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.
[13] "Trattato della Pittura fondato nell' autorità di molti eccellenti in questa professione." Venezia, 1642. Bisagno remarks in his preface, that the books on art were few, and that painters were in the habit of keeping them secret. He acknowledges that he has availed himself of the labours of others, but without mentioning his sources: some passages are copied from Lomazzo. He, however, lays claim to some original observations, and says he had seen much and discoursed with many excellent painters.
[14] "Le Meraviglie dell' Arte," Venezia, 1648.
[15] It has been conjectured by some that this story proved the immixture of varnishes with the colours, and that the oil was only used to dilute them. The epitaph on Antonello da Messina which existed in Vasari's time, alludes to his having mixed the colours with oil.
[16] "Petri Mariæ Caneparii De Atramentis cujuscumque generis," Venet.
1619. It was republished at Rotterdam in 1718.
[17] "Ita quod magis ex hiis evadit atramentum picturæ summopere idoneum." Thus, if _atramentum_ is to be understood, as usual, to mean a glazing colour, the passage can only refer to the immixture of varnish with the transparent colours applied last in order.
[18] In a passage that follows respecting the mode of extracting nut-oil, Caneparius appears to mistranslate Galen, c. 7--"De Simplicium Medicamentorum facultatibus." The observations of Galen on this subject, and on the drying property of linseed, may have given the first hint to the inventors of oil-painting. The custom of dating the origin of this art from Van Eyck is like that of dating the commencement of modern painting from Cimabue. The improver is often assumed to be the inventor.
[19] Milan, 1590.
[20] The particulars here alluded to are to be found in the first edition of Vasari (1550) as well as the second.--v. i. c. 21, &c.
[21] "Osservasioni nella Pittura." In Venezia, 1580. Sorte, who, it appears, was a native of Verona, had worked in his youth with Giulio Romano, at Mantua, and communicates the methods taught him by that painter, for giving the true effects of perspective in compositions of figures. He is, perhaps, the earliest who describes the process of water-colour painting as distinguished from distemper and as adapted to landscape, if the art he describes deserves the name.
[22] "Della nobilissima Pittura e sua Arte," Venezia, 1549. Biondo is so ignorant as to attribute the Last Supper, by Leonardo da Vinci, to Mantegna.
[23] "Disegno del Doni," in Venezia, 1549.
[24] "Dialogo di Pittura," Venezia, 1548. Pino, in enumerating the celebrated contemporary artists, does not include Paul Veronese, for a very obvious reason, that painter being at the time only about 17 years of age. Sorte, who wrote thirty years later, mentions "l'eccellente Messer Paulino nostro," alone.
[25] The Dialogues of Lodovico Dolce, and various other works, are not referred to here, as they contain nothing on the subject in question. The latest authority at all connected with the traditions of Venetian practice, is a certain Giambatista Volpato, of Bassano: he died in 1706, and had been intimate with Ridolfi. The only circumstance he has transmitted relating to practical details is that Giacomo Bassan, in retouching on a dry surface, sometimes adopted a method commonly practised, he says, by Paul Veronese (and commonly practised still), namely, that of dipping his brush in spirits of turpentine; at other times he oiled out the surface in the usual manner. Volpato left a MS. which was announced for publication in Vicenza in 1685, but it never appeared; it, however, afterwards formed the ground-work of Verci's "Notizie intorno alla Vita e alle Opere de' Pittori di Bassano." Venezia, 1775. See also "Lettera di Giambatista Roberti sopra Giacomo da Ponte," Lugano, 1777. Another MS. by Natale Melchiori, of about the same date, is preserved at Treviso and Castel Franco: it abounds with historical mistakes; the author says, for instance, that the Pietro Martyre was begun by Giorgione and finished by Titian. The recipes for varnishes and colours are very numerous, but they are mostly copied from earlier works.
[26] That distemper was not very highly esteemed by the Venetians may be inferred from the following observation of Pino:--"Il modo di colorir à guazzo è imperfetto et più fragile et à me non diletta onde lasciamolo all' oltremontani i quali sono privi della vera via." It is, however, certain that the Venetians sometimes painted in this style, and Volpato mentions several works of the kind by Bassan, but he never hints that he began his oil pictures in distemper.