Originally published back in 1898, this is a wonderful treatise on oil painting by Daniel Burleigh Parkhurst who was able to observe many of the artists of the late 19th century first hand.
Bear with this posting, as it has the entire 187 pages of the text of the document here, Scroll at your own peril! I could not post the images that went along, but these are small references anyway.
I do not agree with everything, and certain dislike the 'right and wrong' attitude which pervades the atelier approach exhibited here, but this treatise has wonderful gems of insight! A great meditation on painting and the process around creating art.
Enjoy the read!
Donato
The Painter In Oil
by
Daniel Burleigh Parkhurst
CHAPTER I: GENERAL OBSERVATIONS
There is a
false implication in the saying that "a poor workman blames his
tools." It is not true that a good workman can do good work with bad
tools. On the contrary, the good workman sees to it that he has good tools, and
makes it a part of his good workmanship that they are in good condition.
In painting there is nothing that will cause you more trouble than bad
materials. You can get along with few materials, but you cannot get along with
bad ones. That is not the place to economize. To do good work is difficult at
best. Economize where it will not be a hindrance to you. Your tools can make
your work harder or easier according to your selection of them. The relative
cost of good and bad materials is of slight importance compared with the
relative effect on your work.
The way to economize is not to get anything
which you do not need. Save on the non-essentials, and get as good a quality as
you can of the essentials.
Save on the number of things you get, not on
the quantity you use. You must feel free in your use of material. There is
nothing which hampers you more than parsimony in the use of things needful to
your painting. If it is worth your while to paint at all, it is worth your
while to be generous enough with yourself to insure ordinary freedom of use of
material.
The essentials of painting are few, but these
cannot be dispensed with. Put it out of your mind that any one of these five
things can be got along without: -
You must have something to paint on, canvas or panel.
Have plenty of these.
You must have something to set this canvas on -
something to hold it up and in position. Your knees won't do, and you can't
hold it in one hand. The lack of a practical easel will cost you far more in
trouble and discouragement than the saving will make up for.
You must have something to paint with. The
brushes are most important; in kind, variety, and number. You cannot economize
safely here.
You must have paints. And you must have good
ones. The best are none too good. Get the best. Pay a good price for them, use
them freely, but don't waste them.
And you must have something to hold them, and
to mix them on; but here the quality and kind has less effect on your work than
any other of your tools. But as the cost of the best of palettes is slight, you
may as well get a good one.
Now, if you will be economical, the way to do
it is to take proper care of your tools after you have got them. Form the habit of using good tools as they should be used, and that
will save you a great deal of money.
CHAPTER II: CANVASES AND PANELS
You should
have plenty of canvas on hand, and it would be well if you had it all stretched
ready to use. Many a good day's work is lost because of the time wasted in
getting a canvas ready. It is not necessary to have many kinds or sizes. It is
better in fact to settle on one kind of surface which suits you, and to have a
few practical sizes of stretchers which will pack together well, and work
always on these. You will find that by getting accustomed to these sizes you
work more freely on them. You can pack them better, and you can frame them more
conveniently, because one frame will always do for many pictures. Perhaps there
is no one piece of advice which I can give you which will be of more practical
use outside of the principles of painting, than this of keeping to a few
well-chosen sizes of canvas, and the keeping of a number of each always on
hand.
It is all well enough to talk about not showing
one's work too soon. But we all do, and always will like to see our work under
as favorable condition as possible. And a good frame is one of the favorable
conditions. But good frames are expensive, and it is a great advantage to be
able to have a frame always at hand which you can see your work in from time to
time; and if you only work on four sizes of canvas, say, then four frames, one
for each size, will suit all your pictures and sketches. Use the same sizes for
all kinds of work too, and the freedom will come, as I say, in the working on
those sizes.
Don't have odd sizes about. You can just as
well as not use regular sizes and proportions which colormen keep in stock, and
there is an advantage in being able to get a canvas at short notice, and it
will be one of your own sizes, and will fit your frame. All artists have gone
through the experience of eliminating odd sizes from their stock, and it is one
of the practical things that we all have to come down to sooner or later, and
the sooner the better, - to have sizes which we find we like best, not too
many, and stick to them. I would have you take advantage of this, and decide
early in your work, and so get rid of one source of bother.
Rough and Smooth.- The best canvas is
of linen. Cotton is used for sketching canvas. But you would do well always to
use good grounds to work on. You can never tell beforehand how your work will
turn out; and if you should want to keep your work, or find it worth while to
go on with it, you would be glad that you had begun it on a good linen canvas.
The linen is stronger and firmer, and when it has a "grain," the
grain is better.
Grain.- The question of
grain is not easy to speak about without the canvas, yet it is often a matter
of importance. There are many kinds of surface, from the most smooth to the
most rugged. Some grain it is well the canvas should have; too great smoothness
will tend to make the painting "slick," which is not a pleasant
quality. A grain gives the canvas a "tooth," and takes the paint
better. Just what grain is best depends on the work. If you are going to have
very fine detail in the picture use a smoothish canvas; but whenever you are
going to paint heavily, roughly, or loosely, the rough canvas takes the paint
better. The grain of the canvas takes up the paint, helps to hold it, and to
disguise, in a way, the body of it. For large pictures, too, the canvas must
necessarily be strong, and the mere weight of the fabric will give it a rough
surface.
Knots. - For ordinary work
do not be afraid of a canvas which has some irregularities and knots on it. If
they are not too marked they will not be unpleasantly noticeable in the
picture, and may even give a relief to too great evenness.
Twilled Canvas.- The diagonal twill
which some canvases have has always been a favorite surface with painters,
particularly the portrait painters.
The grain is a sympathetic one to work on,
takes paint well, and is not in any way objectionable in the finished picture.
The Best. - The best way is to
try several kinds, and when you find one which has a sympathetic working
quality, and which has a good effect in the finished picture, note the quality
and use it. You will find such a canvas among both the rough and smooth kinds,
and so you can use either, as the character of your work suggests. It is well
to have both rough and smooth ready at hand.
Absorbent. - Some canvases are
primed so as to absorb the oil during the process of painting. They are very
useful for some kinds of work, and many painters choose them; but unless you
have some experience with the working of them, they are apt to add another
source of perplexity to the difficulties of painting, so you had better not
experiment with them, but use the regular non-absorbent kinds.
Old and New. - The canvas you work
on should not be too freshly primed. The painting is likely to crack if the
priming is not well dried. You cannot always be sure that the canvas you get at
stores is old, so you have an additional reason for getting a good stock and
keeping it on hand. Then, if you have had it in your own possession a long
while, you would know if it is a year old.
Grounds. - The color of the
grounds should be of interest to you. Canvases are prepared for the market
usually in three colors, - a sort of cool gray, a warm light ochrish yellow,
and a cool pinkish gray. Which is best is a matter of personal liking, it would
be well to consider what the effect of the ground will be on the future
condition of the picture when the colors begin to effect each other, as they
inevitably will sooner or later.
Vibert in his La Science de la Peinture advocates a white ground. He says that as the color will be sure to
darken somewhat with time, it is well that the ground should have as little to
do with it as possible. If the ground is white there is so much the less dark
pigment to influence your painting. He is right in this; but white is a most
unsympathetic color to work over, and if you do not want to lay in your work
with frottées, a tint is pleasanter. For most work the light ochrish ground will be
found best; but you may be helped in deciding by the general tone of your
picture. If the picture is to be bright and lively, use a light canvas, and if
it is to be sombre, use a dark one. Remember, too, that the color of your
ground will influence the appearance of every touch of paint you put on it by
contrast, until the priming is covered and out of sight.
Stretchers. -
The keyed stretcher, with wedges to force the corners open and so tighten the
canvas when necessary, is the only proper one to use. For convenience of use
many kinds have been invented, but you will find the one here illustrated the
best for general purposes. The sides may be used for ends, and vice versa. If
you arrange your sizes well, you will have the sides of one size the right
length for then ends of another. Then you need fewer sizes, and they are surer
to pack evenly.
Stretching.
- You will often have to stretch your own canvases,
so you should know how to do it. There is only one way to make the canvas lay
smoothly without wrinkles: Cut the canvas about two inches longer and wider
than the stretcher, so that it will easily turn down over the edges. Begin by
putting in one tack
to hold the middle
of one end. Then turn the whole thing round, and stretch tightly lengthwise,
and put a tack to hold it into the middle
of the other end. Do the same way with two sides. Only four tacks so far, which
have stretched the canvas in the middle two ways. As you do this, you must see
that the canvas is on square. Don't drive the tacks all the way in at first
till you know that this is so. Then give each another blow, so that the head
binds the canvas more than the body of the tack does; for the pull of the
canvas against the side of the tack will tear, while the head will hold more
strands. The first two ways stretching must be as tight as any after stretching
will be or you will have wrinkles in the middle, while the purpose is to pull
out the wrinkles towards the corners. Now go back to the ends: stretch, and
place one tack each side of the first one. In a large canvas you may put two
each side, but not more, and you must be sure that the strain is even on both
sides. Don't pull too much; for next you must do the same with the other end
which should bear half
of the whole stretch. Do just the same now with the two sides.
Now continue stretching and tacking, - each side of
the middle tacks on each end, then on each side, then to the ends again, and so
gradually working towards the corners, when as you put in the last tacks the
wrinkles will disappear, if you have done your work well. Don't hurry and try
to drive too many tacks into a side at a time, for to have to do it all over
again would take more time than to have worked slowly and done it properly. You
may of course stretch a small canvas with your hands, but it will make your
fingers sore, and you cannot get large canvases tight without help. You will do
well to have a pair of "canvas pliers" which are specially shaped to
pull the canvas and hold it strongly without tearing it, as other pliers are
sure to do.
When you take canvases outdoors to work, you
will find it useful to strap two together, face inwards, with a double-pointed
tack like this in each corner to keep them apart. You will not have any trouble
with the fresh paint, as each canvas will then protect the other. You can pack
freshly painted canvases for shipping in the same way.
Panels. - For small pictures panels
are very useful, and when great detail is desirable, and fine, smooth work
would make an accidental tear impossible to mend well, they are most valuable.
They are made of mahogany and oak generally.
Panels are useful, too, for sketching, as you
can easily pack them. They are light, and the sun does not shine through the
backs. You can get them for about the same cost as canvas for small sizes,
which are what you would be likely to use, and they are often more convenient,
particularly for use in the sketch-box.
CHAPTER III: EASELS
The
important thing in an easel is that it should be steady and firm; that it
should hold the canvas without trembling; and so that it will not fall as you
paint out towards the edges. You often paint with a heavy hand, and you must
not have to hold on to your picture with one hand and paint with the other.
Nothing is more annoying than a poor easel, and nothing will give you more
solid satisfaction, than the result of a little generosity in paying for a good
one. The ideal thing for the studio is, of course, the great "screw
easel," which is heavy, safe, convenient, and expensive. We would like to
have one, but we can't afford it, so we won't speak of it. The next best thing
is an ordinary easel which doesn't cost a great deal, but which is firm and
solid and practical. Don't get one of various three-legged folding easels which
cost about seventy-five cents or a dollar. They tumble down too often and too
easily. The wear and tear on the temper they cause is more than they are worth.
It is true that they fold up out of the way. But they fold up when you don't
expect them to; and you ought to be able to afford room enough for an easel
anyway, if you paint at all.
The illustration shows one of the firmest of the inexpensive easels, and
one which will fold up into as small a compass as any practical easel will. It
will hold perfectly well as good-sized canvas, even with its frame, and will
not tumble over on slight provocation.
Another good easel is shown on p. 17. It is
more lightly made, not so well braced, but is more convenient for raising and
lowering the picture, as the catch allows the thing to be raised and lowered at
once.
If you are to save money on your easel,
don't save on the construction and strength of it, but on the finish. Let the
polish and varnish go, but get a well-made easel with solid wood. The heavier
it is, the less easily it packs away, to be sure, but the more steadily it will
hold your picture.
Sketching
Easels. - The same things are of importance in an
easel for out-of-door work that are needed in a studio easel, except that it
must also be portable. So if you must have a folding easel, get a good sketching easel; or if you
can't have one for in-doors and one for out-doors, then pay a good price for a
sketching easel, and use it in doors and out also. There are two things which
are absolutely essential in a sketching easel. It must have legs which may be
made longer and shorter, and it must hold
the canvas firmly. It is not enough to lean the canvas on it. The wind blows it
over just when you are putting on an interesting touch, or the touch itself
upsets it, either of which is most aggravating, and does not tend to
satisfactory work. You must be obliged to sit down to work just where you don't
want to, a little this side or a little that side of the chosen spot, because
the ground isn't even there and the easel will not stand straight. You must be
able to make a leg longer or shorter as the unevenness of the ground
necessitates. It is impossible to work among rocks or on hillsides if you
cannot make your easel stand as you want it. These things are not to be got
round. You might as well not work as to sketch with a poor sketching easel. And
you must pay a good price for it. The sketching easel that is good for anything
has never been made to sell for a dollar and a half. Pay three or four dollars
for it, at any rate, and use it the rest of your life.
I use an easel every day that I have worked on
every summer for twelve years. Most artists are doing much the same. The easel
is not expensive per year at that rate! It is such an easel as that shown on
the opposite page, and is satisfactory for all sorts of work.
If you are working in a strong wind, or if you
have a large canvas, such an easel as this illustration shows it is the best
and safest yet invented, and it is as good for other work, and particularly
when you stand up. And either of these easels will be perfectly satisfactory to
use in the house.
CHAPTER IV: BRUSHES
An old
brush that has been properly cared for is generally better than a new one. It
seems to have accommodated itself to your way of painting, and falls in with
your peculiarities. It is astonishing how attached you get to your favorite
brushes, and how loath you are to finally give them up. What if you have no
others to take their places?
Don't look upon your brushes as something as few of as possible and
which you would not get at all if you could help it. There is nothing which
comes nearer to yourself than the brush which carries out your idea in paint.
You should be always on the lookout for a good brush; and whenever you run
across one, buy it, no matter how many you have already. Don't look twice at a bad
brush, and don't begrudge an extra ten cents in buying a good one. If you are
sorry to have to pay so much for your brushes, then take the more care of them.
Use them well and they will last a long while; then don't always use the same
handful. Break in new ones now and again.
Keep a dozen or two in use, and lay some aside
before they are worn out, and use newer ones. So when at last you cannot use
one any more, you have others of the same kind, which will fill its place.
Have all kinds and sizes of brushes. Have a
couple of dozen in use, and a couple of dozen, which you are not using, and a
couple of dozen more that have never been used.
What! Six dozen?
Well. Why not? Every time you paint you look
over your brushes and pick out those which look friendly to what you are going
to do. You want all sorts of brushes. You can't paint all sorts of pictures
with the same kind of brush. Your brush represents your hand. You must give
every kind of touch to it. You want to change sometimes, and you want a clean
brush from time to time. You don't want to feel that you are limited; that
whether you want to or not these four brushes you must use because they are all
you have! You can't paint that way. That six-dozen you will not buy all at
once. When you get your first outfit, get at least a dozen brushes. As you look
over the stock and pick out two or three of this kind, and two or three of
that, you will be astonished to see how many you have - yet you don't know
which to discard. Don't discard any. Buy them all, then, if you don't paint, it
will not be the fault of your brushes. And from time to time get a half dozen
of which have just struck you as especially good ones, and quite unconsciously
you acquire your six dozen - and even more, I hope!
Bristle and
Sable- - The brushes suitable for oil painting are
two kinds, - bristle and sable hair. Of the latter, red sable are the only ones
you should get. They are expensive, but they have a spring and firmness that
the black sable does not have. Camel's hair is out of the question. Don't get
any, if you can only have camel's hair. It is soft and flabby when used in oil
and you can't work well with such brushes. The same is true of the black sable.
But though the red sables are expensive, you do not need many of them, nor
large ones, so the cost of those you will need is slight.
The only sables which are in any degree
indispensable are the smaller sizes of riggers. These are thin, long brushes
which are useful for outlining, and all sorts of fine, sharp touches. You use
them to go over a drawing with paint in laying in a picture, and for branches,
twigs, etc. As their name implies, you must have them for the rigging of
vessels in marine painting also. The three sizes shown in the cut on the
opposite page are those you should have, and if you get two of each, you will
find them useful in all sorts of places. When you buy them, see that they are
elastic and firm that they come naturally and easily to a good point, without any
scraggy hairs. Test them by moistening them, and then pressing the point on the
thumb-nail. They should bend evenly through the whole length of hair. Reject
any, which seem "weak in the back." If it lays flat toward the point
and bends all in one place near the ferrule, it is a poor brush.
These three larger and thicker sizes come in
very useful often and it would be well if you were to have these too. Sometimes
a thick, long sable brush will serve better than another for heavy lines, etc.
All these brushes are round. One largish flat sable like this it would
be well to have; but these are all the sables necessary.
Bristle Brushes. - The sable brush or pencil
is often necessary; but oil painting is practically always done with the
bristle, or "hog hair," brush. These are the ones which will make up
the variety of kinds in your six dozen. A good bristle brush is not to be
bought merely by taking the first, which comes to hand. Good brushes have very
definite qualities, and you have no trouble in picking them out. Nevertheless,
you will take the trouble to select them, if you care to have any satisfaction
in using them.
The Bristle. - You want your brush to be made of the hair just as it grew on the hog.
All hair, in its natural state, has what is called the "flag." That
is the fine, smooth taper towards the natural end of it, and generally the
division into two parts. This gives the bristle, no matter how thick it may be,
a silky fineness towards the end; and when this part only of the bristle is
used in the brush, you will have all the firmness and elasticity of the
bristle, and also a delicacy and smoothness and softness quite equal to a
sable. But this, in the short hair of an artist's brush, wastes all the rest of
the length of the hair; for it is only by cutting off the "flag," and
using that, which is only an inch or so long, that you can make the brush. Yet
the bristle may be several inches long, and all this is sacrificed for that
little inch of "flag." Naturally the "flag" is expensive,
and naturally also the manufacturer uses the rest of the hair for inferior
brushes.
These latter you should avoid. These inferior
brushes are made from the part of the bristle remaining, by the sandpapering,
or otherwise making the ends fine again after they are cut off. But it is
impossible to make a brush which has the right
quality in this way.
Selection. -
Never buy a brush without testing its evenness, as has been advised in the care
of sables. Feel carefully the end of the bristles also, and see that the
"flag" is there. All brushes are kept together for packing by paste
in the bristles. See that this is soaked off before you test your brush.
Round or Flat. - It will make little difference whether you use round or flat brushes,
the flat brush is most commonly preferred now, and most brushes are made that
way. So you had better get that kind, unless you have some special reason for
preferring the round ones.
Handles. - Whether the handles are
nicely polished, also, is of no importance. What you are to look to is quality
of the bristles and of the making; the best brushes are likely to be nicely
finished all over. But if you do find a really good brush which is cheaper
because of the plain handle, and you wish to save money, do it by buying the
plain-handled one.
Sizes and Shapes. - You will need some quite large brushes and some smaller ones, some
square ones and some pointed.
Here are three round brushes which, for all sorts
of painting, will be of very general utility. For most of your brushes select
the long and thin, rather than the short and thick ones. The stubby brush is a
useless the sort of thing for most work. There are men who use them and like
them, but most painters prefer the more flexible and springy brush, if it is
not weak. So, too, the brush should not be too thick. A thick brush takes up
too much paint into itself, and does not change its tint so readily. For
rubbing over large surfaces where a good deal of the same color is thickly
spread on the canvas, the thick, strong brush is a very proper tool. But where
there is to be any delicacy of tone, it is too clumsy; you want a more delicate
instrument. The same proportions hold with large and small brushes, so these
remarks apply to all.
Flat brushes. - This is particularly applicable to the flat brushes, and the more that
most of your brushes will be flat.
You should have both broad-ended and pointed
brushes among your flat ones. For broad surfaces, such as backgrounds and
skies, the broad ends come in well; and for the small ones there are many
square touches where they are useful. The most practical sizes are those shown
on page 28. But you will often need much larger brushes to the largest of
these.
For the smaller brushes you will have to be
very careful in your selections. For only the silkiest of bristle will do good
work in a very small brush, and then the temptation is to use a sable, which
should be resisted. Why you should avoid using the sable as a rule is that it
will make the painting too "slick" and edgy. There is a looseness
that is the quality to prize. All the hardness, flatness and rigidity that are
desirable you can get with the bristle brush. When you work too much with
sables, the overworking brings a waxy woodeny surface, which is against all the
qualities of atmosphere and luminosity, and of freshness and freedom of touch.
Some of the most useful sizes of the more
pointed brushes are shown on opposite page. There are, of course, sizes between
these, and many larger; but these are what you will find the best. It would be
better to have more of these sizes than to have more sizes. You should try to
work with fewer rather than more sizes, and as a rule, work more with the
larger than with the smaller brush, even for fine work. You will work with more
force and tend less to pettiness, if you learn to put in small touches with the
largest brush that will do it. Breadth is not painting with a large brush; but
the man who works always with small brush instinctively looks for the things
small brushes are adapted to, and will drift into a little way of working.
The fan brush, such as here illustrated, is a
useful brush, not to paint with, but to flick or drag across an outline or
other part of a painting when it is getting too hard and liney. You may not
want it once a month, but it is very useful when you do want it.
Care of Brushes. - The best of economy in
brushes lies in your care of them. You should never let the paint dry on them
nor go too long without careful washing. It is not necessary to wash them every
day with soap and water, but they would be the better for such treatment.
Quite often, once a week, say, you should wash
your brushes carefully with soap. You may use warm water, but don't have it
hot, as that may melt the glue which holds the bristles together in the ferrule.
Use strong soap with plenty of lye in it - common bar soap, or better, the
old-fashioned soft soap. Hold several brushes together in one hand so that the
tips are all of a length, dip them together into or rub them onto the soap, and
rub them briskly in the palm of the other hand. When the paint is well worked
into the lather, do the same with the other brushes, letting the first ones
soak in the soap, but not in the water. Then rinse them, and careful work them
clean one by one, with the fingers. When you lay them aside to dry, see that
the bristles are all straight and smooth, and they will be in perfect condition
for next painting.
Cleaning. - But from day to day you
need not take quite so much trouble as this. True, the brushes will keep in
better condition if washed in soap and water every day, but it is not always
convenient to do this. You may then use the brush-cleaner. This is a tin box
with a false bottom of perforated tin or of wire netting about half-way down,
which allows the liquid to stand a half-inch or so above it; so that when you
put your brush in and rub it around, the paint is rinsed from it, and settles
through the perforations to the bottom, leaving the liquid clear again above
it. If you use this carefully, cleaning one brush at a time, not rubbing it too
hard, and pulling the hairs straight by wiping them on a clean rag, you may
keep your brushes in good condition quite easily. But they will need a careful
soap-and-water washing every little while, beside. The liquid best for use in
this cleaner is the common kerosene or coal oil. Never use turpentine to rinse
your brushes. It will make them brittle and harsh; but the kerosene will remove
all the paint and will not affect the brush.
CHAPTER V: PAINTS
Of all your materials, it is on your paints that quality has
the most vital effect. With bad paint your work is hopeless. You may get an
effect that looks all right, but how long will it stand, and how much better
may it not have been if your colors had been good? You can tell nothing about
it. You may have luck, and your work hold; or you may not have luck, and in a
month your picture is ruined. Don't trust luck. Keep that element out as much
as you can, always. But in the matter of paints, if you count on luck at all,
remember that the chances are altogether against you. Don't let yourself be
persuaded to indulge in experiments with colors which you have reason to think
are of doubtful quality. Keep on the safe side, and use colors you are sure of,
even if they do cost a little more - at first; for they are cheaper in the
long-run. And even in the time of using of one tube, generally the good paint
does enough more work to cover the difference of cost.
Bad paints. - Suspect colors which are too cheap. Good work is expensive.
Ability and skill and experience count in making artists' colors, and must be
paid for. If you would get around the cost of first-class material you must mix
it with inferior material.
The first effect you will notice in using poor colors
is a certain hindrance to your facility, due to the fact that the color is weak
- does not have the snap and strengthen in it that you expect. The paint has
not a full color quality, but mixes dead and flat. This you will particularly
in the finer and lighter yellows. You need not fear much adulteration in those
paints which are naturally cheap, of course. It is in those higher priced
colors, on which you must largely depend for the more sparkling qualities, that
you will have most trouble.
Unevenness of working,
and lack of covering or mixing power, you will find in poor paints also. They
have no strength, and you must keep adding them more and more to other colors
to get them to do their work. All these things are bothersome. They make you
give more attention to the pigments while working than you ought to, and when
all is done, your picture is weak and negative in color.
Another effect to be feared from colors is that your
work will not stand; the colors fade or change, and the paint cracks. The former
effect is from bad material, or bad combinations of them in the working, and
the latter mainly from bad vehicles used in grinding them.
I have seen pictures go to pieces within a month of
their painting - bad paint and bad combinations. Of course you can use good
colors so that the picture will not stand. But that will be your own fault, and
it is no excuse for the use of colors which you can by no possibility do good
work with.
Good paints.
- The three things on which the quality of good paint depends
are good pigment, good vehicles, and good preparation.
The pigments used are of mineral, chemical, and
vegetable origin. The term pigment technically means the powdered substance which, when mixed with a
vehicle, as oil, becomes paint. The most important pigments now used are artificial products,
chiefly chemical compounds, including chemical preparations of natural mineral
earths.
As a rule, the colors made from earths may be classed
as all permanent; those from chemicals, permanent or not, as the case may be;
and those of vegetable origin fugitive, with few exceptions. Some colors are
good when used as water colors, and bad when used in oil. Further on I will
speak of the fugitiveness and permanency of colors in detail. I wish here to
emphasize the fact that the origin of the material of which the pigment is made
has much to do with the sort of work that that pigment will do, and with the
permanency of the effect which is produced; and therefore that while a paint
may look like another, its working or its lasting qualities may be quite
different.
The
Vehicles. - The vehicles by which the pigment is
made fluent and plastic are quite as important in their effects. They not only
have to do with the business of drying, owing to the substances used as dryers,
but they may have to do with the chemical action of one pigment on another.
The
Preparation. - Finally, the preparation of the pigment
demands the utmost skill and knowledge, if the colors are to be good. The
paints used by the old masters are few and simple, and the fact that they
prepared them themselves had much to do with the manner in which they kept
their color. The paints used now are less simple. We do not prepare and grind
them ourselves, and we could hardly do so if we wished to, so we are the more
dependent on the integrity of the colorman who does it for us.
The preparation of the
pigment begins with the chemical or physical preparation of each pigment, and
then comes the mixing of several to produce any particular color; and finally
the mechanical process of grinding with the proper vehicle to bring it to the
proper fineness and smoothness.
Grinding. - The color which the artist uses must be most evenly and perfectly
ground. The grinding which will do for ordinary house paints will not do for
the artist's colors. Neither will the chemical processes suitable for the one
serve for the other. Not only must the machinery, but the experience, skill and
care, be much greater for artist's colors. Therefore it is that the specialization
of color-making is most important to do good colors for the use of the artist.
Reliable
makers. - If you would work to the best
advantage as far as your colors are concerned, both as to getting the best
effects which pure pigments skillfully and honestly prepared will give you, and
as to the permanency of those effects when you have gotten them, see to it that
you get paint made by a thoroughly reliable colorman.
It is not my province to say whose colors you should
use; doubtless there are many colorman who make artists' materials honestly and
well. Nevertheless, I may mention that they are no colors which have been more
thoroughly tested, both by the length of time they have been in the possession
of painters, and by the number of painters who have used them, than those of
Winsor and Newton of London. No colors have been so generally sold and for so
long a time, particularly in this country, as these, and none are so well known
for their evenness and excellence of quality.
I do not say that these manufactures do not make any
colors which should not go on palette of the cautious artist - I believe that
they do not make that claim themselves; but such colors as they do assert to be
good, pure, and permanent, you may feel perfectly safe in using, and be sure
that they are as well made as colors can be. This is as much as can be said of
any paints, and more than can be said of most. I have used these colors for
many years, and my own experience is that they have always been all that a
painter need ask.
The fact that Winsor and Newton's colors can be found
in any town were colors can be had at all, makes me the more free to recommend
them, as you can always command them. This fact also speaks for the general
approval of them.
Inasmuch as certain colors are not claimed to be
permanent and others are, it is for you to compose your palette of those which
will combine safely. This you can do with a little care. Some colors are
permanent by themselves or with some colors, but not in combination with
certain others. You should then take the trouble to consider these chemical
relationships.
It is not necessary for you to study the chemistry of
paints, but you may read what has been ascertained as to the effects of
combinations, and act accordingly. There are practically duplications of
color-quality in pigments which are good; so that you can use the good color
instead of the bad one to do the same work. The good color will cost more, but
there is no way of making the bad color good, so you must pay the difference
due to the cost of the better material, or put up with the result of using bad
colors.
Chemical
changes. - The causes of change of color in
pigments are of four kinds, all of them chemical effects. 1, the action of
light; 2, the action of the atmosphere; 3, the action of the medium; 4, the
action of the pigments themselves on each other. The action of light is to
bring about or to assist in the decomposition of the pigment. It is less marked
in oil than in water color, because the oil forms a sort of sheath for the
color particles. The manner in which light does its deteriorating work is
somewhat similar to that of heat. The action of light is very slow, but it
seems to do the same thing in a long time that heat would do with a short time.
Some colors are unaffected or little affected by light,
and of course you will use them in preference to all others. The atmosphere
affects the paint because of certain chemical elements contained in it, which
tend to cause new combinations with the materials which are already in
combination in the pigment. The action of the oxygen in the air is the chief
agent in affecting the pigment, and it is here particularly that light, and
especially sunlight, assists in decomposition. The air of towns and cities
generally contains sulphuric and sulphurous acids and sulphuretted hydrogen.
This latter gas is most effective in changing oil paintings, because of its
action in turning white lead dark; and as white lead is the basis of many
qualities in painting, this gas may have a very general action.
Moisture in the atmosphere is also a cause of change,
but there is little to be dreaded from this, as the oil protects the colors.
Oil absorbs oxygen in drying, and so is apt to have an
effect on colors liable to change from that element, and many vehicles contain
materials to hasten the drying which further aid in the deterioration of the
pigment. Bad oil will tend to crack the picture also. The greatest care should
be used in this direction, as the most permanent colors may be ruined by bad
vehicles.
Pigments will not have a deteriorating effect on each
other as long as they are solid. But if one of them is soluble in the medium,
then chemical action commences; but as most pigments are somewhat soluble,
there is always some danger in mixing them. The best we can do is, as I said
before, to try to have on the palette, as far as possible, only colors which
are friendly to each other.
As a student you should not be much occupied, however,
with all this. You must expect that all color will change somewhat. But you
need not use those which change immediately are markedly, and you may use them
in a way which will tend to make them change as little as may be. Colors have
stood for years, and what is practical permanence, not perfect permanence, is
all you need look for. If you think too much of the permanence of your colors,
it will in