Theory of Colours — trans. Charles Lock Eastlake (1840)

The testimonies, direct or indirect, against the employment of any such substances by the Venetian painters, in the solid part of their work, seem, notwithstanding, very conclusive; we begin with the writer just named. In his principal composition, a poem[6] describing the practice and the productions of the Venetian painters, Boschini speaks of certain colours which they shunned, and adds:--"In like manner (they avoided) shining liquids and varnishes, which I should rather call lackers;[7] for the surface of flesh, if natural and unadorned, assuredly does not shine, nature speaks as to this plainly." After alluding to the possible alteration of this natural appearance by means of cosmetics, he continues: "Foreign artists set such great store by these varnishes, that a shining surface seems to them the only desirable quality in art. What trash it is they prize! fir-resin, mastic, and sandarach, and larch-resin (not to say treacle), stuff fit to polish boots.[8] If those great painters of ours had to represent armour, a gold vase, a mirror, or anything of the kind, they made it shine with (simple) colours."[9]

This writer so frequently alludes to the Flemish painters, of whose great reputation he sometimes seems jealous, that the above strong expression of opinion may have been pointed at them. On the other hand it is to be observed that the term _forestieri_, strangers, does not necessarily mean transalpine foreigners, but includes those Italians who were not of the Venetian state.[10] The directions given by Raphael Borghini,[11] and after him by Armenini,[12] respecting the use and preparation of varnishes made from the very materials in question, may thus have been comprehended in the censure, especially as some of these recipes were copied and republished in Venice by Bisagno,[13] in 1642--that is, only six years before Boschini's poem appeared.

Ridolfi's Lives of the Venetian Painters[14] (1648) may be mentioned with the two last. His only observation respecting the vehicle is, that Giovanni Bellini, after introducing himself by an artifice into the painting-room of Antonello da Messina, saw that painter dip his brush from time to time in linseed oil. This story, related about two hundred years after the supposed event, is certainly not to be adduced as very striking evidence in any way.[15]

Among the next writers, in order of time prior to Bisagno, may be mentioned Canepario[16] (1619). His work, "De Atramentis" contains a variety of recipes for different purposes: one chapter, _De atramentis diversicoloribus_, has a more direct reference to painting. His observations under this head are by no means confined to the preparation of transparent colours, but he says little on the subject of varnishes. After describing a mode of preserving white of egg, he says, "Others are accustomed to mix colours in liquid varnish and linseed, or nut-oil; for a liquid and oily varnish binds the (different layers of) colours better together, and thus forms a very fit glazing material."[17] On the subject of oils he observes, that linseed oil was in great request among painters; who, however, were of opinion that nut-oil-excelled it "in giving brilliancy to pictures, in preserving them better, and in rendering the colours more vivid."[18]

Lomazzo (a Milanese) says nothing on the subject of vehicles in his principal work, but in his "Idea del Tempio della Pittura,"[19] he speaks of grinding the colours "in nut-oil, and spike-oil, and other things," the "and" here evidently means _or_, and by "other things" we are perhaps to understand other oils, poppy oil, drying oils, &c.