List of the Colours
To be USED for
Painting in Encaustic;
AS ALSO FOR THE
Composing of the Crayons.
WHITE.
Flake-white, and white-lead, or ceruss.
For painting in encaustic, I mix always both together half and half; flake-white alone is subject to raise too much little bubbles in employing it with water, which the admixture of the other prevents; besides, both together make a better and more solid body; tho’ flake-white is the whitest of the two, to use either alone I should prefer the second. The Venetian or Dalmatian white-lead is by far the best for all manner of painting; being prepared with a purer and subtler acid it is whiter and purer than any other whatsoever, and preferable to flake-white; next to it is the German or Dutch; French or English ceruss are in general but indifferent, in experiments I frequently found the latter to have one third of marle or chalk in its composition; which is the cause of its growing so soon yellow, dull and dirty in oil.
In composing of the crayons it will be well to observe the above mentioned proportion of half and half, as by the doing so, much pipe clay will not be required to bind them.
YELLOWS.
- Naples-yellow,
- Light-oker,
- Brown-oker,
- Yellow-orpiment, or,
- King’s-yellow,
- Red-orpiment,
are all perfectly good and necessary for our purpose.
Naples-yellow is the only colour that ought to be used in composing the tenderer flesh tints of women; it proves a very tender, bright and beautiful lasting colour for all manner of painting, if properly prepared and managed, if not, a dirty, weak and treacherous one, and particularly in oil. It is a mineral compound of lead, antimony, sulphur, and some arsenic, which latter is the cause of its changing, and hurting other colours, and particularly the white, so much complained of by the painters.
Though this yellow fixed with wax will not change; yet it will not be amiss to insert a method to clean, and purify it, so as to render it beautiful and lasting for oil and other uses. To clean it do as follows.
Take crude Naples-yellow, (the heaviest for bulk is the best) and break it into small pieces with the mallet upon the grinding stone, put it in a clean earthen vessel, and pour over it a quantity of new milk, sufficient to cover it three or four inches over, stirring it well for some time with a wooden spatula or stick; then let all together stand undisturbed for five or six days, and the milk will become thick and sour, and master by its acidity the noxious saline principles of the colour; having stood the abovementioned time, take off the creamy part from the top of the milk, and pour warm water upon it, and let the vessel overflow till you perceive the water to come off as clear as when poured on, and the colour will be purified and fit for use.
Light-oker, a precipitated, feruginous earth, answers in encaustic all the purposes it does in oil.
Brown-oker, a precipitated feruginous earth too, only it partakes a little of a vitrioline principle, which the light-oker does not. In encaustic this colour answers all the purposes it does in oil.
Yellow orpiment, or king’s-yellow. The principal constituent particles of this colour are, sulphur and arsenic, which latter prevails and makes great havock among the other colours when used in oil; it cannot play the same tricks fixed with wax; wax being a closer and unvariable body, confines its arsenical principle. Oil once dry ceases to be oil, and can confine them no longer.
Red-orpiment, so called to distinguish it from the other, is properly not red, but of a rich orange colour, and is a compound of arsenic and sulphur too; but here sulphur prevails, which is the reason of its standing its ground better and doing less harm in oil than the other.
In encaustic it is of universal use, throughout a whole picture to give warmth to lights and shades; in landscapes it may be used from the horizon down to the fore ground, to good purpose; for shades in flesh it is admirable, it gives a clear, soft and transparent strength; in the verdure of landscapes it answers all the ends for brown-pink, when mixed with a little bone black.
This colour is very conspicuous in all the warmer landscapes of Claude Lorraine; Mr. Vernet a famous French painter uses it very much.
PINKS.
Light-pink, and brown-pink.
These two colours ought rather not be used, as they both proceed from the same vegetable principle, viz. the juice or extract got by decoction from French berries by the help of acid salts; consequently incapable to sympathise with or admit wax into their pores12; the wax can take hold of them only superficially, which makes them appear dry and gritty upon the picture, and will easily come off by rubbing them with one’s finger. Those artists who cannot do without them, will do well to grind them, the light-pink with a little light-oker, and brown-pink with a little brown-oker, and they will keep a little better; but red-orpiment and a little bone black, making as fine a pink as that properly so called, it will be best to use the latter.
REDS.
- Lake,
- Vermilion, or
- Cinnabar,
- Minium, or
- Red-lead,
- Light-red, or
- Light-oker calcined
- Brown-red, or
- Brown-oker calcined
- Indian-red,
are all properly qualified for encaustic.
Care must be taken to have the lake good; that which is commonly sold under the name of Florence lacque, and recommended as the best, is in general the worst; it is usually in small hard grains, which hardness is owing to gum arabic, or what is worse, to that glutinous substance which oozes out from the cherry tree, put in by the fabricant (of the lake) to bind and keep the grains together, and make it appear better merchandise than it really is; such lake will scale off from the canvas; the gum it is impregnated with hinders the wax from penetrating its pores—every body knows that lacque is made of cochineal; there is a bastard lake made of Brazil wood, but that is easily known by its dullness. The best lake for our purpose is that which is of a fine, clear, deep hue, easily to be broken and crumbled between the fingers. The finest and best lacque I ever saw and used, is made here in England by an ingenious artist in the seal engraving way.
Vermilion, or cinnabar, answers in encaustic all the purposes it does in oil.
Minium, will be of infinite service for painting with the pencil and crayons; it will not change fixed with wax, as it does in oil; it may be used to advantage in some carnations or flesh tints; and in landscapes to enliven the oker, for great lights.
Light-red, or light-oker calcined, is of the same universal use in this manner of painting as it is in oil, or common water colours.
Brown-red, or brown-oker calcined, may be employed for the same use as in oil, or distemper painting.
Indian-red, the French call this colour, Terre d’Angleterre, English earth; this colour is particularly useful for distances, it makes the degradation of objects light and airy.
Terra di Siena, and Terra verte,
Terra di Siena, a yellow hard and clayish substance, so called from the city of Siena in Italy, from whence it comes.
This colour is very unfit to be used crude, either for painting in encaustic or crayons, its pores are too close for the wax to penetrate; or to say better, this colour or earth is very much impregnated with a nitrous principle, with which wax cannot sympathise, and for this very reason it is as unfit to be used crude in oil. Those painters that use it freely have always but too much reason to repent. But,
Terra di Siena calcined, is a very beautiful and useful colour for all manner of painting, and particularly encaustic. The fire having dispelled in some measure the nitrous principle, the wax may freely enter its pores. This colour gives a great, soft, and glowing strength in flesh, drapery and landscape; some painters call this colour Roman oker.
Terra verte; this colour too comes to us from Italy, and some from Germany, they are both alike, and ought to be entirely banished the pallette, as it grows so soon dirty and black when employed with oil. Terra verte differs from terra di Siena in little else but colour, it has a little vitriol. The too free use some of the older Italian painters made of this colour in flesh tints, is the cause that numbers of pictures of those masters are so black as we see them at this time.
BLUES.
- Ultramarine,
- Prussian blue,
- Smalt.
Ultramarine is perfectly good, and every body that likes to use it may do so.
Prussian blue, equals ultramarine in encaustic, for all intents and purposes; there is no other blue required for crayons neither.
Smalt may be used, but I think it rather too gritty; its particles are too transparent for parts where a solid mass of colour is required. For crayons it does very well mixed with Prussian blue to bind it, both together make a beautiful colour, the grittiness of smalt will there be of advantage. This colour will not grow black fixed with wax as it does in oil.
BLACKS.
- Ivory Black,
- Bone Black,
- Blue Black,
have all the necessary qualifications to be employed.
Ivory black may be employed for all the uses made of it in oil.
Blue black is particularly necessary for landscapes; the blue black generally sold at the colour shops is commonly made of wine stalks; but blue black made of peach, apricot, or plum-stones calcined, is by far the best; it is not so loose and spungy as the former, its colour too is finer.
Bone black is the most valuable of the black tribe for sweetness, and a transparent warmth for landscapes and figures; bone black and white alone will make softer and more natural turning tints than any other colours can produce; the Flemish painters use it very much for glazing.
This black mixed with a little terra di Siena calcined, makes the strongest and sweetest shades that can be obtained with colours.
The best is made of the bones of mutton trotters calcined.
COLLENS EARTH.
A dark blackish brown and somewhat bituminous earth, inclining a little towards purple, is a very good colour, and of singular use where extraordinary strength is required in fore grounds.
UMBRA, Crude and calcined.
A useful colour enough for common purposes; some painters use it for shades in flesh, but very improperly, for it is a very raw colour crude or calcined, and only fit to be used in drapery or back grounds.
These are all the colours that ought to be used for painting in encaustic, with the pencil; there are a few more that might be employed in this manner, but as they are rather inferior in quality, or only compounds of those already mentioned, I omit them; a few, not commonly used in oil painting that notwithstanding might be used in encaustic, I shall mention under the article of crayons, as they belong more to, and are more useful in that way.