depending on anything he says, beyond what it is certain he could
have seen, attributes to Margaritone, about A.D. 1270, the first
use of fine linen cloth, which he says he pasted over his panels to
prevent cracks and rents. But there are many examples of Italian
pictures before Margaritone, where the panel is covered with linen,
whether for the purpose above mentioned, or for the sake of securing
a more equal ground, is of no importance. It is enough if we find the
practice established among those most likely to have inherited at least
the mechanical part of ancient painting. Cennino gives particular
directions for laying down cloth upon panel, and he professes to
teach the practice of Giotto. But Giotto’s first works go back to the
thirteenth century[232], and he adopted the practice of his master,
Cimabue, and learned whatever his friend Gaddo Gaddi could teach him
of the methods of the Greek painters, in company with whom Gaddo had
been employed in decorating Saint Mark’s, in Venice, and Santa Maria
Maggiore, in Rome; and we may hence conclude that Margaritone only did
what older painters had done before.
Indeed from his personal character it is unlikely that he should have
set the example of a new practice, for he is said to have been weary of
life on account of the new fashions in art that were obtaining towards
the end of his career, and to have envied the younger painters for
their success[233].
As the ancient painting on marble appears to have been merely for the
sake of capricious additions to the beautiful variegated veins of
nature, it is not worth naming.
With regard to the pigments used by the ancients, the greater number
are employed still. All the ochres, the vermilion, white lead,
lamp-black, and so on, appear to have been prepared and applied either
in fresco or distemper, as they are now. With regard to the colours for
pictures on panel also, there appears to be only the difference that
modern improvements in chemistry have introduced.
It may not be without interest to compare Pliny’s account of colouring
substances in the first century with that of Cennino in the fourteenth,
and these with the list of pigments now employed. It will be more
difficult to collect information as to the vehicles used in painting;
but I do not despair of suggesting to the consideration of the
antiquarian artist a few points which may lead to farther knowledge.
But, before I proceed, I must notice the common belief, founded, it is
true, upon an expression of Pliny’s, that the ancient painters, even
Apelles himself, used but four colours, and that these were white and
black; and red and yellow ochres.
The absurdity of the thing ought of itself to have awakened the
spirit of criticism, apt enough sometimes to detect errors. But
this was so marvellous a thing, and raised the ancients so far
above all contemporaries in skill, that the seduction to moderns
was irresistible, so one after another, scholars and critics, have
repeated the four-coloured passage, without regard to the context,
without comparing one assertion of the author with another.
If the whole passage where the famous sentence is found be read, it
will appear that Pliny is declaiming after his accustomed manner
against the luxury of the Romans, of his time, and particularly their
indulgence in fine colours, their very walls, and ships, and funeral
cars being coloured, as he says, with blue and scarlet of the most
costly kind; while the ancient painters produced their fine works with
only four colours, naming the commonest and coarsest he can recollect
for the sake of contrast; and produces as witnesses, the works of the
painters, Apelles, Echion, Melanthus, and Nichomachus.
Now, whoever will take the trouble to read a little farther, will find
that Pliny exclaims with as much bitterness against the use of large
earthen dishes as against the luxury of colour; and brings examples
equally forcible to prove that it was wise and virtuous to love little
cups.
And, again, if the nineteenth book be referred to, what pathetic
complaints of the decline of cabbage eating will be found, and how
monstrous he thought it that a man should buy a fish or a fowl at
market when his forefathers fed upon salad! Then the enormity committed
by Apicius in teaching young Drusus not to like cabbage sprouts so well
as broccoli, and the reprimand of Tiberius addressed to the youth on
the occasion, are good specimens of Pliny’s love for the “wisdom of
his ancestors,” and his little consideration for the great benefits he
himself enjoyed from more modern improvements. Then he laments that
asses may eat thistles while the common people of Rome are debarred
from cardoons and artichokes; and I verily believe, that were his
respect for Cato not in the way, we should have had a philippic against
those who presumed to eat asparagus larger than wheat-straw; but Cato,
it seems, was among the first who had asparagus beds near Rome; so with
one growl at such as devoured the monstrous plants from Ravenna, he
allows that cultivated asparagus may be eaten.
But Pliny himself contradicts the story of the four colours. In the
instance of Apelles, how could the Venus Anadyomene, she who was rising
from the _green_ or _azure_ ocean, under a bright _blue_ sky, have
been painted with lamp-black, white chalk, ruddle, and yellow ochre
only? Then Apelles lived after Zeuxis; and if Zeuxis painted grapes,
whence got he the green and purple, if none but the four chaste, grave,
and solemn colours were known? What becomes of the monochromes, which
Pliny himself says preceded by far the time of Apelles, yet they were
painted, according to him, with dragon’s blood, a pigment by no means
resembling any of the four orthodox colours?
But such instances occur at every page. I will point out one more, in
which we have other authority for contradicting him besides his own. He
tells us that Micon painted the temple of Theseus. Pausanias and others
say the same. Now Micon was contemporary with Polygnotus, consequently,
at least 150 years before Apelles’ time. Some of his pictures were
painted flat on stucco within the temple; the rest were coloured
bas-reliefs. But the stucco, though the traces of pictures and subjects
are gone, retains the marks, or rather stains of the colours--so does
the sculpture; and among those colours we find vestiges of bronze
and gold-coloured arms, of a _blue_ sky, and of blue, green, and red
drapery[234].
In the catacombs of Egypt, in times long anterior to the great painters
of Greece, blues and greens are as commonly found as yellows and reds.
In the ancient sepulchres of Etruria, blue and green are employed along
with other colours, and sometimes capriciously enough, for there is a
very conspicuous blue horse in one of the chambers.
But we have an authority far above these. Moses expressly mentions
the colours, scarlet, red, blue, and purple, when he describes the
furniture of the ark of the covenant, and the vestments of the priests.
With these facts before them, it appears incomprehensible that a single
hasty expression of an author, however respectable, should have been
dwelt upon and adopted almost as an article of faith by painters and
critics in Italy, France, and England.
If, instead of the expressions of Pliny, writers upon colours had
adopted the words Plato puts into the mouth of Socrates about midway
between the times of Polygnotus and Apelles, we should have had the
orthodox number of colours increased to twelve.
In the Phædo, in that last beautiful fable which Socrates relates to
comfort his friends, just before he bathes and prepares to drink the
poison, he tells of a world inhabited by the immortals, to whom the
guidance of human affairs is given, as well as of a world prepared for
the spirits of good men; and says, this superior “world, if surveyed
from on high, appears like a globe covered with twelve skins, various
and distinguished with colours, a pattern of which are the colours
found among us, and which our painters use[235].”
But there would have been nothing marvellous, nothing out of the reach
of other men, in admitting that the greatest painters of antiquity were
provided with a good palette of colours. It was more agreeable to make
them execute extraordinary works with inadequate means, and so keep
them as a race apart, and far excelling what these degenerate days can
produce.
It would not have been worth while to notice Pliny’s splenetic sentence
on the four colours, had it not been rendered important by the use,
or rather abuse, of it in modern times, and I could not let it pass
unnoticed and uncontradicted, when so many proofs of its want of
foundation were to be found in his own book, and in numberless facts
connected with the most ancient works of art in existence.
I will now proceed to give such an account as I have been able to glean
from writers in different ages, of the pigments either formerly or now
in use.
Of the white colouring matters, that most used by modern painters
could not have been of great value to the ancients, unless they had
some oils, or vehicles equivalent, wherewith to apply it; for it turns
black when used in water or fresco painting. I mean ceruse, or white
lead[236]. Pliny speaks of that from Spain as the best for painters;
and he also names calcined ceruse, the use of which was discovered by
the accident of a ship taking fire in the port of Piræus, when the
ceruse in pots which was on board was consequently calcined. It is
remarkable that these pots of ceruse had been brought from Spain for
the use of the Greek ladies, who painted their faces with it.
Cennino praises the same white highly; but warns fresco painters
against it[237]; and our modern artists use it to temper most of their
colours in oil.
Next to the ceruse, the ancients valued as white a natural earth from
Egypt, Crete, and Cyrene, which Pliny tells us is said to be hardened
sea foam mixed with mud, and that accordingly minute shells were found
in it. This should be the _meerschaum_, so valued for the bolls of
tobacco-pipes in Germany, but the meerschaum has no shells. He calls it
Parætonum, and says it made the best and finest wash for walls and fine
stucco. There was also a very fine white pigment, made of chalk, ground
with the white glass of which rings and other ornaments were made; it
was therefore called annulare.
Next to this, as a natural earth, that called Eretria, both raw and
calcined, was valued; and then Melinum, from the isle of _Melos_; which
last was, however, often too unctuous for painters’ use, in which case
it suited the fullers better.
Giotto’s white was called Bianco di San Giovanni, and seems to have
been composed of the finest lime, repeatedly washed and beaten to
purify it, and then made into small cakes, and dried in the sun. The
natural white earths were also used, especially in fresco painting.
In modern practice many white earths and some preparations of shells
are used. Besides these, and white lead, there are also preparations of
zinc, tin, and barytes, which are available in different departments of
art.
Of yellows, it was impossible for any one seeking to miss them, as they
abound in most countries; and those of the most durable and best kinds,
namely the ochres.
The Attic and Gallic sils or ochres were pale, and were used for lights
by Polygnotus and Micon; but there were many ochres found in Campania
and in the hills not far from Rome, which were used both raw and burnt.
The burning of ochres generally renders the colours more transparent
and darker, so that some of the ochres assume a reddish hue, especially
the Sienna earth. Common yellow ochre, when burnt, is the colour called
light-red, admirable for flesh tints; and so indeed are many of the
other red ochres, whether natural, or artificially coloured by fire.
The ancients used the ochres of Scyros and Lydia for shadows. The dark
earths from those countries resemble that called umber, produced in
Umbria, the use of which might be unknown to the Greeks[238].
These different ochres continue even now to be used, and to them are
added varieties of modern discovery, produced in England, Spain, and
other countries.
Orpiment, or the sulphuretted oxide of arsenic, was known as a pigment
to the ancients. Its hue, approaching to gold, induced Caligula to
attempt to extract gold from it; and it is said that he succeeded
in procuring a small quantity from some brought from Syria. We are
ignorant how the ancient painters applied it. Cennino says, it is
neither good nor lasting in fresco or distemper; but that with glue or
size, it may be used in other pictures. It is still used by painters,
but is an uncertain colour[239].
The most brilliant and most valued red was vermilion. I suppose also
that it was one of the most ancient pigments. Homer says, in the
catalogue of the ships, the twelve galleys of Ulysses were painted
with it[240]; and I suspect that there was some mystical sacredness
attached to it, because it was the custom in Rome, that the first
act of a Censor on entering into office, was to rouge Jupiter’s face
with vermilion[241]. They painted all the gods’ faces with it. Horace
flatters Augustus by making him received among the gods, and drinking
nectar between Hercules and Pollux, with a vermilion face. At Athens,
cords stained with powdered vermilion were employed to drive the
people to the public meetings. The dramatic poets introduced this
custom frequently on the scene; and it would appear that the hindmost
had the worst, those who were caught with their robes stained by the
cords, were fined for non-attendance at their public duties. This same
vermilion was certainly early used by painters, and was much improved,
as Theophrastus says[242], by Callias, an Athenian, who calcined it,
and brought it to its very fine colour. In its rough state it is known
as cinnabar; and hence, both in ancient and modern times, it has been
taken for other mineral reds; and, what is worse, often adulterated
with them. In its pure state, it is a lasting colour. Cennino calls it
_cinabro_. His _cinabrese_ is a red used for flesh when mixed with
white in fresco works; it is made from sinopia, or red bole or ochre,
native in Cappadocia, and of the Bianco San Giovanni[243].
Minium, or red lead[244], seems to have been confounded by the writers
on colours with native cinnabar; though the painter would soon have
reason to regret using minium for vermilion, as minium blackens on
exposure to light and air, unless secured by strong varnishes or coats
of wax.
Of the red earths or ochres Pliny places the sinopia, of which I have
already spoken, first. It is now sold in the shops as Armenian bole,
and is used in some manufactures. Mattioli, quoting from Dioscorides,
says, that the best was considered to be that of a deep liver colour,
smooth, and heavy. Akin to this is the common ruddle or red earth, used
by the ancients as well as the moderns, in the process of gilding; and,
being properly ground and washed, useful in most kinds of painting, but
especially fresco.
Dragon’s-blood was known to the ancients as a pigment; but, from
Pliny’s account of it, they were clearly ignorant of its nature.
Cennino names it but with contempt, and it is not much valued by the
moderns[245].
With the ancients, who do not appear to have known any of the lakes, it
was different; they valued it much, and, it is said, used it for their
monochrome pictures[246]. If they did so, it confirms Fuseli’s account
of the process of painting, or rather of drawing, those pictures. It
is a resin of a warm semi-transparent, dullish red colour; and is best
used as a varnish which darkens on exposure to the air. If this varnish
were laid over the white ground of the monochromes, after the first
process of drawing with the point, the outline would be seen through,
and the indentation made by the point upon the tender chalk ground
being filled up with the varnish, would present a dark outline, the
point being then applied, would cut down to the white ground, and so
produce the light reliefs[247].
The other reds known to the ancients appear to have been mostly opaque.
Cennino mentions Lac or Lake. But it appears that in his days it
was principally procured by discharging the colour from shreds of
scarlet and purple cloths. His editor imagines that he also knew and
recommended gum lac. Be that as it may, neither the ancients nor the
school of Giotto seem to have known anything of the fine lakes; whether
prepared from the Indian gums, from madder, or from other substances,
that enrich the palette of painters, both in oil and water-colours now.
Sir Humphrey Davy, however, seems to think that lake made from madder
may have been known to the ancients[248].
Of blue colouring substances, the most beautiful known to the
ancients, as to us, was ultramarine. Pliny says the best of azures
came from Egypt, the second kind from Scythia, and a third from
Cyprus. It is not possible to determine accurately whether all these
were true ultramarine, for it appears that then, as now, it was often
adulterated, and even imitated, by boiling native blue earths with
woad, or by grinding smalt with it. That manufactured in Spain, and at
Puteoli, was entirely artificial[249].
It is said, on the authority of Theophrastus, that one of the kings
of Egypt invented the method of making the beautiful Armenian blue,
so precious that kings sent presents of it to each other. And this
corresponds with the value of ultramarine at all times. The Lapis
Lazuli, from which the colour is made, is found in Siberia, and on the
borders of Persia, as well as in China, where the preparation of the
colour has long been known. It is probable that the superiority of the
colour brought from Egypt was owing to the method of preparing it, for
the most genuine kinds were certainly likely to be those of Scythia
and Armenia[250].
Of that brought from Scythia there were four preparations of different
degrees of beauty and intensity of colour; and shortly before Pliny
wrote, one Nestor had invented a new preparation from the lightest part
of the Egyptian blue.
The earliest Christian painters appropriated it to painting the robes
of the Virgin Mary, and called it after her name, and it is much more
probable that those artists inherited the mode of preparing it, than
that it was invented in the still rude times in which the arts began
to revive. I saw in the middle church of the sacred convent at Assisi,
a large jar which had been sent to the painters, Cimabue, Giotto, and
their pupils, full of ultramarine by the Queen of Cyprus[251], for the
purpose of painting that magnificent church.
Some of the ancient imitations were, as I have said, composed of earth
boiled with woad, those of Cennino’s time were boiled with indigo
instead of woad.
The blue earths from Germany appear to have been long known, indeed the
cobalt, though that name had not then been given to it, was necessary
for colouring the glasses and pastes used for fictitious gems by the
ancient artists[252].
Indigo had been introduced into the west from India not long before
Pliny’s time. Painters had, however, immediately adopted it for shadows
and for strong lines.
The green colours were procured in great part by the ancients as they
were in the middle ages, and are now, by the mixture of blues with
yellows. There were, however, several green earths in use, and many
oxides of copper, sometimes used in a fluid, sometimes in a solid
state. The principal green earth used by the ancients was chrysocolla,
or borax. Macedonia, Armenia, and Spain, furnished the best raw
material; but the best manufactory appears to have been in Cyprus. One
kind of it, by boiling with dyers’ weed, assumed a golden yellow hue,
and was then called orobites. The best method of using it was, to lay
first a ground of the white earth, parætonum, then to wash that over
with vitriol, and so lay on the chrysocolla, which is very brilliant,
over that ground. The green made from orobites mixed with azure is not
durable, though bright[253].
The borax is, doubtless, the terra verde of Cennino, the terre verte of
the moderns; the best is now procured from Holland, where the art of
preparing it is understood. For some ages this art was in the hands of
the Venetians, who imported the borax from India, Persia, and China,
where it is produced at the bottom of some lakes. It is also found in
similar situations in Tuscany[254].
But verdigris, variously prepared, was used both by painters and the
manufacturers of glass for ornamental purposes, as well as by surgeons
and physicians for potions and plasters among the ancients. In Giotto’s
time, it entered into the composition of many tints, several of which,
however, faded easily. With the moderns it is not much used, as being
apt to disagree with some other pigments, and difficult of application.
It was an ingredient in the painter’s black, called atramentum[255].
However, most of the blacks used were of the soot collected from
burning various substances, such as resin, or pitch, very little
different from common lamp-black, which, mixed with copperas, was
mostly used for writing ink.
Polygnotus and Mycon made their black of the refuse of the wine-press,
burnt. Apelles used burnt ivory. Of the Indian black[256] the nature or
manufacture was unknown to Pliny, as it is to us. An excellent black
was procured both from the soot and ashes of torch-wood, the soot
adhering to the dyers’ coppers was also sought after, and some painters
imagined that the ashes from a funeral pile were preferable to all.
This is properly treated by Pliny as mere superstition.
When any of these blacks were used as ink, gum of some kind was added.
For painting on walls size was the necessary vehicle. But vinegar was
in all cases found to be the best ingredient to mix the colour properly.
Dioscorides says that the soot from glass furnaces was used for ink.
To these blacks, Cennino adds the burnt stones of peaches, and shells
of almonds, or burnt vine twigs. They were to be mixed with various
vehicles according to the work required. In India a fine black is made
from burnt cocoa-nut shells.
There was a colour very much used by the ancients for glazing. It was
roset, or purple-red, procured by throwing Tripoli stone into the
vats where fine purple dyes were boiling[257]. To make a fine red in
painting, the ground was laid with sandyx[258], and then glazed with
roset mixed with white of egg. When a fine purple was required the
ground was laid with blue, over which the roset was applied with the
same vehicle. The roset of Puteoli was reckoned the best, though finer
dyes were produced by the Tyrians, Getulians, and Lacedemonians.
The colour mentioned by Cennino most akin to this, is his _ametisto_,
which he describes as a native mineral colour.
Armenino talks of a pavonazzo still more like it in its properties.
We have a purple mineral, found in the Forest of Deane, but in general
our purples and purple browns are now produced from madder, or from
metallic oxides.
Such is the scanty information I am able to give concerning the ancient
pigments, with any degree of certainty. Various earths were brought
into the market from Germany and Gaul; and it is improbable that the
Cologne, and other rich brown earths, should have been neglected.
Cyprus appears to have furnished the painters’ shops with the greatest
number and variety, both of native and manufactured colours, and no
doubt the Venetians succeeded to her knowledge and skill in this
matter, as they did to her commerce and maritime power[259].
I have spoken with more confidence on the subjects of most of the
antique colours than I should otherwise have done, from having a clear
recollection of a conversation I had with Sir Humphrey Davy, just after
he had been engaged in examining several jars of antique pigments
that had been discovered on an estate belonging to the Archbishop
of Tarentum[260]. He told me that not one of those he had examined
differed in substance from those now used for the same purposes.