with starch, in the most equal manner possible, on pieces of glass about two inches square, the angles of which are blunted in order that the cloth may cover them neatly and without wrinkles.

When these pieces of cloth are sufficiently dry, a layer composed of white lead finely grinded, and oil of pinks or of poppies, the whitest that can be found, is applied to them with a knife. When this layer is dry enough to admit of scraping, more may be applied if necessary.

As it is of the greatest importance for the preservation of this kind of painting, that the different layers be purged of oil, in order that they may imbibe the colours applied to them, it is necessary that their surface be very smooth, very dry, and very hard.

The artist is next provided with a circle of copper nearly two inches in diameter, one-fourth of an inch in height, extremely thin, and painted on the inside with black. This circle is employed to contain the water on the surface of the picture.

The preference is given to water distilled from rain or snow; because ordinary water, from the salts which it contains, is pernicious to this kind of painting.

It is necessary also to observe, that the colours must be grinded between two oriental agates, most carefully preserved from dust, and mixed with oil of poppies, or any other fixative oil which has been extracted without fire, and pure as water.

All the colours being grinded, they are placed in a small heap on a piece of glass, which is covered with distilled water in a tin-box.

When the materials are thus prepared, the subject is slightly traced on one of the pieces of cloth above mentioned with a lead pencil.

The tints are formed on the pallets from the heaps of colours under the water, and the pallet placed as usual on the left arm with the thumb through the aperture.

The picture is held between the thumb and forefinger, supported by the middle, and the necessary pencils between the third and little fingers. The hand is supported on the back of a chair, that there may be full liberty of bringing the work near, or keeping it at a distance from the eye.

The pencils are cleaned with the essence of rectified turpentine.

After having made the rough draught with the colours still fresh, the circle of copper, which ought to surround the picture, is fitted exactly to the surface.

The distilled water is poured within this circle to the height of one-eighth part of an inch; and the body is leaned forward till the light fall perpendicularly on the object.

The third finger of the right hand must rest on the internal right angle of the picture.

The artist, with a fine and firm pencil, runs over the first draught, to give colours to the weak places, and to soften those which appear too strong.

As soon as the oil swims on the top, the water is poured off, and the picture is carefully covered with a watch-glass, and dried in a box with a gentle heat.

When it is sufficiently dry, to be scraped almost to a level with the knife: the above operation is renewed till the artist is satisfied with his work.

It is in this last work that the artist feels all the advantage of this new method for finishing.

The water poured on the picture discovers all the faults of the pencil, gives facility in searching into the bottom of the shades, and the power of correcting the work and of rendering it perfect.

When the work is finished, it is put under a crystal, where there is no admixture of external air, and dried with a gentle heat.

PART III. OF OECONOMICAL PAINTING.

SECTION I.

The object of this Part is to give an account of some mechanical proceedings in certain kinds of paintings, calculated to preserve and embellish the walls of houses and furniture. This branch of the art extends to every part of architecture. The whole building becomes the workshop of the artist; the stairs, the balustrades, the sashes, the doors, and the railing of all kinds, occupying his first care, and then the ceilings and wainscoting.

The artist gives to all his subjects a chosen and uniform tint; but he has in his power to vary the colours on different parts of the building in such a manner as to produce the most pleasing effect.

Among the utensils of the painter, it is needless to mention the kind of brushes and pencils of all sizes as absolutely necessary.

The brushes are made of boars bristles, or of hair with a mixture of bristles; they ought to be straight, very smooth, and of a round form. Half an hour before they are used, it is proper to soak them in water, in order to fatten the wood of the handle, and prevent the hairs from falling off; after this they may be applied to all purposes, either in water colours or in oil; but it may be observed, that for the former they require less softening.

The pencils are made of badgers hair, or any fine hairs enchased in the pipes of quills of all sizes.

The vessel wherein the pencils are cleaned is made of copper or of tin, smooth below, rounded at the ends, and divided into two parts by a thin plate in the middle. The oil, or the substance with which the pencil is cleaned, is contained in one of the divisions.

The pallet is made of the wood of the pear or apple tree, of an oval or square shape, very slender, but Painting

Oeconomical painting somewhat thicker at the centre than at the extremities. A hole is made in one of its sides sufficiently large to admit the thumb of the workman.

When the pallet is new, it is covered with oil of walnuts; and as often as it dries, the operation is repeated, till it be fully impregnated; it is afterwards polished, and finally rubbed with a piece of linen dipped in oil of common nuts.

The painter's knife is a thin flexible plate, equally slender on both sides, rounded at one extremity, and the other fixed into a handle of wood.

All the vessels employed to hold the colours should be varnished; a precaution necessary to prevent their drying too quickly.

To grind, is to reduce to powder the substances which give colours on a piece of marble or any hard stone by means of water, oil, or essence.

To dilute, is to impregnate a liquid with a tint in such a manner as to make it capable of being applied by a brush.

When the materials are grinded in water, it is proper to dilute them in size made from parchment. If they are diluted in spirit of wine, there must be no more diluted than what serves the immediate occasion, as colours prepared in this manner dry very rapidly.

Colours grinded in oil are sometimes diluted with pure oil, more frequently with oil mixed with essence, and commonly with the pure essence of turpentine; the essence makes the colours easy to work. Those prepared in this manner are more solid, but they require more time to dry.

When colours are grinded with the essence of turpentine, and diluted in varnish, as they require to be immediately applied, it is necessary to prepare a small quantity at a time. This preparation of colours gives greater brilliancy, and dries more speedily, than those prepared in oil; but they require more art to manage them.

They grind colours or coloured substances with a mullet, which is employed on the stone till they become a very fine powder. The operation is facilitated by moistening them from time to time with a little water, and by collecting them under the mullet with the knife. They are afterwards laid in small heaps on a sheet of white paper, and allowed to dry in a situation not exposed to dust. Those who grind white lead have a stone for the purpose, as this colour is very easily varnished. In executing this part well, it is necessary to grind the colours equally and moderately; to grind them separately, and not to produce a tint by mixture till the colours are well prepared.

Dilute no more at a time than what you have occasion to employ, to prevent them from growing thick.

In grinding the colours, put in no more liquid than what is necessary to make the solid substances yield easily to the mullet; the more the colours are grinded, they mix better, and give a smoother and more agreeable painting.

It is also necessary to give all attention to the grinding and diluting of colours, that they may be neither too thick nor too thin.

Sect. II. Application of Colours.

1. Prepare only the quantity necessary for the work you undertake, because they do not keep long;

2. Hold the brush straight before you, and allow only the surface to be applied to the subject; if you hold it inclined in any other direction, you will run the hazard of painting unequally.

3. It is necessary to lay on the colours boldly, and with great strokes; taking care at the same time to spread them equally over the surface, and not filling up the moulding and carved work. If this accident should happen, you must have a little brush to clean out the colours.

4. Stir them frequently in the vessel, that they may preserve always the same tint, and that no sediment may remain at the bottom.

5. Take care not to overcharge the brush with the colour.

6. Never apply a second layer till the first or preceding one be perfectly dry; which it is easily known to be when, in bearing the hand gently over it, it does not adhere.

7. In order to render this drying more speedy and uniform, make always the layers as thin as possible.

8. Before painting, it is necessary to prime the subject; that is, to give it a layer of size, or of white colouring oil, to fill up the pores, and render the surface smooth; by this means fewer layers of colour or of varnish are afterwards necessary.

9. Every subject to be painted or gilded ought to have first a white ground; this preserves the colours fresh and vivid, and repairs the damage which they occasionally receive from the air.

§ I. Of Painting in Water-colours.

To paint in water-colours, is to do it in those which are grinded in water and diluted in size. There are three kinds of this painting; namely, common, the varnished, and that which is called king's white; but before entering on these, it is necessary to make some preliminary observations.

1. Take care that there be no grease on the subject; and if there be, scrape it off, or clean it with a lye, or rub the greasy part with garlic and wormwood.

2. Let the diluted colour fall in threads from the end of the brush when you take it out of the vessel; if it adheres to it, it is a proof that it wants size.

3. Let all the layers, especially at the beginning, be laid on very warm, provided that the liquid be not boiling, which would effectually spoil the subject; and if on wood, expose it to crack. The last layer, given immediately before the varnish, is the only one which ought to be applied cold.

4. In very fine work, where it is necessary to have beautiful and solid colours, the subjects are prepared by size and proper whites, which serve as a ground to receive the colour, and render the surface very equal and smooth.

5. Whatever colour is to be laid on, the white ground is the best, as it assimilates most easily with the painting, which borrows always something of the ground.

6. If knots of wood are found in the subject, it is necessary to rub them with garlic, to make the size adhere. To make the following details sufficiently plain, we shall take the measures to which the quantity of colours are applied at fathoms; that is to say, six feet in height by six feet in breadth. We shall afterwards fix the quantity of materials, and of liquids necessary to cover this surface. This, however, cannot be exactly defined; as some subjects imbibe the colours much more than others. The manner of employing them also makes a difference; as habit enables one to manage them to greater advantage than another. And it is also to be observed, that the first layer will consume more than the second; and that a prepared subject requires less than one which has not been so.

When we speak of a fathom, it must be understood of a smooth and equal surface; for if the wood is varied with mouldings and carving, there must be a difference in the quantity of colours. In general it requires about a pound of colours to paint a square fathom in water-colours. In making up this quantity, take three-fourths of colours grinded in water, and one-fourth pound, or six ounces, of size to dilute it.

§ 2. Of Painting in common Water-colours.

Works which require no great care or preparation, as ceilings and staircases, are generally painted in common water colours, i.e., with earths infused in water and diluted in size.

For a common white kind of this painting, steep Spanish white moderately pounded in water for two hours. Infuse a proper quantity of the black of charcoal in water for the same space of time; mix the black and white in the proportion that the tint requires; afterwards mix them up with a pretty strong size, sufficiently thick and warm, and apply them to the subject in as many layers as may be thought necessary. It requires about two pounds of white in a pint of water, and a quantity of black in proportion to the tint, together with a part of size, to cover a square fathom. If this be employed on old walls, they must be well scraped, the dust brushed off with a hair besom, and washed carefully with lime water. If on new plaster, the colours require more size.

All kinds of colours may be grinded in water only when the tint is made; and when they have been infused in water, they must be mixed up with size.

§ 3. Walls done with the White Des Carmes.

The white des carmes is a manner of whitening interior walls, whereby they are rendered extremely beautiful.

1. Procure a quantity of the very best lime, and pass it through fine linen; pour it into a large tub, furnished with a spigot at the height equal to that which the lime occupies; fill the tub with clear fountain-water; beat the mixture with great pieces of wood, and then allow it to settle for 24 hours.

2. Open the spigot, allow the water to run off, supply the tub with fresh water, and continue this operation for several days until the lime receives the greatest degree of whiteness.

3. When you allow the water finally to run off, the lime will be found in the constituency of paste; but with the quantity you use it is necessary to mix a little Prussian blue or indigo to relieve the brightness of the white, and a small quantity of turpentine to give it brilliancy. The size proper for it is made of glove-leather, with the addition of some alum; and the whole is applied with a strong brush in five or six layers to new plaster.

4. The wall is strongly rubbed over with a brush of hogs bristles after the painting is dry; which gives it its lustre and value, and which makes it appear like marble or flucco.

§ 4. Of Badgeon.

Badgeon is a pale yellow colour applied to plaster to make it appear like free stones. It gives to old houses and churches the exterior of a new building, by affuming the colour of stones newly cut.

1. Take a quantity of lime newly killed.

2. Add to it the half quantity of what the French call "fécule de pierre," in which you have mixed of the ochre of rue, according to the colour of the stone you intend to imitate.

3. Steep the whole in a pail of water, in which is melted a pound of rock alum. When the fécule de pierre cannot be obtained, it is necessary to use a greater quantity of ochre de rue, or of yellow ochre, or grind the scales of the stone de St Leu; pass it through a sieve; and along with the lime it will form a cement, on which the weather will scarcely make any impression.

§ 5. Of Ceilings and the Roofs of Rooms.

When the ceilings or roofs are new, and you wish to whiten them, take white of Bougival, to which add a little of the black of charcoal to prevent the white from growing reddish: infuse them separately in water; mix the whole with half water and half size of glove-leather, which being strong would make the layer come off in rolls if it were not reduced with water. Give two layers of this tint while it is lukewarm.

If the roof has been formerly whitened, it is necessary to scrape to the quick all the remaining white; then give it two or three layers of lime to ground and whiten it: Brush it carefully over; and give it two or three layers of the white of Bougival prepared as before.

§ 6. Of Colouring the backs of Chimneys with Lead Ore.

Clean them with a very strong brush, and carefully rub off the dust and rust; pound about a quarter of a pound of lead ore into a fine powder, and put it into a vessel with half a pint of vinegar; then apply it to the back of the chimney with a brush: When it is made black with this liquid, take a dry brush, dip it in the same powder without vinegar, and dry and rub it with this brush till it become shining as glass.

§ 7. Of Varnished Water-colours.

The advantages of this kind of painting are, that the colours do not fade; that they reflect the light; that they give no offensive smell, but permit the places to be inhabited as soon as finished; and that the varnish preserves the wood from insects and moisture.

To make a fine varnish on water colours, seven principal operations are necessary; namely, to fixe the wood, to prepare the white, to soften and rub the subject, to clean the moulding, to paint to size, and to varnish. To size the wood is to give one or two layers of size to the subject which you intend to paint.

Take three heads of garlic and a handful of wormwood leaves; boil them in three pints of water till they are reduced to one; pass the juice through a linen cloth, and mix it with a pint of parchment size; add half a handful of salt and half a pint of vinegar; and boil the whole on the fire.

Size the wood with this boiling liquor; allow it to penetrate into the carved and smooth places of the wood, but take care at the same time to take it as clean off the work as possible, or at least to leave it at no place thicker than another. This first sizing serves to fill up the pores of the wood, and to prevent the materials afterwards from collecting in a body, which would cause the work to fall off in scales.

In a pint of strong parchment size, to which you have added four pints of warm water, put two handfuls of white Bougival, and allow it to infuse for the space of half an hour.

Stir it well, and give a single layer of it to the subject very warm but not boiling, equally and regularly laid on, and daubed with repeated strokes of the brush into the mouldings and carved work.

To prepare the white, take a quantity of strong parchment size, and sprinkle lightly over it, with the hand, Bougival white, till the size be covered with it about half an inch in thickness; allow it to soak for half an hour as near the fire as to keep it milk warm; and then stir it with the brush till the lumps are broken, and it be sufficiently mixed.

Give seven, eight, or ten layers of this white, or as many as the nature of the work or the defects in the wood shall render necessary, giving more white to the parts which require to be softened; but in general, the layers must be equal both with regard to the quantity of the white and the strength of the size.

The last layer of the white ought to be clearer than the rest, which is made by adding water. It must be applied more slightly, taking care with small brushes to cover all the difficult places in the mouldings and carved work. It is necessary also, between the drying of the different layers, to fill up all the defects with white mastich and size.

To soften, is to give to the subject after the whitening a smooth and equal surface, and to rub it over with a pumice stone.

The wood being dry, take little pieces of white wood and of pumice-stone, grinded for the purpose into all necessary forms, either for the panels or the moulding.

Take cold water, heat being destructive of this kind of work; in summer it is common to add a little ice. Soften the wall with a brush, but only as much at a time as you can easily work, as the water might dilute the white and spoil the whole: Then smooth and rub it with the pumice stones and with the small pieces of wood: Wash it with a brush as you smooth it; and rub it over with a piece of new linen, which gives a fine lustre to the work.

The mouldings and carved work are cleaned with an iron; and the only thing to be attended to in the operation is not to raise the grain of the wood.

The subject thus prepared is ready to receive the colour you intend to give it. Choose your tint; sup. Painting in Oil-colours.

Grind white ceruse and Bougival white separately in water, of each an equal quantity, and mix them together.—Add a little blue of indigo and a very small quantity of black of charcoal from the vine-tree very fine, grinded also separately, and in water; more or less of the one or other gives the tint you require.—Dilute this tint in strong parchment size; pass it through a bolting cloth of silk very fine, and lay the tint on your work, taking care to spread it very equally; and then give it two layers, and the colour is applied.

Make a weak, beautiful, and clean size; stir it till it cools; strain it through a fine cloth, and give two layers to the work with a soft painting brush, which has been used, but which you have been careful to clean. Take care not to choke up the mouldings nor to lay on the size thicker on one place than another, and spread it over the work very slightly, otherwise you will dilute the colours, and occasion undulations in the painting.

The beauty of the work depends on this last sizing; for if any part is omitted, the varnish will penetrate into the colours and give it a darker shade.

When the sizing is dry, lay on two or three layers of spirit-of-wine varnish, taking care that the place on which you lay it be warm, and the work is finished.

§ 3. Of the King's White.

This derives its name from the use of it in the apartments of the French king. It is in all respects conducted like the former, except that there is only a small quantity of indigo, to take the yellow from the white, without any black of charcoal, and without varnish.

This white answers extremely well for apartments which are seldom used; but otherwise it spoils easily, especially in bed-chambers. It is the best white where there is any kind of gilding; and in this case it receives a little varnish.

Sect. III. Of Painting in Oil-colours.

To paint in oil is to apply to all sorts of subjects, as walls, wood, cloths, and metals, coloured earths grinded and diluted in oil. The ancients are thought to have been ignorant of this art, and the honour of the discovery is generally ascribed to John Van Eyck a Flemish painter. The secret is nothing more than substituting oil in place of water in grinding and diluting colours.

By means of oil the colours are longer preserved; and not drying so speedily, they give painters longer time to smooth, finish, and retouch their works; the colours being more marked, and mixing better together, give more distinguishable tints, and more vivid and agreeable gradations, and the colouring is more sweet and delicate.

The painting in oil consists of two kinds, namely, of that in simple oil and of that in polished oil varnish.

§ 1. Observations on painting in Oil.

1. When bright colours, as white or grey, are ground and diluted in oil, it is necessary to make use of the Painting in oil of walnuts; but if the colours be dark, such as Oil-colours, chestnut, or olive, or brown, you must make use of pure linseed oil.

2. When the colours are grinded and diluted in oil, they must be laid on cold, except on a new or moist plaster, which requires them to be boiling.

3. Every colour diluted in pure oil, or in oil mixed with essence, ought to fall in threads from the end of the brush.

4. Take care to stir from time to time your colour before taking it up on the brush, that it may preserve an equal thickness, and consequently the same tone. Notwithstanding the precaution of stirring, if it is found to be thicker towards the bottom, it will be necessary to pour in from time to time a little oil.

5. In general, every subject which is painted in oil ought first to receive one or two layers of white ceruse, grinded and diluted in oil.

6. When the painting is exposed to the air, as in doors, windows, and other works, which cannot be varnished, it is necessary to make these layers with pure oil of walnuts, mixed up with about one ounce of essence to a pound of colours; more would make the colours brown, and occasion them to fall off in dust; but this quantity prevents the sun from blistering the work.

7. In subjects on the inside of the house, or when the painting is varnished, the first layer ought to be grinded and diluted in oil, and the last diluted with pure essence.

8. If copper or iron, or other hard substances, are to be painted, it is necessary to mix a little essence with the first layers, to make the oil penetrate into them.

9. When there are many knots in the subject, as is particularly the case with fir-wood, and when the colour does not easily take impression on these parts, it is necessary, when you paint with simple oil, to lay on a little oil mixed with litharge on the knots. If you paint with polished oil varnish, it is necessary to apply a hard tint, which we shall have occasion to speak of afterwards. A single layer well applied is generally sufficient to give a body to the wood, and make the other layers apply easily.

10. There are colours, such as what the French call fil-de-grain, black of charcoal, and especially bone and ivory blacks, which are difficult to dry when grinded in oil. To remedy this inconvenience, the following fixatives are mixed with the colours, to make them dry, viz. litharge both of the silver and gold colour, vitriol or copperas, and what is called fixative oil.

§ 2. Observations on the Fixatives.

1. Do not mix the fixatives with the colours till they are to be employed, otherwise it will thicken them.

2. Mix it only in very small quantities in tin, wherein there is white lead or ceruse, because those colours are fixative of themselves, especially when they are diluted in essence.

3. In painting which is to be varnished, give the fixative only to the first layer, and allow the other layers, in which there is essence, to dry of themselves.

4. In dark colours in oil, give to every pound of colours in diluting them half an ounce of litharge; painting in to bright colours, a drachm of white copperas grind ed in walnut oil.

5. When in place of litharge or copperas the fixative oil is employed, it requires a quarter of this oil to every pound of colour.

The fixative oil is prepared of one half ounce of litharge, as much of calcined ceruse, as much of terre d'ombre, a colour with which the French paint shadows, and as much of talc boiled for two hours on a slow and equal fire, with one pound of linseed oil, and stirred the whole time. It must be carefully skimmed and clarified, and the older it grows it is better.

§ 3. Observations on the Quantities of Substances and Liquids.

1. Ochres and earths require more liquids both in grinding and diluting than ceruse.

2. Different quantities of liquids are required in the grinding only on account of greater or less dryness; but in diluting, the quantity is always the same.

3. For the first layer after the priming, which has no relation to the colours laid on afterwards, to a square fathom give fourteen ounces of ceruse, about two ounces of liquid to grind, and four ounces to dilute it. If there is a second layer of the same materials, the quantities will require to be less.

4. It will require three pounds of colour for three layers of a square fathom. The first may consume eighteen ounces, the second sixteen, and the third fourteen.

5. To compose these three pounds of colour, take two or two and a half pounds of grinded colours, and dilute them in a pint or three half pints of oil, mixed with essence or pure oil. But if the first layer of ceruse is not used, there will be a necessity for a greater quantity of colours.

N.B. In the following kinds and applications of oil painting, we are to hold those proportions in our eye.

§ 4. Painting in Simple Oil.

On doors and windows give a layer of ceruse grinded in oil of walnuts diluted in the same oil, together with windows, a little fixative; then give another layer of the same varnish preparation; to which, if you want a greyish-dow-thust-colour, add a little black of charcoal and Prussian blue, ters, grinded also in oil of walnuts. If to these you incline to add a third layer, grind and dilute it in pure walnut oil; observing that the two last layers be less clear, or have less oil in them, than the first; the colour in this case is more beautiful and less apt to blister with the sun.

Walls that are to be painted must be very dry; and this being supposed, give two or three layers of boiling linseed oil to harden the plaster; then lay on two layers of ceruse or ochre, grinded and diluted in linseed oil; and when these are dry, paint the wall.

To paint tiles of a slate colour, grind separately ceruse and German black in linseed oil; mix them together in the proportion which the colour requires, and dilute them in linseed oil; then give the first layer very clean to prime the tiles; and make the three next layers thicker, to give solidity to the work.

To paint arbours and all kinds of garden work, give Painting in give a layer of white ceruse grinded in oil of walnuts, Oil-colours and diluted in the same oil, with the addition of a little litharge, then give two layers of green, composed of one pound of verde-grife and two pounds of white lead, grinded and diluted in oil of walnuts. N.B. This green is of great service in the country for doors, window shutters, arbours, gardens, seats, rails, either of wood or iron; and in short for all works exposed to the injuries of the weather.

To whiten flatues, vases, and all ornaments of stone, either within or without doors; first clean the subject well, then give one or two layers of white ceruse, grinded and diluted in pure oil of pinks, and finish with giving one or many layers of white lead prepared in the same manner.

If you wish to paint on walls not exposed to the air, or on new platter, give one or two layers of boiling linseed oil, and continue the brush till the walls are fully soaked; then give a layer of white ceruse, grinded in oil of walnuts and diluted with three fourths of the same oil and one fourth essence; and lastly, give two layers more of white ceruse, grinded in oil of walnuts and diluted in oil mixed with essence, if it is not to be varnished; but in pure essence if it is. It is in this manner that walls are painted white. If you adopt another colour, it is necessary to grind and dilute it in the same quantities of oil and essence.

To paint chairs, benches, stone, or platter, give a layer of white ceruse grinded in oil of walnuts and diluted in the same oil, into which you have cast a little litharge to make it dry; then apply a layer of the tint you fix on, grinded in oil and diluted in one part oil and three parts essence; and afterwards give two more layers of the same tint grinded in oil and diluted in pure essence: This may be varnished with two layers of spirit of wine.

To make a steel colour, grind separately in essence, white ceruse, Prussian blue, fine lac, and verde-grife. The tone which you require is procured by the proper mixture of those ingredients. When you have fixed on the tone of colour, take about the size of a walnut of the ingredients, and dilute them in a small vessel in one part of essence and three parts of white oily varnish. N.B. This colour is generally made of white ceruse, of black charcoal, and Prussian blue, grinded in thick oil, and diluted in essence, which is the cheapest method of procuring it; but the former is the most beautiful.

For painting ballustrades and railings, dilute lampblack with varnish of vermilion; giving two layers of it, and afterwards two layers of spirit-of-wine varnish.

Since the discovery of oil-painting, and the knowledge that wood is preserved by it, and especially since the discovery of a varnish without smell, and which even takes away that of oil, the painting of apartments in oil has been with justice preferred.

In fact the oil stops up the pores of the wood; and although it does not altogether resist the impression of moisture, yet the effect is so little perceptible, that it is to be recommended as the best method of preserving wood.

To preserve wainscoting in the most effectual manner from moisture, it is necessary to paint the wall behind it with two or three layers of common red, grind Painting in Oil-colours and diluted in linseed oil.

To paint the wainscoting itself, give a layer of white ceruse grinded in oil of walnuts, and diluted in the same oil mixed with essence. This layer being dry, give two more of the colour you have adopted, grinded in oil and diluted in pure essence. If you with the mouldings and sculpture to be painted in a different colour, grind and dilute it in the same manner.

Two or three days after, when the colours are fully dry, give two or three layers of your white varnish without smell, and which also prevents the offensive smell of the oil colours. N.B. Those who begin their operations in water colours, if they find it more agreeable, may finish it in oil colours as above.

When the pores of the wood are well stopped by the prepared white, a layer of white ceruse grinded in oil of walnuts, and diluted in the same oil, mixed with essence, may be applied. This will be sufficient, the wood being previously primed; and afterwards lay on your intended colour and varnish.

§ 5. Painting in Oil with the polished Varnish.

This is the best kind of oil-painting, owing more to the care it requires than to the proceedings, for they are nearly the same with those of simple oil-painting; the difference consisting only in the preparation and manner of finishing.

To paint wainscottings of apartments with the polished varnish, it is necessary, in the first place, that tings the pannels be new. Then,

1. Make the surface of the subject which you mean to paint very smooth and level, which is done by a layer, which serves to receive the hard tint or polished ground and the colours.

This layer ought to be of white, whatever colour you are afterwards to apply. It consists of white ceruse, grinded very fine in linseed oil, with a little litharge, and diluted in the same oil mixed with essence.

2. Make the polished ground by seven or eight layers of the hard tint. In painting equipages, a dozen is necessary.

The hard tint is made, by grinding pure white ceruse, which has not been much calcined, very finely in thick oil, and diluting it with essence. You must take care that the layers of the hard tint be not only equal as to the application, but to the quantity of the white ceruse and the oil, and to the degree of calcination. Then,

3. Soften this ground with pumice-stone.

4. Polish it moderately with a piece of serge soaked in a pail of water, in which you have put some powder of pumice-stone finely grinded and passed through a fine sieve. There is no occasion to spare washings, as this part of the operation will not spoil with water.

5. Choose the tint with which you intend to decorate your apartment; grind it in oil, and dilute it in essence; pass it through a piece of very fine silk, give two or three layers carefully and thinly spread over the surface, as on this part of the operation depends in a great measure the beauty of the colour. All sorts of colours Painting in colours may be employed in this manner in oil of essence.

6. Give two or three layers of a spirit-of-wine varnish, if it is to wainscoting; if to the body of a coach, a varnish of oil is employed. If the varnish is to be polished, it is necessary to give seven or eight layers at least, laid on equally and with great precaution, not to be thicker in one place than another, which occasions spots.

7. It is again polished with pumice-stone reduced to powder, and water and a piece of serge. If the wainscoting has been painted before, it is necessary to rub off the colour till you come to the hard tint, which is done with pumice-stone and water, or with a piece of linen dipped in essence.

There is a white painting in oil, called white varnish polish, which corresponds to the king's white in water colours, and is equal to the freshness and glofs of marble if it is applied to wood. To paint in this manner,

1. Give a layer of white ceruse grinded in oil of walnuts, with a little calcined copperas, and diluted in essence. But if it is applied to stone, it is necessary to employ oil of walnuts and calcined copperas alone.

2. Grind white ceruse very fine in essence, and dilute it in fine white oil varnish with copal.

3. Give seven or eight layers of it to the subject.—The varnish mixed with the white ceruse dries so promptly, that three layers of it may be given in a day.

4. Soften and polish all the layers as above.

5. Give two or three layers of white lead grinded in oil of walnuts, and diluted in pure essence.

6. Give seven or eight layers of white spirit-of-wine varnish, and then polish them.

§ 6. Of painting in Varnish.

To paint in varnish, is to employ colours grinded and diluted in varnish, either in spirits of wine or oil, on all sorts of subjects. Wainscoting, furniture, and equipages, are painted in this manner, though we shall confine ourselves to the first.

1. Give two layers of white of Bougival, diluted in a strong size boiling hot.

2. Give a layer of what the French call de blanc apprît.

3. Fill up the defects of the wood with mastic in water; and when the layers are dry, smooth them with the pumice-stone.

4. When the wood is smooth, suppose the paint a grey colour, take one pound of white ceruse, one drachm of Prussian blue, or of black of charcoal or ivory black; put the white into a piece of leather, so tied that the colours cannot escape; shake them till they are sufficiently mixed.

5. Put two ounces of colours into a quartern of varnish, mix them carefully; give one layer above the white.

6. This layer being dry, put one ounce of colours into the same quantity of varnish as above, and give a second layer.

7. To the third layer give half an ounce of colour to the same quantity of varnish.

8. As each of these layers dry, be careful to rub them with a piece of new coarse cloth, in such a manner, however, as not to injure the colour. N.B. The proportion of colours three layers may be given in one day.

9. If you want to give a perfect lustre, add a fourth layer prepared as the third.

All other colours, as blue, &c. may be applied in the same manner. This method is the only one by which orpiment can be employed in all its beauty, but not without some of its inconveniences.

Another manner of performing this kind of work, is to apply the colours and the varnish without previously using the size and the white ground. This is extremely expeditious, but it is easy to perceive it will want the polish and brilliancy of the other.

SECTION IV.

We cannot perhaps more properly conclude this article, than with an account of M. de Morveau's attempts to render more perfect the proportion of colours, and especially of white, employed in painting. These we shall extract from a memoir of his read in the academy of Dijon.

"White (says the ingenious academician) is the most important of all colours in painting. It affords to the painter the materials of light, which he distributes in such a manner as to bring his objects together, to give them relief, and that magic which is the glory of his art. For these reasons I shall confine my attention at present to this colour.

"The first white which was discovered, and indeed the only one yet known, is extracted from the calx of lead. The danger of the process, and the dreadful distemper with which those employed in it are often seized, have not yet led to the discovery of any other white. Let us anxious, indeed, about the danger of the artist than the perfection of the art, they have varied the preparation, to render the colour less liable to change. Hence the different kinds of white, viz. white of crema in Austria, white lead in shells, and white ceruse. But every person conversant in colours, knows that the foundation of all these is the calx of lead, more or less pure, or more or less loaded with gas. That they all participate of this metallic substance, will indeed appear evident from the following experiment, which determines and demonstrates the alterability of colours by the phlogistic vapour.

"I poured into a large glass bottle a quantity of liver of sulphur, on a basis of alkali, fixed or volatile, it makes no difference; I added some drops of distilled vinegar, and I covered the mouth of the bottle with a piece of pasteboard cut to its size, on which I disposed different samples of crema, of white lead, and of ceruse, either in oil or in water; I placed another ring of pasteboard over the first, and tied above all a piece of bladder round the neck of the bottle with a strong pack-thread. It is evident, that in this operation I took advantage of the means which chemistry offers to produce a great quantity of phlogistic vapour, to accomplish instantaneously the effect of many years; and, in a word, to apply to the colours the very same vapours to which the picture is necessarily exposed, only more accumulated and more concentrated. I say the same vapour, for it is now fully established, that the smoke of candles, animal exhalations of all kinds, alkaline odours, the electric effluvia, and even light, furnish continually..." Part III.

Proportion continually a quantity more or less of matter, not only of Colours analogous, but identically the same with the vapour of vitriolic acid mixed with sulphur.

"If it happens that the samples of colours are sensibly altered by the phlogistic vapour, then we may conclude with certainty, that the materials of which the colours are composed, bear a great affinity to that vapour; and since it is not possible to preserve them entirely from it in any situation, that they will be more or less affected with it, according to the time and a variety of circumstances.

"After some minutes continuance in this vapour, I examined the samples of colours submitted to its influence, and found them wholly altered. The ceruse and the white lead both in water and oil were changed into black, and the white of creams into a brownish black; and hence those colours are bad, and ought to be abandoned. They may indeed be defended in some measure by varnish; but this only retards for a time the contact of the phlogistic vapour; for as the varnish loses its humidity, it opens an infinite number of passages to this subtle fluid.

"After having ascertained the instability of the whites in common use, I made several attempts to discover such as would prove more lasting; and tho' many of these attempts were without effect, I shall give a succinct account of the whole, which may save a great deal of trouble to those who wish to travel over the same field.

"There are three conditions essential to a good colour in painting.

"First, That it dilute easily, and take a body both with oils and with mucilages, or at least with the one or other of these substances, a circumstance which depends on a certain degree of affinity. Where this affinity is too strong, a diffusion ensues; the colour is extinguished in the new composition, and the mass becomes more or less transparent; or else the sudden reaction absorbs the fluid, and leaves only a dry substance, which can never again be softened. But if the affinity is too weak, the particles of colour are scarcely suspended in the fluid, and they appear on the canvas like sand, which nothing can fix or unite.

"The second condition is, That the materials of which colours are composed do not bear too near an affinity with the phlogistic vapour. The experiments to which I submitted whites from lead, is an infallible means of ascertaining the quality of colours in this respect, without waiting for the slow impression of time.

"A third condition equally essential is, That the colouring body be not volatile, that it be not connected with a substance of a weak texture, susceptible of a spontaneous degeneracy. This consideration excludes the greater part of substances which have received their tint from vegetable organization; at least it makes it impossible to incorporate their finer parts with a combination more solid.

"After these reflections, my researches were directed, first, to the five pure earths; next, to the earthy compounds; in the third place, to the earthy salts, which can scarcely be dissolved; lastly, to the metallic earths, either pure or precipitated by Prussian alkali. M. Wenzel has discovered a sixth earth, which I call alumine, and which, after other experiments, I thought of applying to the purposes of painting; but I soon perceived that it would have the same fault with other kinds of earth, and, besides, that it could not be obtained but at a very considerable expense.

"The five pure earths possess fixity in a very great degree, and at the same time are little affected by the phlogistic vapour; but they refuse to unite with oil or mucilages, and the white is totally extinguished when they are grinded with these liquids. I made several attempts on earth from alum, not only because M. Beaume recommended the use of it in painting, and because it enters into the composition of Prussian blue, but also because it is a chief ingredient in ochres, and other earths of that nature, which supposes that it should unite in a certain degree with diluting liquors; notwithstanding, in whatever manner I treated it, it would not yield a white; but one will be less surprised at this want of success, when he considers, that in the ochres and Prussian blue, the earth from alum is only the vehicle of the colouring body, whereas here it is the colour itself.

"To be convinced of the truth of this observation, it is only necessary to mix equal parts of this earth, or even of clay not coloured, with ceruse or any other white: the mixture will be susceptible of being grinded in oil or in gum without being extinguished; it will easily unite with any coloured substance, and be productive of no bad consequences to the pure earths.

Nature and art prefer to us a considerable number of earthy compositions sufficiently white for the purposes of painting; such as the jasper white, the feldspar white, the shell white, &c. But all these substances, in all the trials which I made, had the fault which I have already mentioned; and originating from the same cause, they wanted a fixed colouring body, which would not change when it is pulverized, nor be extinguished when it is diluted.

"The ultramarine blue, which is extracted from the blue jasper, and known by the name of lapis lazuli, seems at first view to warrant the possibility of appropriating to painting all the opaque half-vitrified compositions of the nature of jasper.

"Prepossessed with this idea, I conceived the hope of producing a true white lapis; but I soon perceived that the experiment confirmed the principle which I had laid down from my observations on pure earths; since it is not the substance peculiar to the jasper which constitutes the ultramarine blue, but the metallic substance which accidentally colours this particular kind of jasper.

"In the same manner, art in this imitation of nature should have for its object to give a permanent base to a colour already formed, to fix it without altering, and to augment perhaps its splendour and its intensity, without attempting to produce a colour.

"In excepting from earthy and metallic salts all those of which the acid is not completely saturated, which would easily attract the humidity of the air, or which would be easily dissolved, you have but a very small number to make experiments on.

"The natural and artificial flintite gives with oil a paste without colour, and tainting somewhat like honey; its white is better preserved with a gum, but even in this case it resembles a half-transparent pap.

"The nature or regenerated flint percent is the most likely salt to produce white. As it is of all others the

Proportion most difficult to dissolve, it appears after pulverization of Colours, to be a very fine white, but is scarcely touched with oil when it becomes grey and half transparent: the mucilage alters it also, although less discernibly; and it does not even refine its white colour until it becomes dry on the canvas.

"The same is the case with calcareous borax, formed by the dissolution of borax in lime-water; its white is completely extinguished with oil, lets go with gum; but it hardens so instantaneously with the latter, that it is impossible ever to dilute it again.

"Calcareous tartar, obtained by casting quicklime into a boiling dissolution of cream of tartar, is affected with oil in the same manner as calcite; but with mucilaginous water it gives a pretty good white, only possessed of little reflection, and appearing like plaster; it applied very well to the canvases, and resisted the phlogistic vapour.

"According to M. Weber, in his work intitled Farbenkunst und Kunst, published 1781, the white called in Germany kremfer weiß, is nothing but the vitriol of lead, prepared by dissolving lead in nitrous acid, and precipitating it in vitriolic acid; and forming it afterwards into solid tablets by means of gum water. It is certain that this resembles in no shape the white called in France the white of crema; at least I never found that it could be dissolved in vinegar; but I tried the white prepared in M. Weber's manner, and the result was the same as above, that is to say, it turned completely black.

"The vitriols of lead and of bismuth alter more speedily than the calces of those metals. And thus, with the exception of calcareous tartar, which may be of some use in water-colours, the best earthy salts on which I have made experiments, may all, or the most of them, give a base to some colours, but cannot constitute by themselves a colour useful in painting.

"Of the fifteen known metallic substances, there are nine which yield white calces; namely, silver, mercury, lead, tin, antimony, bismuth, zinc, arsenic, and manganese.

"Of these nine substances, we may almost pass over silver and mercury; because, though they yield a very fine white, precipitated by means of crystallized vegetable alkali, yet it is soon altered when exposed to the air; that from silver changing into black, and that from mercury into yellow.

"It is well known that lead gives a very good white, and one which unites easily with oil or size; but that it is extremely liable to change, has been my principal object to prove; and the experiments which I have made place it beyond contradiction.

"I shall only add, that if there is a preparation able to correct this fault, it should be the precipitation of the earth of this metal in its acetic dissolution by Prussian alkali; but the white which results from this preparation becomes sensibly brownish when it is exposed a few minutes only to the phlogistic vapour.

"It would be therefore unreasonable to persevere in the use of this substance, or to wish to render it fixed, since the changes which it undergoes do not alter its nature, and the indestructible order of its affinities.—No 257.

The calx of tin is easily applied to any purpose, and experiences no change from the concentrated phlogistic vapour. These considerations induced me to endeavour to obtain this calx perfectly white; and here follows the result of my operations: The tin of calcined melac gives a pretty white calx; but whatever attention I paid to take off the red surface which the violence of the fire occasioned, it takes always a shade of grey when it is diluted. Tin calcined by nitre in fusion, gives a tarnished and groggy calx, which multiplied washings could not deprive of a yellowish tint.

"Having precipitated, by means of crystallized vegetable alkali, a dissolution of English tin, which had been made in the muriatic acid, after the manner of M. Bayen to extract the arsenic, I had a calx of the greatest whiteness, so light that it buoyed up to the surface of the liquor, and so thin that the greater part of it passed through the filter; but it experiences at the same time a kind of adherence with the salts, which makes the part of it retained by the filter incapable of being pulverized, gummy, half transparent, and even a little changed into yellow. In this condition it is extinguished when diluted; it is necessary, therefore, to moisten it in boiling water, and afterwards to calcine slightly the sediment after it has had sufficient time to settle.

"I have tried the calcination by means of moisture, in employing the tin of the purest melac, and a rectified nitrous acid, according to the method of Meyer. It formed a very white sparkling calx, which remained in the filter in the consistency of jelly. Meanwhile, I observed that it was always a little yellow by the mixture of a portion of that earth which took, in the operation, the colour of turpentine mineral.

"A very fine white calx is extracted from antimony, calcined by nitre in fusion; but the earth of this semi-metal must be placed in the number of those which combine too easily with the phlogistic vapour. The diaphoretic antimony, grinded in oil, took in ten minutes in my phlogistic apparatus a colour somewhat like sulphur.

"The property of bismuth to give a very fine white calx, known by the name of megilery, or white fard, is generally known; it is easily prepared, since it is only necessary to dissolve the bismuth in nitrous acid, and to precipitate the dissolution by pure water: it dilutes perfectly with oil and mucilages. But this colour ought to be rejected, as the most alterable by the phlogistic vapour. It became completely black in ten minutes in my apparatus; and this fact is also proved from what happens to women who use this colour, when they are exposed to the vapours of sulphur, of garlic, or of any putrid substances.

"Zinc furnishes by all the processes of calcination and precipitation a pretty white calx, when it is pure and separated from iron; otherwise the dissolutions of the vitriol of zinc will become yellow when exposed to the air. I have precipitated those dissolutions by lime-water, by caustics, and effervescing alkalies; I have calcined this semi-metal alone and with nitre; and in all those operations I have obtained an earthy substance of different degrees of whiteness, which, after it was dried and prepared, mixed readily with oil and mucilages." These valuable properties, the chief object of my researches, engaged me to multiply my experiments, to determine at once the most economical process, and the most advantageous and infallible preparation.—These attempts have convinced me, that the calcination of this semi-metal alone in a crucible, placed horizontally on the corners of a reverberating furnace, gives the purest, the whitest, and the least reducible calx; and that to make an excellent colour, it is sufficient to separate the parts not burned with water, and grind it with a little of the earth of alum or chalk to give it a body. Zinc precipitated in Prussian alkali, even in distilled vinegar, retains always a shade of yellow, does not unite so well in oil, and takes a demi-transparent consistence like cheese.

"White arsenic extinguishes much less in diluting than one would believe from its saline nature; it preserves its colour best in gum-water; and it is remarkable, that instead of turning black in the phlogistic vapour, it takes a very distinct shade of yellow. This property is sufficiently singular and constant to furnish a new method of analysing arsenic, so as to know it. And this alteration of colour makes it of no use in painting, although its deleterious qualities did not forbid the practice.

"The semi-metal known by the name of manganese gives also a white calx. I had at first great hopes from this colour, as, contrary to all those extracted from the other metals, it became white by the phlogistic vapour. There remained, therefore, but one difficulty to overcome, viz. to separate from the manganese the portion of iron which it usually contained, and which infallibly makes the earth a little yellow. To accomplish this in the cheapest manner, I submitted the black ore of the manganese to a long calcination, to render its iron insoluble; I afterwards applied vinegar to it, after the example of M. de la Peyrouse; and in precipitating the dissolution by effervescent alkali, I easily obtained a pure white precipitate. But I soon perceived that the facility with which a colouring body loses its phlogiston, is no less an inconvenience than that of attracting it, and productive of the same alterations.

"The white of manganese became very soon yellow when exposed to the air; and this is not to be ascribed to the iron contained in it, since neither the galls nor Prussian alkali had discovered any of it in the dissolution. This substance, therefore, can be of no use in producing a white colour for painting."

The experiment by which M. de Morveau tried the colours not alterable by the phlogistic vapour, was performed before the academy, the prince of Conde being president. "I placed (says he) in my apparatus pieces of cloth, on which were laid the white of calcareous tartar in water, different preparations of white from tin and zinc, in oil and water; and I allowed them to continue exposed to the phlogistic vapour during a sitting of the academy; if they were not altered, their superiority over the whites in use would be sufficiently established. The sitting continued for near an hour; and the bottle having been opened, all the colours continued to have the same shade which they had before. I can, therefore, recommend to painters those three whites, and particularly that of zinc, the preparation of which is exposed to less variation, the shade more lively and uniform, and moreover it is fit for all purposes, and perhaps procured at less expense.

"I will assert farther, that it may be procured in sufficient quantities to supply the place of ceruse in every branch of the art, even in interior house-painting:—I would recommend it, less with the view of adding new splendor to this kind of ornament, than for the safety of those who are employed in it, and perhaps for the safety of those who inhabit houses ornamented in this manner.

"But without being too sanguine, altho' the processes in the fabrication be simplified in proportion to the demand, as is usually the case, yet there is reason to apprehend, that the low price of ceruse will always give it the preference in house-painting. With regard to those who apply colours to nobler purposes, they will not hesitate to employ the white of zinc. I am assured that four francs is paid for the pound of white of cerus; and I believe the white in question, prepared in the manner which I have pointed out, might be sold for six.

"M. Courtois, connected with the laboratory of the academy, has already declared that it is used for house-painting; less, however, in regard to its unalterability, than to its solubility: and this can be the more readily believed, as the flower of zinc enters into many compositions of the apothecary. The same M. Courtois has arrived at the art of giving more body to this white, which the painters seem to desire, and also of making it bear a comparison with white lead either in water or oil. The only fault found with it, is its drying slowly when used in oil; but some experiments which I have made, incline me to believe that this fault may be easily remedied, or at least greatly corrected, by giving it more body. At any rate, it may be rendered fixative at pleasure, by adding a little vitriol of zinc or copperas slightly calcined.

"Painters already know the properties of this salt, but perhaps they do not know that it mixes with the white of zinc better than with any other colour; the reason is, they have chemically the same base. It is prepared by purging the white copperas of that small portion of iron which would render it yellow; and this is easily done in digesting its dissolution, even when cold, on the filings of zinc.

"The mixture of this salt thus prepared is made on the pallet, without producing any alteration, and a small quantity will produce a great effect." PAIR; two of a sort, a couple.