Theory of Colours — trans. Charles Lock Eastlake (1840)
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The translator’s English as printed (Charles Lock Eastlake). The original-language text is not held; names are romanised as the translator printed them.
One circumstance alluded to by Palomino, in his very minute practical directions, deserves to be mentioned. After saying what colours should be preserved in their saucers under water, and what colours should be merely covered with oiled paper because the water injures them, he proceeds to communicate "a curious mode of preserving oil-colours," and of transporting them from place to place. The important secret is to tie them in bladders, the mode of doing which he enters into with great minuteness, as if the invention was recent. It is true, Christoforo Sorte, in describing his practice in water-colour drawing, says he was in the habit of preserving a certain vegetable green with gum-water in a bladder; but as the method was obviously new to Palomino, there seems sufficient reason to believe that oil-colours, when once ground, had, up to his time, been kept in saucers and preserved under water.[35] Among the items of expense in the Treviso document before alluded to, we find "a pan and saucers for the painters."[36] This is in accordance with Cennini's directions, and the same system appears to have been followed till after 1700.[37]
The Flemish accounts of the early practice of oil-painting are all later than Vasari. Van Mander, in correcting the Italian historian in his dates, still follows his narrative in other respects verbatim. If Vasari's story is to be accepted as true, it might be inferred that the Flemish secret consisted in an oil varnish like copal.[38] Vasari says, that Van Eyck boiled the oils with other ingredients; that the colours, when mixed with this kind of oil, had a very firm consistence; that the surface of the pictures so executed had a lustre, so that they needed no varnish when done; and that the colours were in no danger from water.[39]
Certain colours, as is well known, if mixed with oil alone, may be washed off after a considerable time. Leonardo da Vinci remarks, that verdigris may be thus removed. Carmine, Palomino observes, may be washed off after six years. It is on this account the Italian writers recommend the use of varnish with certain colours, and it appears the Venetians, and perhaps the Italians generally, employed it solely in such cases. But it is somewhat extraordinary that Vasari should teach a mode of painting in oil so different in its results (inasmuch as the work thus required varnish at last) from the Flemish method which he so much extols--a method which he says the Italians long endeavoured to find out in vain. If they knew it, it is evident, assuming his account to be correct, that they did not practice it.
[1] See "Marcucci Saggio Analitico-chimico sopra i colori," &c. Rome,
1816, and "Taylor's Translation of Merimée on Oil-painting," London,
1839. The last-named work contains much useful information.
[2] Italian writers of the 16th century speak of three kinds. Cardanus says, that of the _abies_ was esteemed most, that of the _larix_ next, and that of the _picea_ least. The resin extracted by incision from the last (the pinus abies Linnæi) is known by the name of Burgundy pitch; when extracted by fire it is black. The three varieties occur in Italian treatises on art, under the names of _oglio di abezzo_, _trementina_ and _pece Greca_.
[3] The concrete balsam _benzoe_, called by the Italians _beluzino_, and _belzoino_, is sometimes spoken of as a varnish.
[4] Marcucci supposes that balsam of copaiba was mixed with the pigments by the (later) Venetians.
[5] "L'Archipelago con tutte le Isole," Ven. 1658. The incidental notices of the remains of antiquity in this work would be curious and important if they could be relied on. In describing the island of Samos, for instance, the author asserts that the temple of Juno was in tolerable preservation, and that the statue was still there.
[6] "La Carta del Navegar Pitoresco," Ven. 1660. It is in the Venetian dialect.
[7] Inveriadure (invetriature), literally the glazing applied to earthenware.
[8]
"O de che strazze se fan cavedal!
D'ogio d'avezzo, mastici e sandraca;
E trementina (per no'dir triaca)
Robe, che ilustrerave ogni stival."--p. 338.
The alliteration of the words _trementina_ and _triaca_ is of course lost in a translation.
[9] "I li ha fati straluser co' i colori." Boschini was at least constant in his opinion. In the second edition of his "Ricche Minere della Pittura Veneziana," which appeared fourteen years after the publication of his poem, he repeats that the Venetian painters avoided some colours in flesh "e similmente i lustri e le vernici."
[10] Thus, in the introduction to the "Ricche Minere," Boschini calls the Milanese, Florentine, Lombard, and Bolognese painters, _forestieri_.
[11] "Il Riposo," Firenze, 1584.
[12] "De' Veri Precetti della Pittura," Ravenna, 1587.