PAPERS OF THE SOCIETY OF PAINTERS IN TEMPERA

Vol. I 1901-1907 SECOND EDITION REVISED & BROUGHT UP TO DATE WITH APPENDIX By the Society of MURAL DECORATORS AND PAINTERS IN TEMPERA 1928

Edited by M. Sargant-Florence Hon. Secretaries to the Society: M. Lanchester, Chelwood Gate, East Grinstead Harry Morley, 4 Pembroke Road W.8. PRINTED FOR THE SOCIETY BY THE DOLPHIN PRESS, BRIGHTON 1928

PREFACE

The conditions under which the following papers were written are well known to all members of the Society, but it may nevertheless be well to add a word of explanation for other readers. Since the foundation of the Society in 1901 meetings have, from time to time, been held and papers read in pursuance of the declared object of the Society "Improvement in the art of tempera painting by the interchange of the knowledge and experience of the members." There was no thought of printing the papers at the time when most of them were written; but they were at first circulated in manuscript. They are now given in practically the same form in which they were read to the Society. No attempt has been made to harmonise the conflicting opinions expressed by different writers. It was essential to the vitality and usefulness of the Society that each member should be willing to communicate to the others the results of personal observation and experience, and to do this promptly, not waiting for a final verification of observations or the crystallisation of opinions into definite convictions. J.D.B & S.L. Hon Secs., 1907

INTRODUCTION
If these little records of actual experience and practice in the technique of somewhat disused methods of painting and decorative work should fall into the hands of any whom this formerly most important part of the wide domain of art is now forgotten and unknown, they should not think that there is any claim that a few fragmentary papers represent all, or a tithe of all that might be gathered together about this group of subjects. It is somewhat remarkable that at the present time when the intimate and the personal are recognised and appreciated in art, as they have not at least been (consciously) recognised and appreciated before there is so little recorded of individual practice in actual craftsmanship. Unless we should have to conclude that craftsmanship does not exist this is a pity, and our little Society, feeling that it would be helpful and stimulating to the attainment of greater excellence in the management of the material art, decided to give a permanent form to the occasional papers on their own methods which have been contributed by its members and read at its meetings. Grounds and pigments and mediums have been called the cookery of painting, but after all no painting can exist without them. If a finely cooked dinner could remain and give not only one hour's pleasure but continuous pleasure for even a year, let alone a hundred or more years, it might be worth while cooking it. Possibly a more apt illustration may be drawn from a comparison between the material foundations of painting and of music. Painting is a s dependent on a beautiful quality of finished painted substance, as music is on, say, a fine toned violin, and the paint is an inherent and permanent part of the picture on which the picture depends for its very existence. We very much wish that this action of our Society might be followed by others, and that something like the priceless treasure of the old Guild "secrets" might again be within reach of those who care for such things. These secrets were very largely records of efforts to gain "quality"; sometimes of knowledge how to secure the subtle and elusive beauty of texture we call by this name. Whatever its nature one thing is certain, namely, that in decorative art which claims to offer objects for admiration, or to make them pleasanter to look at no one will compass this particular beauty who does not love the material employed even in its limitations, using it as a friend and a guide, handling it with both respect and admiration. Christiana J. Herringham

FOREWORD TO THE SECOND EDITION

That a sufficient demand has been made to justify a reprint of the original papers of the Society of Painters in Tempera, is proof of the reviving interest taken in the study and practice of the methods and in the media of the craft of painting. The papers in this second edition of Vol. I, have, for the most part, been carefully revised by their respective authors and, where found necessary, brought up to date. These additional contributions are either embodied in the article themselves, treated as foot-notes, or collected in an appendix to this new issue. The result of this revision is to emphasise the keynote of our Societys activities in calling the attention of the painter to the essential need of a practical knowledge of the media he employs, whether of pigments, grounds, or backings to his work, and to their inevitable interrelation. It is to the insistence on the need for this recognition of craftsmanship, admirably summarised by C. J. Herringham in her introduction to the first edition as the foundation stones of quality in the painters craft, that the energies of our Society have been so faithfully devoted, and the varied experience of its members, already extending over a quarter of a century, only continues to confirm the original intention of the founders. Experiments carried out in many branches of the painters craft expose the fallacy of, in actual practice, treating quality in texture as a negligible factor in the general results, or at most as a final polish and not as the final word of a work which, from its foundations upwards, should be conditioned by the nature of the materials in which it finds expression. This intimate correlation between the parts and the whole, though recognised in the practice of the past would appear nowadays to be regarded as nonessential, if not absolutely deleterious, to the aesthetic value and even to the inspiration of a painting. The habit of thinking exclusively in terms of a solid covering, such for instance as oil-paint, has tended to destroy the recognition of importance in what lies beneath that surface, and the essential part it plays in determining results. Thus, whilst the painter is preoccupied with the problem incidental to laying on his pigments the added burden is placed upon his shoulders, of bringing into sympathetic co-operation factors which have not been considered in relation to one another, and texture has come to be regarded, not as the natural outcome of such happy co-operation but rather as a desirable beauty to be imposed wherever possible. A point of view peculiarly disastrous in surface covering of a decorative nature. It was by careful consideration of the material requirements between the backing, the ground and the nature of their pigments that the craftsman of the past became masters, endowing their works with durability and the gift of mellowing with age. The painters medium in itself is but a skin-deep vehicle for the expression of sensations that are profound, hence the surface and the manner of its treatment become in truth vital in the art of conveying the desired impressions. Unison of the craftsman with his medium strengthens the hand of the one and develops the qualities of the other and the former is emboldened to fresh ventures in company with the latter, conveying the spectator with him into suggestive and unexpected byeways of beauty. Given these conditions the material reveals new beauties in the quality of its texture, due to modifications in the relations to one another of the rays of light reflected back from the surface; similarly as in the realm of music it is the manner of handling an instrument which, by its effect on the partial tones, makes or mars the quality of timbre of its notes. Substitute the word timbre for the homely word texture and at once the aesthetic significance of its function in painting becomes apparent, and the Cinderella of modern painters will be given her true role. To know how to evoke and control such effects is the reward of patient study and experiment on the part of the craftsman, and such experiences should be regarded, not as menial drudgery incompatible with the

higher walks of art, but as themselves, the flowery paths that lead to the joy of consummation. M. S-F

CONTENTS
Grounds suitable for painting in Tempera: J.E. Southall... Venetian Tempera: Roger E. Fry... A Method of Gilding: L. Agnes Talbot... Wall Painting with Size: Reginald Hallward... Methods of Tempera: Christiana J. Herringham... Editors Note... Preparation of Walls for Tempera Painting: J. Cooke... Fibrous Plaster Grounds: L.M. Turner... Yolk of Egg Tempera: R. Spencer Stanhope... On Gilding on Vellum: Philip Mortimer... Author's Note, 1928... Notes on White Pigments: J.D. Batten... Note on Vermilion: J.D. Batten... Fresco Painting: M. Sargant-Florence... The Painter - Mediaeval and Modern: J.E. Southall... Priming a Canvas for Tempera Painting: J.D. Batten... Madresfield Court Chapel: Henry A. Payne... APPENDIX Replies to R.E. Fry's Paper on Venetian Tempera; by J.E. Southall... M. Lanchester... Note by Harry Morley... M.Sargant-Florence... Gesso duro Recipe: M.Sargant-Florence...

GROUNDS SUITABLE FOR PAINTING IN TEMPERA

A paper read before the Society of Tempera Painters at Leighton House By J. E. Southall May 20, 1901 PAINTING IN TEMPERA
The idea of painting in Tempera was first suggested to me by the following passage in Ruskin's St. Mark's Rest, together with the study of the picture to which it refers, viz., Carpaccio's "Two Venetian Ladies," in the Correr Museum. Ruskin says: "It is in tempera, however, not oil: and I must note in passing that many of the qualities which I have been in the habit of praising in Tintoret and Carpaccio, as consummate achievements in oil-painting are, as I have found lately, either in tempera altogether or tempera with oil above. And I am disposed to think that ultimately tempera will be found the proper material for the greater number of most delightful subjects. It was very soon after my return from Italy in the spring of 1883 that I began my first blundering experiments in tempera, with only Eastlake's Materials for a History of OilPainting as a guide, and I had so little idea of what was suitable for a ground that I actually began upon the panel of a door painted in the ordinary house-painters' manner with cream-coloured oil paint. There was, I think, something appropriate in the subject, which was a sketch of some fowls in a field. I then painted two small full-length portraits on the two lower panels of the same door, and in these there was a marked tendency to crack and peel off in those parts where most colour and medium were laid. The only wonder is that any of the tempera stayed on, but I had to apply varnish [copal] pretty quickly to keep the defective parts from coming entirely away. After this I ventured upon a subject of four half-length portraits, nearly life-size, for which I bought an ordinary canvas primed for oil-painting, doubtless with white-lead in oil. Needless to say this caused me endless trouble - the paint peeling off in a distressed manner - a development considerably increased by my having mixed yolk and white of egg together, instead of using yolk only as my tempera; but I submit nevertheless that considering the large proportions of oil in the egg it is rather singular that it should be necessary to guard so jealously against any oil or grease in the gesso. Of this necessity, however, there seems to be no room for doubt, though of course it may be possible to make tempera adhere to oil-paint by some make-shift device, {Footnote....Rubbing over the oil-paint with an onion} such as that attributed to Vandyck. As I had as yet no copy of Cennino's Treatise I next tried a ground of white lead tempered with egg-yolk, laid in two or three coats on a mahogany panel. This worked well, and though it has cracked to some extent (with fine small cracks only), it remains after seventeen years in a very fair state of preservation, and has not changed at all since the application of a second coat of copal varnish some five or six years ago. It was varnished soon after completion, probably within two months. The transparently painted parts of this little picture have not perceptibly changed, {Footnote - This remains quite true 43 years after the painting was done. The white lead has darkened a little more in places but this may be owing to lead in the varnish} and I believe the reason of the slight darkening in the more solid parts is that they were more absorbent

and consequently the first coat of varnish did not form a sufficient protection. There is no need to dwell on this point, but it interests me because it tends to show that white lead is not, so to speak, as black as it is painted. It will be said, perhaps, that this only applies to varnished works - but there is another reason for thinking that white lead in yolk of egg may be permanent. I used it pretty freely in wall painting about the same date (1884), and in this case no varnish of any kind was ever applied and yet the white remains good. One of these wall paintings was in a country house, however, where no gas was used. This is a suitable place for a word or two about the most fascinating - to my thinking - of all grounds, a plastered wall. It is now-a-days so common for artists to work wall decorations on canvas in their own studios that the jolly old days of scaffolding and cartoons seem very far away. I doubt if the new way of working can ever equal the old. Vastly convenient it is no doubt, and safer too when one considers the difficulty of getting honest builders and sound workmanship, and the consequent suspicion as to the durability of the plaster, but the work done on the spot must be better suited to its place, and the charm of seeing it a part of the wall itself is not to be despised. Given a good tough durable plaster I do not see why a yolk of egg tempera wall-painting should not be tried. Perhaps in London the soot would conquer it, but there is some smoke and there are some impurities in the air in Birmingham and yet a tempera frieze that I have at home is holding its own very well. The danger with wall-plaster is that if it is not very thoroughly sized, and if too much tempera is used, the work will after a little time crack and peel off; but I do not at all think this disaster will occur when reasonable precautions are taken. The worst of it all is that people do not want their public buildings frescoed (with some few exceptions), so that the opportunity of testing these things is very small. I have mentioned plaster because my subject is "grounds suitable for tempera-painting," not grounds available for it. From that time I have always used gesso or paper for tempera grounds. Of paper and cardboard I will say little - they are easy to work upon and I know of nothing against them unless it is that paper always contains some moisture, which may lead to the growth of mould. I believe there are those who advocate zinc white as the best of all grounds for tempera, but for my part I do not feel much confidence in it. {Footnote..A little zinc white either washed over the gesso thinly, or used in the underpainting is to be recommended, for where oxide of zinc is there fungus will not grow.} For our ordinary work, whether panel or canvas, what more do we desire than gesso! It is intensely white and has the enormous advantage of having successfully emerged from the test of time, the only thoroughly exhaustive test. The first requisite in a ground for tempera is surely that it should have an intense power of reflecting light, and that this power shall be permanent. Can we say that either white lead or zinc white are sure not to become less opaque in time? But this can with certainty be said of gesso, so far as there is any certainty in such matters. The only objection is the possible failure of the size necessary to bind the gesso, and this objection seems to me of doubtful validity, even when allowance is made for our damp climate. I think a modern French writer has said that though the words of Van Eyck have lasted very well on gesso up till our time, yet the ground may not last much longer, and that we ought to consider what a much brighter future prospect these pictures would have before them if they had been painted on a more permanent ground. Well it may be conceded that a good picture ought to last 1,000 years, but I confess that the pessimism which grieves over a work still in good condition at the end of four centuries and a half is a little too gloomy for my taste. I shall therefore assume that gesso is the orthodox and standard material for our grounds, which, however, leaves many questions to be decided, such as the material on which to lay the ground, that is whether canvas or panel; and if on panel, what wood is to be used and whether strips of linen are to be glued over it or not; and whether the gesso is to be grosso or sottile.

Then the amount of size has to be settled, the smoothness of finish, and finally whether or no gold leaf is to be applied to the complete ground. Most, if not all, of these questions are dealt with in Cennino's Treatise with Mrs Herringham's annotations, but she seems to advise the use of gesso grosso, whereas I have never attempted anything but gesso sottile - that is to say I have always slaked my plaster of Paris, keeping it in water for a month, and have then applied six or eight coats to the linen or the panel, mixed of course with parchment size - following the directions briefly given in chapter 118 of the Treatise. On linen I have occasionally for oil painting used a thin ground made of two fairly stiff coats of gesso laid on with a strong hog-bristle brush - which would, however, be suitable I imagine for tempera-painting in body colour. I now use for any picture that cannot be painted on one piece of wood, a piece of Langdale linen, homespun and hand-woven, on a wedged frame, coated with about eight coats of gesso, following after two washes of size on the linen - and backed with one or two coats on the wrong side. The linen being of a rather open texture, beads of gesso make their way through to the back from the first coating on the face, and the whole becomes as it were riveted together, these being joined while wet with the coat of gesso on the back. Thus the ground can hardly come away from the linen with any ordinary fair treatment. I like to have the surface rubbed down to a very smooth finish and then washed with one or two coats of thin size. The advantage of a canvas is partly its lightness as compared with a large panel, and partly the avoidance of the danger arising from joints in the wood. There is no need to dwell on the various methods which have been adopted (often futile) to cover these joints, but I may say that where a panel is used I do like to have strips of linen glued to the wood before the gesso is laid on. It may be that these strips (laid of course across the grain of the wood) will not prevent the panel from cracking, but at least they have this advantage, that if the wood should decay, the fibrous threads of the linen would give toughness to the ground, if ever it came to be removed from the panel. On panel the ground should certainly be finished smooth like ivory, and washed with weak size to stop absorbency, which is important. If very strong glue has been used with the gesso this may perhaps be omitted. The glue should not be so strong as to be brittle. There is no tendency so far as I know in any tempera pictures, old or new, to peel off on account of the hardness of the gesso - but there is very grave objections to a porous ground which needs to have its pores filled with egg. Yolk of egg does not dry at once into a firm solid, but while externally dry to the touch it seems to remain in a half-fluid condition internally, and particles of pigment locked up in it seem able to move their relative position to one another. As therefore with a porous ground more egg is required than with a hard one, this imperfect drying is most to be feared. I have known Chinese white to disappear, being presumably drawn downwards by its own weight onto or into the ground, while the converse is the case with other pigments, which come to the surface - or "bloom"; "blooming" of ultra-marine where it is laid on with great depth being perhaps due to this cause. But I confess I speak only in conjecture as to how these things happen, while knowing only too well that they do happen, and are very serious. {Footnote..In painting ultramarine it is desirable to paint the under coat, say green, and then go straight on with the blue say 2 or 3 days at the outside then "blooming" will not occur} Where a great deal of zinc white is used throughout the work these troubles may not arise. There is a very interesting chapter on "Sinkings in oil-paint", in Vibert's Science of Painting, a phenomenon which appears to be caused by the oilmedium sinking away from the particles of pigment - not from the pigment moving in the medium. A word now about painting on gold grounds. For small pictures nothing seems to me more satisfactory than to cover the gesso ground with pure gold leaf laid on bole and burnished as described by Cennino. When the gold is burnished down it seems to be

so firmly secured to the ground that there can be no danger of its coming off, but when not burnished this danger does sometimes exist. The burnisher soon finds out any place where the gold leaf has not adhered to the bole. The chief difficulty with a gold ground is the marking out upon it the outline of the work to be done. Also the gold is a little slippery at first, and being entirely non-absorbent the colour dries much less rapidly than on gesso, and care is needed not to work up the under-painting when laying one colour or wash of colour over another. A very light scratch will remove the colour from the gold, especially while the painting is very new. But the richness and brilliancy of colour, either transparent or opaque, painted in tempera on burnished gold, and the readiness with which deep tone is obtained, constitute advantages of a very high order. When to these we add the increased protection to the colour from below, arising from the incorruptible nature of gold, a great case is made out for the use of gold grounds. I have at home a small panel with a figure painted three years ago, on such a ground as I have just described; it has never been framed, and its present condition is such as to give me every confidence in recommending the use of gold-leaf. I have two panels painted in tempera on gold leaf and then varnished with shellac varnish, in perfect condition after 27 years. They have never been under glass.

VENETIAN TEMPERA
A paper read by Roger E. Fry November 1, 1901

VENETIAN Tempera technique is perhaps more interesting than that of any other school. It presents many curious changes in method and some problems which are, I believe, very difficult to solve satisfactorily. It is my hope that some of the members of this Society have got nearer to their solution than I myself can profess to have done. I will endeavour to state what have been to my mind the chief difficulties of arriving at any satisfactory and consecutive history of the Venetian method. It is unfortunately difficult to point to any picture in an English public gallery which exhibits fully the earliest Venetian technique. To understand that one must look at the work of Jacopo Bellini or Michele Giambono. I have had recently under my observation for some weeks a picture which I believe to have been by Jacobo Bellini, at all events it belonged to the epoch of Venetian painting which is dominated by his genius and influence. But as I cannot expect you to know by heart any genuine work of this extremely rare painter, I may say that in general effect his tempera comes extremely near to that of Pisanello, as seen in the "Conversion of St. Hubert" in the National Gallery. And as Jacopo Bellini, and all the Venetian painters of this early period came directly under Pisanello's influence, this likeness is easily is easily accounted for. In any case both Jacopo Bellini and Giambono, who resembles him very closely, agree in using tempera with the utmost effect of richness and transparency, a richness and transparency which are not usually associated with tempera, and which come in fact nearer to the ordinary effects of oil medium, used not as it is now, but as it was used while the tempera tradition still maintained a high standard of technical method and accomplishment. But this richness and depth are not the only peculiarity of this technique. The total absence of hatched strokes, the perfect fusion of tones, both in flesh and drapery, are rare and peculiar characteristics. The highlights of the flesh present indeed a remarkable and curious appearance. They have a minute crackling which does not extend to the half tones and they were evidently washed on to the half tones in some manner which allowed of the edges being softened off imperceptibly, as can easily be done in oil, but which is, as far as my experience goes, extremely difficult in tempera. In the landscape extraordinary effects of atmosphere and fusion are produced. In the particular picture I refer to a peculiar difficult problem of atmospheric effect was satisfactorily solved. Part of the landscape was seen through a bottle-glass window and the distortion and dimming of the forms was successfully accomplished. Now if we turn to later but still quite early Venetian painting - to the painting of Jacopos son, Giovanni Bellini, amongst his pictures and early works such as the "Blood of the Redeemer" in the National Gallery we shall find something left of this extraordinary power of atmospheric fusion, but in the figures we find the fused tones of Jacopo's work replaced by the hatched strokes which we are familiar with in most Italian tempera. In Jacopo Bellini's son-in-law, Mantegna, there is practically no fusion of tones and no atmospheric quality. While in Crivelli's work - and Crivelli was in close connection at one time with Bellini and Mantegna - the hatched stroke has become the sole means of modelling, and is used with an almost harsh and obvious effectiveness. His tempera may be described as almost coarse, certainly as severely limited in its capabilities of expression.

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When we reflect that throughout the whole of his life Giovanni Bellini was aiming at getting the utmost richness and suavity into his quality, was aiming particularly at giving to objects their proper atmospheric development and fusion, it becomes difficult to answer the question how it was that he did not inherit to the full his father's control of the medium, nor was ever able to make tempera do quite what he most wanted to do, and was consequently one of those who embraced with enthusiasm the new oil techniques, and did in that surpass - so far as these particular qualities go - everything that had been previously accomplished by Italian art. Another problem which the history of Venetian tempera poses is this. We know that Venetian and also Veronese artists - with whom these were closely united - were in constant communication with the artists of South Germany. In particular one very early Venetian painter, Antonio da Murano (Vivarini), was for many years, 1440-1450, in partnership with a German, Giovanni Alamanno. Now long before this time the Cologne school had employed a fully developed oil technique, with complete fusion of tones, and the Venetians of Antonio da Murano's generation - that is the same as Jacopo Bellini's generation - were employing tempera to the utmost of its possibilities just in this direction, so that one may suppose oil painting was introduced in Venice. I do not know of a single South German tempera of this time, and yet Venetian pictures are executed in pure tempera. These then are the problems I wish to suggest: 1. How did these early Venetians, Jacopo Bellini and Giambono, get the richness of their effects? 2. How, in particular, did they get fused high lights in their flesh without hatching? 3. Why did they never adopt German oil methods, which seemed so peculiarly suited to their aims? 4. Why did the second generation adopt the simpler, more ordinary hatched tempera, and yet take to oil as soon as Antonello da Messina introduced it?

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A Method of GILDING ON GESSO Adapted from that of CENNINO CENNINI

By L. Agnes Talbot April 28, 1902
This is a plain account of one way of Gilding on Gesso adapted for picture frames, ornamental work, and specially for the use of Tempera painters, for it was used by the Italians as a rich and refined ground for colour, and also as a part of the picture. As it remains practically unchanged for centuries, it is fit to form a part of valuable work. This is how I should proceed to make a Gold Ground on a Panel. The Wood must be first sized, and I make the Size as follows: To make Parchment Size. - The Parchment Shavings are cut into pieces and put to soak in water throughout the night. In the morning measure them in a vessel not pressed down. Boil them in water (a double saucepan is best) until the smaller pieces begin to dissolve and break. Then strain through muslin. One measure (measured after soaking, before boiling) should make 1.5 measures of size. If when you pour it off there is more than this, boil till it is reduced to the right amount, if less, add water. This, I am aware is not an exact or satisfactory method of measuring, and I should be very glad to know of a better. If one weighed the parchment dry in delicate Scales one could come nearer to accuracy, but even then the continual warming of the size, when in use, increases the strength, and one has to add water, so that it becomes a rule-of-thumb business after all. This strength of the size is rather important, because on it depends the hardness of the gesso: a too soft gesso does not take burnish and is tiresome to manipulate, while on a too hard one the gold loses quality and has a glittery appearance. Sizing the Wood. - This is done in three coats, weakest first, drying thoroughly between. Different woods take different amounts, but you will know when the panel has had enough by the glitter of size on the surface when it is dry. After sizing make the surface perfectly smooth with sand paper and fill up any cracks or holes: a piece of linen or silk, glued over cracks is often useful. The Gesso. Take up some Slaked plaster and wring it in a cloth. I will give the method of slaking later, but at present I will presume you have it ready. Cennino tells us we can let the lump of plaster dry, arid use it at any time, paring off shavings and soaking in water for re-wringing, or mixing direct with the size. It is well to know this, but if it is possible to keep one's plaster in the water and wring out a fresh supply for each piece of work, so much the better. If it is used dry the size must be weaker, there being no water in the plaster. Heat a lump of size in a cup standing in a saucepan of boiling water. Take some of the wrung plaster, according to the size of the work put size to it and mix with the fingers or hand; no other tool does so well as the hand. (Footnote: 1 am certain that the only thoroughly reliable way of intimately mixing the plaster and size is to rub them (after a rough mixing) through a piece of coarse linen or very strong thick muslin The best way is to tie it tight over a jar or basin and rub the gesso through with a wooden spoon. C.J.H. Having made the gesso perfectly smooth, free from bubbles and lumps and as thick as good cream, put on a very slight coat and rub it in thoroughly with brush and fingers. If there is carving see that every corner is moistened. Priming a Flat Surface. - In a few moments you may, if it is a flat surface you are gilding, lay with a large brush, or even pour on the panel, a considerable quantity of gesso as evenly as possible pick up the panel while it is wet and shake it with a rapid movement: it will be almost perfectly smooth.

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If a second coat is needed, wait till the first appears dull as you look along it, and then lay the second in the same manner as the first. I like a thick gesso myself. I know some beautiful Italian work is done on ground as thin as a film almost, but the gold cannot have that pleasant beaten appearance which results from the use of the burnisher on an elastic substance like gesso. When the gesso is perfectly dry, which may not be for some days, rub it down with fine sand-paper and after with a damp cloth until it is as even as ivory, and then burnish with the agate. The Colour and Egg-Size. - The colour may be terre verte or Armenian bole Terre verte gives the cooler colour, bole the richer colour and higher burnish the method is the same whichever you use. The way I grind the colour is as follows : - I beat the white of an egg to a very stiff froth, add a glass of water, beat the egg into the water and leave it to stand for the night. In the morning the froth will be found standing on the top : draw back the froth and take what lies immediately below it, being careful not to disturb the sediment. With this mix your powder colour to a paste, and grind on marble with a muller, adding as much of the egg medium as is necessary. It must be ground until it is of a perfect smoothness, and the time this takes varies considerably, according to the fineness of the colour. Four coats are usually necessary, the first one being weak enough to drop like water from the brush, the others stronger In succession. Before laying the first coat the gesso must be moistened with a wet sponge or cloth, and the colour is then laid as evenly as possible. The Burnishing of the Colour is very important as the future burnish of the gold depends upon it. I rub well first with a large soft piece of silk, and then burnish very completely with an agate. The Gold. -The panel is now ready for the gold. The method of cutting and laying on the gold is one that must be seen and practised, so I cannot say much about it. The medium to use is that which I described for grinding the colour, mixed with an equal quantity of water. If the ground beneath is good and the surface of the colour well burnished a good result in the gold is almost certain. Carved or Raised Work. - I now pass on to Carved or raised work. And here I may say that deep or undercut carving is not suitable for this kind of gilding, while designs in low relief or shallow carving are the most pleasant. Of course the process Is longer and more difficult. The design may be raised in three different ways at least. It may be dropped from the brush with gesso and then burnished, this way being suitable for low relief floral designs or it may be carved in the wood; or (this is useful for figure designs or others requiring delicate modelling) it may be begun by carving and finished by modelling with the brush, and carving on the dry gesso. Lines may be raised with great ease by soaking a piece of string in size containing a little plaster, and laying them in position on the wood, and when dry laying the gesso over them. On Modelled Surfaces the quick method I described for laying the gesso cannot be used: it must be painted on in many coats, letting each be half-dry but never quite dry before the next is laid. In the rubbing down process the sand-paper should be supplemented by one or two tools and different shaped agates, and it is labour wellspent to paint on the gesso with care and evenness, for it saves time afterwards. The final touches to the drawing are given while smoothing the surface and, even when gold is on, the more delicate lines may be improved by a pointed agate during the process of burnishing. The work should never be touched by a hand at all moist, and it is wisest to handle it with a piece of silk. To Slake Plaster of Paris for Gesso. - Get the finest plaster of paris and bolt it through muslin. If you have a pound of plaster pour at least a gallon of water into a large glazed pan. Pour the plaster into tins water, stirring immediately and uninterruptedly with a wooden spoon: do not intermit your stirring for half-an-hour, and then cover the pan from dust. For at least three weeks stir for a few minutes every day, and if the water grows foul pour it off from the top and add a fresh quantity.

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WALL PAINTING WITH SIZE By TEMPERA. Paper read

Reginald Hallward July 17, 1902 THE METHOD OF PAINTING
Parchment Size, for I use no other, is obtained from slips of parchment, cut up small, and boiled in water to the strength required. Left simmering for half-an-hour, plenty of the medium can be obtained, which, when strained off and cold, should just set and no more. In this condition it is ready for use. Having the colours ready mixed in water, my habit is to add just so much size as will prevent the surface rubbing off, using water to moisten the colour to my needs. One gets to know instinctively how much size is required to work the colour well - little size, rather than too much. I shall come to this point in speaking of the method I employ in handling the material. The size is easily warmed up again if it sets, and re-heating helps to prevent it from becoming unpleasant. One or two cloves put into it, however, will keep it fresh over a longer period. (Footnote - I have had to write this while working in another material and I fear therefore it will lose in the practical character which actual contact with size as a medium would have secured to it. I had hoped to have the leisure to carry out one or two studies in tempera worked with size and, out of respect to the members of the Society, I am sorry that, owing to unexpected demands on my time in other work, I have been unable to do so.) I have used size much more for Wall Painting on a considerable scale, for which it is well adapted, than for easel pictures. And though the surface and beauty of any material depend on the skill of all artist's handling, it can be claimed for Size Tempera that it lends itself to an incomparable freshness and bloom unattainable by oil. (Footnote - I am not at all sure about this. I have seen, since writing this, admirable results in oil-colour showing just such qualities (1907)) I do not venture to speak of methods of size tempera for easel pictures, because for these I have generally used oil as a medium. In this size-tempera work an absorbent though firm ground is desirable, such as a good gesso or other plaster wall-surface. If a wall has been painted with oil-colour, I should always let it alone. tempera will not work well over oil. There is no key or attachment for the colour to the wall surface. I know it is usual to prepare plaster for tempera by a coat of size to stop suction, but painting on a wall thus prepared will lead to the size immediately working up unless the handling is weak and sloppy, in which case the colour will not last. My experience is that direct contact with the actual wallsurface is essential to get a proper bond for the painting and make it durable. The Handling of the Size. - It is very difficult to speak with clearness on this point and to an artist it should almost be a secret to himself - he works instinctively, and I fear to make myself ridiculous in talking of such things. Don't, I should say, put a coat of size on a wall before starting, because then one wipes the colour off instead of working it in, and I find that the virtue of it all lies in getting the wall to absorb and retain the colour into, not on to, it. Nor is the difficulty of its drying

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lighter felt by some unfamiliar with tempera, any real difficulty, when proper familiarity with its ways is attained. It does not seem in the least difficult to judge what the effect will be. The greater the quantity of size used, the less change there will be in the colour. I cannot abide the loading of colour, the brush-smear, or the palette-knife, though the latter has its special use for heightening effect and forcing the lights. But on the whole, I like for my own work to have very little appearance of the opaque material such as a palette-knife, passed over the wall, would scrape of. On the contrary, distrusting the lasting value as also the effect of any dry excrescence of colour, I generally remove it with the palette-knife, and repaint. The wall should be, to my taste, itself a vision of form and colour and not only a foundation for something painted upon it. The Choice of Colour. The palette will be at the discretion of each artist, but the usual powder colours obtainable at any good artist colourmans thoroughly well-ground worked up stiff with a palette-knife with water soft as possible, are what I use, and for the purpose of working over a large surface I use a table on which at the back are spaces for the colours and mediums, the rest acting as a wide palette from which to work. As already stated in using the colour I add just so much size as to make it work freely. It all seems so elementary that I feel almost ashamed to speak of these things, but perhaps it is best to begin from the beginning. Both for painting and retouching I admit to making frequent use of moist water-colour, which I find helpful for glazing, etc. The Painting Surface. - I have already said that it needs an absorbent surface, and not a hard or opaque one to work size as a medium with any security of the painting, and I would venture to add, with any fine quality of effect. I dwell, I fear, tiresomely on this, because to preserve the work very little size ought to be used and but little is needed, and I say, though I may lay myself open to criticism, that with some colours of strong dyeing power I would use almost none at all. It is forcible, not timorous. Painting, that will last. I think M. Angelo must have been thinking of his tempera when he spoke of having to work always with a kind of frenzy." If the painting is done with a force that will impregnate the texture of the wall itself there can be no doubt of its permanence. Though I regret to have had so little opportunity of studying on the spot the works Of those artists in Italy who seemed to have worked in this material, I do not think that their examples could have lasted if the colour had been worked superficially and on a non-absorbent ground. The Handling of the Colours. - There is little in tempera painting that is not in common with the handling of any other medium. All that is possible in oil is possible in tempera. It might appear that in working the second painting one would pull up the first, but constant experience shows that this need not be the case. Glazing, stippling, dragging the colour, or bringing it through are all perfectly possible with size tempera, because I have tried it; and it is all this, with the addition of its soft blooming appearance and freedom from limitations, which so much attracts me. I do a great deal of my painting with soft rags. A cheap cotton muslin without fluff I find best, and often for days together I scarcely handle a brush. It compels a resoluteness in handling in laying in the prevailing masses the success of which is so inevitably the foundation of a good result, and it would surprise any but an artist how much can be successfully done in this way. As to brushes, I use one shorter in the bristle than is, I believe, usual, and which would no doubt work up the under colour if this were applied superficially (i.e, not well absorbed by the ground), but endangers it not in the least if previous coats have been properly worked. I cannot bear a weak slobbery brush which turns round and looks at you, but must have one which really grapples with the wall and drags its secrets out. Use of Plain Tints. - I don't know whether it is outside the subject to consider the use of plain tints in Tempera worked with size over the large wall spaces of Public Buildings, such as galleries and churches - but as I often have to deal with these I may perhaps be allowed to say something without appearing tiresome. I have tried many methods

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and I have failed many times, and I may therefore be excused for thinking that plain colour-surfaces are difficult to manage. Picture galleries with their importunate shiny papers that quarrel with the pictures show that it is a matter of great importance to get the secret of a certain tranquil beauty of colour Good colour, in my experience, is seldom, if ever, to be obtained directly, and it might be worth while for others to try my methods. It is the custom of the trade decorator to stipple over the first tint, which has been laid over a strongly sized ground (it is called clear-coating) with colour used thinly mixed with three parts pure size to one of water.) This last coat is rapidly applied as it dries swiftly, from the amount of size, and the painter as he works follows on directly stippling the colour over the wet surface. Very good effects of colour can be obtained in this way. But there are two serious objections. Such strong size cannot last long and any scratching or marking of the surface shows very much and the surface is easily defaced I adopt, therefore, an altogether different method. The Method of Colouring. The First Tint having been applied on the absorbent wall without the clear-coating (or with a very weak one) preceding it, the painters are provided with flat trays on which the final colour is poured in a thin film. The painter dips his stipple directly into this and, without there having been any previous painting, applies it straight to the wall. The advantages appear to me unquestioned and innumerable, You need no extra size, you are in no hurry, you can leave the wall in the middle and you will find no unequal rivers down the wall from the colour having dried before stippling could be effected, The wall will not be mechanically level in colour - it will be of a slightly broken or scumbled appearance-very full and rich in effect. {Footnote The walls of the Chancel in Bentley Carr Church, near Dewsbury, were done in this way.} Painters resent the process as it is longer in applying, and needs skill and pains, but more satisfactory results can be obtained than by the ordinary method though in the latter, chance may occasionally give good results. For myself; I have had to find certainty at the cost of failure, sometimes a heavy price to pay, as those who have had the colouring of large spaces will understand. I think it has been stated that under-paintings in tempera ought not to work up at all and all stages of the painting should contribute to the ultimate effect, and I reiterate, at the expense of being tiresome, that it is not fair to accuse tempera itself of inefficiency because it is often badly used in a smeary superficial way. I am so far methodical, if methodical in anything, that three paintings, or three stages, give a complete result. The outline being sketched and rubbed in slightly with colour, the laying in of the large masses and proportions of the design follows, the next stage carrying the painting in detail as far as possible except for after-touching and alterations. With these very perfunctory remarks, and an apology, that my intention to show examples has been frustrated owing to the demands on my time, I must bring these remarks to a close.

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Methods of TEMPERA as exemplified in A few pictures at the National Gallery

By C.J. Herringham
I wish to be understood to be speaking of tempera pure and simple - finished in Tempera - not as used for an underpainting to oil. The beauties of the technique of the tempera period do not depend entirely on the medium being a different one from the oil to which we are nowadays more accustomed, though tempera has, as a mere material, certain special qualities and beauties of its own which we may say are intrinsic in the material. But some of the beauty of old tempera lies in the manner of handling it, i.e., in the stages of painting and in the brushwork. These methods persisted in early oil painting, which is not easily distinguishable therefore from the tempera painting which sought to catch something of the richness and glow of oil. As having this rich quality way be mentioned Bellini's Blood of the Redeemer," which is so blended highly modelled and brilliant that one hardly dares accept it as tempera, which however, it should be, according to the received history of the painter's development. In Botticelli's "Nativity," painted towards the close of his career, there seems to be an attempt to imitate the glisten and impasto of oil, as notably in the rich texture of the draperies of the kneeling figures on the right and left. It is not catalogued as tempera, but it is certainly an example of this method. In the little Love and Chastity there is a high finish and depth of tone hardly to be matched except in Flemish oil painting - but the coolness of the colour and a something in the substance of the paint seem to me to put on it the hall-mark of tempera, although throughout, spite its minuteness, it is direct painted not stippled work. It is maintained, by some, that even Van Eyck's work has a tempera foundation, and is only finished with varnish glazes. The same is said of Memling and others. I scarcely share this opinion - at least I think that the oil or varnish work is by far the most part of the painting in the case of these two men, but there are probably many so-called oils where the tempera predominates. We are confronted, therefore with the difficulty that when we wish to talk about tempera brush-work and method, we scarcely know which pictures are tempera and which are not. The early oil painters accustomed to the limpidity of tempera, so easily diluted with water evidently aimed at, and nearly attained, a similar limpidity in oil painting. But they possessed in their new medium more power of blending colour, of giving exact form in single touches - the paint has a much greater tenacity and juiciness, a finer more delicate line can be drawn with it, more depth can be readily obtained by glazes, it permits more exact modelling readily obtained by glazes, it permits more exact modelling, and covers easily in smooth even expanses. It is from the abuse of blending and covering, and from the loss of transparency and modulation that most of the ugliness and want of quality of modern work have risen. In discussing the capabilities and qualities of tempera we must not forget that experiments were undoubtedly made in mixed mediums by fifteenth century painters, and that it is not improbable that some of these have survived. Cennino specifies egg and size mixed for banner painting. The old recipe books for miniature painting contain many other examples of white of egg combined with various gums and soluble resins. A Danish painter told me that he had obtained very permanent results with a mixture of yolk of egg with a drop or two of linseed oil, the same bulk of size as of egg and a drop honey It is a long time ago and I

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did not write the recipe down, I am sorry to say. He had used it for wall-painting when a young man, and after thirty years he said the painting was unchanged. I should like to mention in a few short sentences some of the varying characteristics of tempera handling and quality as exemplified in the National Gallery. The two pictures by Piero della Francesca show a great amount of the same strong virile painting - the strokes of the brush drawing form - that we find in Netherland oil-painters. The lights are forcible and even loaded, and large spaces show hardly any hatching at all. What there is seems expressly intended to produce mingled colouring. There is a considerable difference between "The Baptism," and "The Adoration of the Shepherds." The first is undoubtedly pure tempera; the second appears to have such a viscous, tenacious quality in the solid painting that it is not surprising that some people hold that a varnish or mixed mediums must have been employed. This picture has the exquisite coolness and freshness of tempera, although it is obvious that it is painted over a yellowish-brown monochrome. ''The Baptism - is as evidently painted over a particularly bright terre verte. "The Death of Procris by Piero di Cosimo is another marvellously beautiful example of (I believe) late tempera work - though here again the paint has a substance and power of which most people think the medium not capable. At first sight the picture seems painted with a rich impasto, having a sort of facetted refracting surface, but there is nothing of the sort - there is no laboured work, no ''finish,'' no final hatching. There is just painting in dabs and loose short strokes or in parts with long light ordinary brushwork, with probably a large bristle brush. The dab work is in the sky and water and flesh (thumb prints are suggested by members of the Society), and just a few wonderful brush strokes make the blue of the distant hill. The grass, dog and vermilion drapery arc painted, all exceedingly fine work. If this picture really is tempera, one feels that oil could be dispensed with, and what recognised oil painting of the period has an uncracked surface ? There is the same kind of strong brushwork in P. di Cosirno's ''Centaurs,'' which passed through the Carfax Gallery a couple of years ago, and now belongs to Messrs. Rickerts and Shannon. That is all in cool grey, blue and bronzy tones of marvellous depth and richness. In the same room in the gallery where the Procris casts a radiance like the lustre of coloured glass, hanging opposite, is a tempera picture having a brilliance and richness of a different character; a Madonna with infant Christ and two saints of the Tuscan school. The St. Catherine in red and white holding the lily, golden with curly hair, has that elaborated beauty which enhances the rapid, dramatic, emotional beauty of handling of the Procris. Its brilliance is not obtained, however, without a lightness and transparency of painting not altogether dissimilar. Botticilli has been mentioned already. As a rule his large tempera work has a broad, simple, fresco-like quality - not attempting much glamour of surface. The Mars and Venus is a very good example of this class of work. It is forceful from bold opposition of lights and darks and subtle calculating of the amount of light in the sky and on the lighted surfaces relatively to one another. The light falls simply, and the scheme is faithfully adhered to throughout. As in fresco, hatching is used where it is wanted, for broken colour and for modelling form, giving the effect of blending and gradation. Fra Filippo's two pictures - "The Annunciation'' and "St. Johnthe Baptist with six saints'' present the work of a man who had a singular love for the special capabilities of his material, notably in the bloom-like velvetiness of his drapery-colours, and the general penetration with reflected colour. His painting has as much the appearance of blend as I think is possible in tempera, probably produced largely by the rapid, superimposed washes, a method only really permanent in tempera, which does not seem to have the tendency to be come more transparent and lose the value of thin opaque scumbles. If one of the greatest glories of our gallery, 'The Entombment" of Michael Angelo, is in tempera, then tempera is the most marvellous medium we possess. It is hopeless to attempt to describe the lightness and breadth and beauty of the handling and blending and colouring of this masterpiece.

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(Footnote 1 - Since reading my paper to the Society I have seen a beautiful little tempera landscape of Mr. Corbet's of a most astonishing luminosity. Beside his other work on a dull autumn afternoon it seemed really to be favoured with a special illumination of its own, I suppose this effect is given by the lustre of the pure white ground. I do not believe the force of the white ground can be retained or utilised in the same way in oil painting.) (Footnote 2 Here is a recipe, probably for MS. Illumination, which suggests that picture mediums may have had similar additions to the bare egg. It is from the Strasburg MS. in old German of the year 1400 or thereabouts. "Take the white of three eggs in a clean vessel, and beat the egg-white with a spoon until it becomes clear, and take a fair linen cloth and wring the white through five times, until it no longer froths, and afterwards take of gum arabic a settit (probably half an oz.), lay it in the white of egg and let it dissolve, and after that take a full spoon of vinegar, and mix that with the egg-white, and after that lay in the egg-white as much sal-ammoniac as one egg-white, and keep this 'water' by itself in a glass until you need it.") EDITORS NOTE Unfortunately no later records by Lady Herringham on the media and technique of tempera painting appear to exist, but on one occasion, I had the good fortune to meet her in the National Gallery in front of The Entombment and to have a long discussion on the subject of the possible media employed by Michael Angelo in the painting of the picture. I expressed the opinion, which I held at the time, that it could only have been executed in buon fresco i.e. on a moist ground, in view of the wonderful fusion of the flesh tints. To this she objected, basing her conclusions, for one thing, on the extraordinary freshness in hue of the scarlet tunic of the St. John, the colour of which could only have been produced by the use of vermilion, or of red lead, neither of which would keep their hue in contact with moist lime, though possibly former might have been the natural earth which was more durable than the present manufactured article. But on closer examination it was evident that the texture of the surface in this portion of the work is more compact than is that where the flesh tones are laid on; it also appears to have more gloss and the handling of the colour is more elaborate than is usual in so quickly drying a process as that of buon fresco. Lady Herringham however conceded that possibly the flesh tones throughout may have been in true fresco and painted on the moist gesso ground, which would in effect lend itself to that blending or fusion of tones which distinguishes these portions of the work, The problem of the draperies however she held to be inexplicable except by the use of some form of wax medium either used as a glaze over an under painting or as a medium entering into the composition of the pigments themselves. The facilities afforded me recently of making a much closer inspection of the surface tends to confirm this impression as to the diversity in handling of the flesh tones and in that of the draperies. The gesso ground appeared on examination to be sufficiently thick, namely a full 1/16th of an inch, to retain its moisture during a considerable time, whilst the absence of incised outlines is no criterion as to the condition of the ground at the time of painting as the design might have been pounced on to the surface. It is evident that in the figure of the dead Christ the lightest tone values are provided by the gesso surface itself, thus obviating the necessity of applying some form of solid body colour in modelling the flesh tones and this treatment, contrasts strikingly with the painting of the linen band passed across the chest where the folds are rendered in a white pigment. In the St. John where the flesh painting is carried a step further in naturalistic treatment very minute cracklings, visible in the texture of the lightest values

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on the bent thigh, betray the presence of some body colour; with very few exceptions however the grain of the flesh surfaces resembles that of a calcic ground prepared for buon fresco by the use of a mason's iron float, i.e. they present a close-pressed surface of granular texture. Any certainty of knowledge however must depend very largely upon acquaintance both with the nature of the gesso ground and of any backing that may intervene between it and the wooden panel which forms the groundwork of the picture. And also of the nature of the medium employed in the composition of the pigments.

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PREPARATION OF WALLS for TEMPERA PAINTING.

Paper Read By J. Cooke January 21, 1903

The primary consideration that should undoubtedly govern the preparation of walls for painting in England is that of climatic and atmospheric conditions, which, though perhaps unduly abused by the inhabitants - who are proverbially unhappy unless they have something to grumble at - are so different from those of Italy and other southern countries, where wall-painting reached its perfection, that the experience of those countries can be but of little guide to us. We enjoy - if that is the right word - an atmosphere that is very frequently in a waterlogged condition, and almost always contains a large proportion of humidity added to this, changes of temperature are frequent and sudden, and as a natural consequence there is constant condensation of moisture on surfaces that are exposed to these conditions. The deposition of moisture even on a lime surface, tends to hasten the decay that all such surfaces are subject to, and if, as is the case in large towns, the moisture is charged with acid gases, the decay is greatly accelerated. In smoky towns the moisture is also charged with dirt of various kinds, which on deposition is sucked into the surface and becomes impossible to remove. The first step, therefore, in Preparing a Wall should be to guard as much as possible against this condensation, which is best achieved by rendering the wall, or rather the inner surface of the wall, as free from sudden changes of temperature as possible. On outer walls and even on inner walls, it is always safest to lay the plaster on battens and laths, and so to arrange them that there is a free circulation of air from the room itself behind the plaster surface. This is easy where the lower part of the wail is panelled, as an aperture can be left here and there at the junction of the styles and panels, which will be quite sufficient, if intelligently arranged, or even a ventilator can be introduced without much disfigurement. With large surfaces in public buildings it is not so easy, but a little ingenuity will always enable the architect to arrange for this ventilation, This inner skin also guards the painted surface from attacks of damp from without, and a defective stack pipe can sometimes do irreparable damage in a few hours, 'there is also another danger that is avoided, and that is what is technically called the 'salting'' of the brickwork, this nitrification sometimes entirely destroys the inner surface of a wall, and though it ceases after a time, it can continue long enough to work its way through a plaster covering, and should it do so it would ruin a painting. Should it be impossible to arrange that the surface to be painted can be laid on battens and laths, the only precautions that can be taken are to be sure that the wall is quite dry and well-pointed on the outside, and that the damp course is sound and that tie earth has not been piled up the wall above it. I have just had personal experience of a wall showing clamp two feet up from this cause. A well-regulated system of heating the building is also an added security. It is usual now to Lay a Plaster Surface in Three Coats, and if good material be used and the work well done I do not think anything is gained by using more. The materials themselves should be of the best and should particularly be kept scrupulously clean. Good Dorking and Halling lime, though not setting very hard are, I think, as good as can be used. The Blue Lias which is generally used in the Midlands is a stronger lime, but is not so white and is more caustic and difficult to slake. The Derbyshire lime-stones are very strong, but I fancy contain sulphates of both lime and baryta, and also seem to have a curious hygroscopic quality that is absent from the poorer limes. It is most important that the lime should be thoroughly slaked, and too much care and trouble cannot be taken to ensure that this is done: after thoroughly grouting it should lie as putty for at

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least three months, as carefully protected from the air as possible and it is all the better if it lies for even as long as a year. The Sand should be sharp grit, river or pit sand and should be well screened and washed in at least two waters; on no account should sea sand ever be used, however carefully washed. Should any hair be used for the first coat it also should be thoroughly washed, though I think Professor Church's recommendation of chopped asbestos instead of hair, a good one. If a smooth surface is desired, a little marble dust can also be used for the finishing coat, though I am doubtful if there is any advantage except in texture, to be gained by its use. Each coat should be thoroughly hard on the surface before the next is laid, and should be well roughened with a jagged stick while wet, to form a key for the next coat. The ordinary plasterers way of scratching criss-cross lines with the smooth edge of his iron float is an easy but not a good way, as it makes too smooth a key. Each coat should be thoroughly wetted before the next is laid, and it is well to see that this is properly done as the aforesaid plasterer is apt to be satisfied if the surface is damp enough to take the next coat easily. Lime sets by absorbing, while a hydrate, enough carbonic acid gas from the air to re-form into its original carbonate of lime, but this action, in addition to being slow, only takes place to perfection in the presence of moisture; that is to say that, though dry hydrate of lime will return to carbonate, it will not form such a hard compact substance as it does if it absorbs carbonic acid gas while damp. It is therefore most unwise to hasten the drying of plaster by artificial means; in fact a harder, better plaster is obtained if the drying is retarded by 'sprinkling ' with water. Church recommends syringing the wall with water charged with carbonic acid gas (the ordinary soda water of commerce), and though costly, it would undoubtedly be the best way to get a good and strong platter quickly. If the lime is good and fairly fresh, that is to say if it has been well protected from the air while slaking, three parts by measure of sand to one of lime will be found a good working proportion. Great care should be taken that the finish of the wall is obtained without undue rubbing of the surface, as this coaxes the lime to the surface, where it forms a hard skin very liable to crack and peel away. If a very smooth surface is required it can be obtained by the use of fine sand and an iron or smooth wood float; rougher surfaces by the use of a float covered with felt, or cloth, or even a piece of Brussels carpet. Unless it is possible to leave a wall for at least twelve months before painting on it, plaster of Paris should not be used, and I do not think anything is gained by its use in any case: although an exquisite material it seems to have an action on colours that continues for a long time after it is set. In the case of a concrete wall, plaster laid on it would not be safe to work for at least two years, if then. As Portland cement is terrible stuff, and sweats out all sorts of impurities, being in its nature a sort of compound substance containing, among other dangerous impurities several magnesium salts that are hygroscopic and very efflorescent. The whole object of the action of limes, though known for so many centuries and much studied of recent years, particularly by French engineers, is full of obscurities. I cannot therefore do more than touch on it, and should anyone wish fuller for information, I refer him to an excellent handbook : Burnell's "Limes, Cements and Mortars." (Footnote) With regard to plaster of Paris. For easel pictures it seems necessary to make it nonabsorbent, which I have always done with egg yolk and about six times its bulk of water with a little yellow ochre - and I let this dry for some days before further painting. Mr. Southall puts two coat of parchment size just too weak to set. (C.J.H.) When the plaster is thoroughly dry and feels comfortably warm to the touch, the painting may be commenced. Professor Church recommends that a thin sheet of gelatine should be placed against the surface to ascertain whether the hygroscopic equilibrium between the room and the wall is true, which is shown by the gelatine

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curling outwards or remaining flat, but I think this to be a needless precaution for tempera work, though a wise one if the painting is to be done in oil or varnish. Before beginning to paint the natural absorbency of the plaster should be checked, but I think it is better that it should not be entirely stopped, or the painting will lie rather as a skin on the surface. Cennino Cennini gives one whole egg beaten up in a porringer of water and applied with a sponge, as the best preparation; this is a bit vague but I think an egg beaten up in about one and a half pints of water is about right; if much less water is used the egg is liable to set on the surface instead of sinking in as it should. It is, I think, best that the preliminary drawing should be done before this preparation and the drawing fixed with a little colour ground with water or lime water only, as erasures might be apt to disturb the surface left by the diluted egg, and the eventual painting might dry variously in consequence. The colours for the first painting should I think, be more freely tempered than the final ones, as the wall will still be absorbent in spite of the wash of dilute egg. These few hints may be useful, but one must be governed to a certain extent by local conditions in preparing walls for painting. Note supplied by Mr. H Thackeray Turner. Lime slaked in boiling water is much more thoroughly slaked than in cold water. For whitewashing a cottage the man employed said he must put some old beer and Russian tallow to make the lime stick to the bricks - but he was told to try a square yard with the boiling water. When dry it would not rub off at all. Splashes on the stack pipe and windows would not rub off but could only be scraped off with difficulty. This was Dorking lime.

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FIBROUS PLASTER GROUNDS

Read to the Society of Painters in Tempera. By L.A. Turner January 21, 1903

Fibrous Plaster is a coarse canvas covered on each side with a thin coating of Plaster of Paris and stiffened with wood laths. All work of this description is cast ( ie. it is necessary to have a matrix) and is not floated like lime plaster on a rigid surface such as a brick wall. As it is necessary to have a mould to take the casts from, any number of casts can be produced of a like surface (should a modelled effect in the surface be required), and having once got that particular surface or texture, you will not be at the mercy of the workman to reproduce that effect, but it will be kept by the original mould. Plaster work to my mind never looks right if the surface is absolutely a dead level, even when it has painting applied to it. To Produce a Good Modelling Surface - The easiest and I think the best way, is to make a modelled ground of clay, which gives an even more plaster-like effect than if lime-plaster is used; for the latter is inclined to produce either too even a face from the joint rule or too edgy a surface from the trowel. In using the term "modelling effect" I am thinking of the old Jacobean period moulded ceilings which are cast work and yet beautifully modelled all over, plain surfaces as well as mouldings, the richness of effect being thereby immeasurable beyond what it would be if the mouldings were "run" and the ground a dead level. Of course there is a danger of getting the clay too much dimpled, a worse fault than the hardness of trowelled work. The simplest way to produce this ground, is to take a modelling board, as large as the sheet of plaster you require, and nail a fillet of wood round it projecting from half to three quarters of an inch above the surface, and cover the board with clay to that thickness, striking off the clay to a dead level surface with a long wooden straight edge which will work on the wooden fillets round the board. Having done this take a wire modelling tool (say three inches wide) and model the clay to what you feel will be the effect you require in the plaster cast. The surface of the clay can be treated in a number of ways for instance if you want a Rough Surface drag the face of the clay over with your hand, when the clay is in a very moist condition, which can easily be produced by wetting the surface until it clings to the fingers, and not as clay in good condition for modelling which should leave the fingers quite clean. But if a Smooth Modelled Surface is required it is best to give the clay, when modelled, two coats of shellac and then slightly oil or grease it to prevent the plaster from sticking and pulling the coat of shellac off with it. Instead of clay being used as the medium to model in, plaster and silver sand can be used in exactly the same way as the clay, only a considerable amount of size must be added to the plaster to prevent it setting too quickly, or you will not have time to do the modelling before the plaster becomes hard. Having got thus far a Mould must be taken from the Modelling, for if the model were used as the mould, the impression got from it in plaster would look very wrong - the bumps appearing too small and the hollows too large. This cast then, which is taken from your model is the mould from which as many casts can be taken as you please. To take a Cast from this Plaster Mould - and the same method must be used to make the mould - it will be necessary first to shellac it to prevent suction, and then to very slightly grease or oil it. Mix the plaster of Paris with about an equal proportion in bulk of water, and well stir it up - this requires some skill to prevent its being lumpy. Supposing that it takes one bucketful of plaster to cover the surface of the mould to one-eighth of an inch in thickness, you will require to mix a second at the same time, to make the cast. The surface of the mould having been covered with one-eighth of an inch of

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plaster, it is allowed to slightly set, until it is about the consistency of soft butter; the second bucket is now used and the plaster thinly splashed over the first coat, and on to this you immediately apply the canvas, passing the palm of the hand all over it so that the plaster squeezes up through the coarse mesh. On this you lay the wooden laths from six to nine inches apart as the cast may require. These laths are made of varying thickness to meet the strain they will be required to stand. For this cast, which we are supposing is to be made about 4ft. x 6ft., they will require to be about three-quarters of an inch thick and an inch and a quarter wide. These are smeared with plaster, strips of canvas about six inches wide placed over them and again rubbed, so that the plaster under shall key well into the work; short pieces of lath again are placed at right angles between the long laths which stretch from side to side of the cast, and the whole coated thinly with plaster. The cast must be left for fifteen or twenty minutes to allow the plaster to get well set before it is lifted from the mould. It will be found that unless the plaster is modified it will set too quickly so that it will become hard before it can be squeezed up through the meshes of the canvas, and so to the first bucket a very little size is added,(Note: Each ton of plaster we have in requires a different gauge, but roughly speaking 1/4inch cube of gilder's size would be about right to a bucket; or less of joiner's glue, which is stronger. This latter form is equally good.) and to the second, which is required to set still more slowly, about double the amount is added. This small amount of glue not only prevents the plaster from setting too quickly but also adds to its strength. The wood laths or battens should be of the best pine, free from knots and straight in the grain, so that the tendency to warp is minimised. The canvas should be of about three-sixteenths or a quarter inch mesh, for if the mesh is too small the plaster does not work up through it, and so does not get a good key and the result is the plaster face is likely to flake off. The casts will be found to have a tendency to become convex. This is on account of the plaster swelling, for all plaster swells very considerably in setting. However, these casts are fairly pliable, and if care is taken to keep them flat and weighted down whilst they are drying they will keep flat when dry. To fix the casts to the wall or ceiling, brass or galvanised screws must be used, screwing through the wooden battens to the wall, which has been prepared with wooden plugs or battens. An advantage to be gained by using these casts is that excepting where the battens come there is an air space between the plaster and the wall, so that it is not so easily affected by any dampness in the wall. Cast Panels may be made of any size and could be Used as Painting Grounds. I often use them eight feet square, and they can be curved or hollow as you like. They are, to a certain extent, fireproof. If used to do raised gesso work upon, or to cover with plain gesso for painting, suction must be stopped and the best way is to give the cast a coat of shellac melted in methylated spirit, which is practically French polish; but care should be taken not to get too much shellac on - it should not shine - or the shellac will peel off. Put the gesso on thinly with a broad hog's hair brush, and after every third coat give a coat of thin orange shellac. A good recipe for gesso is :12 ozs. whitning (gilder's). 9 ozs. gilder's parchment size. 3 drops cold-drawn linseed oil. Put the size in a basin, free from grease, and place it in a saucepan of cold water on a stove with little heat. The water should never be warmer than what you can comfortably hold your hand in, and allow it half-an-hour to melt. Powder up the gilder's whitning in a mortar very fine, pour the melted size in the mortar, which is placed on the stove to keep the whitning warm, mixing whilst you do so. Stir for five minutes and replace the mortar over the saucepan for five or ten minutes. Then add three drops of cold-drawn linseed oil, and stir for another five minutes. Pour off into the basin and let it remain in a cool place for twenty-four hours before using, except in cold weather, when less will do.

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To thin the size add water. To thin the gesso add size. In applying ornament on a gesso ground, after every third coat give the modelling one thin coat of orange shellac. When using the gesso it is advisable to take a portion of what you have made and melt it slowly in the basin, which has been placed in a saucepan, and keep the water at blood heat whilst using it. As the brush clogs with the congealed gesso wash it out in the warm water. For fine lines, etc., No. 2 sable tracer, for larger work No. 6 sable tracer, are the best brushes to use. A roughened surface is the best to apply this gesso to, and then rub it down with fine glass paper before the shellac is applied.

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YOLK OF EGG TEMPERA.

Written For the Society of Painters in Tempera By R. Spencer Stanhope April 23, 1903
Having been asked to explain the Mode of Painting in Tempera with the Yolk of Egg as a Medium, I wish to preface the description I am about to give on the subject by saying that, though I believe in its ain and most important features the system I have followed is the right one, there may be modifications which might be used with advantage, of which I have no experience, having been contented with the results I obtained in the way in which I have used it and not caring to spend time on experiments. Some thirty years ago, I chanced to make aquaintance, when studying in the galleries at Florence, with a Signor Rocchi, who had a long experience in the use of the Yolk of Egg as a medium, and which he invariably used in copying the early Florentine Masters; he kindly gave me information as to the way of working in it, and I have followed his instructions pretty closely ever since. The SYSTEM he followed, and which I believe in its principal features was the same as that practiced by the early Masters, is as follows:Select Fresh Eggs, and as far as possible such as have light-coloured yolks. Separate the yolk carefully from the white and also the skin that contains the yolk, then put it into a small pot. As nearly as is possible mix the colour to be used with an equal quantity in bulk of yolk of egg, and grind them well together with a glass muller on a slab of ground glass. In order to test whether the proportions are correct, for some colours appear to require more yolk of egg than others, put a little of the mixed colour on a palette, and when it is dry moisten a part of it. Should the part moistened prove a shade or two darker than the other, more yolk of egg must be added till, on further testing there is no difference of shade whatever between the dry and moist part. It is then necessary to test whether there may not be too much yolk of egg mixed with the colour; this is done by scraping the colour from the palette on which it has been put with a palette-knife. If it comes away in the shape of a greasy sticky shaving, the proportions of colour and yolk of egg will be about right; but should it break away in dry flakes it is a sign that there too much yolk of egg, and more colour must be added. Whether this is an absolutely unfailing test or not, I cannot say, but it is one I have always employed. This also is the only test that can be satisfactorily employed for Chinese white, which of course shows no such change in tint when moistened. Next comes the questions of Mixing Colours to produce the tint required. I have invariably mixed Chinese white with all of them, from the lightest to the darkest, using of course whatever colours may be necessary to produce the tints required. As to how far perfectly pure colours can be used unmixed with Chinese white to any extent I am not able to speak positively, having only used them occasionally and with moderation. The number of shades of the same tint that I have as a rule used are from three to seven or eight, according to the circumstances. Flesh tints generally require the higher number, whilst in draperies sometimes as few as three will suffice: but five I find usually the most satisfactory. In painting it is the best plan to begin as a rule with the middle tints, reserving the highest lights and shadows to be applied later. The edges of the tint which is being painted should rather outstep the outlines requiring that special tint, which should be softly covered by the next tint, in order that the two should melt into each other as far as possible, and avoid the necessity of any retouching: for the more the various shades can be united together when the colour is first put on, with the least possible amount of subsequent work the purer and softer will the effect be.

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To do without some further retouching over the first painting, is, except in the case of very simple work, almost an impossibility; and I have observed plenty of signs of retouching in Cinquecento pictures appearing to me to consist chiefly in lines of shadow, and hatching with the view of giving roundness and solidity where required. I have rarely worked with perfectly pure colour, but have mixed it as a rule with a little Chinese white; but I know of no reason why pure colour may not be used if necessary. To preserve colours and tints that have been mixed as long as possible, especially in hot weather, I have put in a few drops of vinegar, and when not in use I have wrapped their receptacles with plenty of rags dipped in vinegar; but in any case after a certain time the egg medium will begin to go bad and to act more or less upon the colours. Whatever work requires a certain set of prepared tints should as far as possible be done at once while the tints are fresh, and when further work may be necessary afterwards fresh tints should be prepared for the purpose. Finally with respect to the Preparation of the Panels for painting with yolk of egg, it is essential that they should be properly prepared for that purpose, but this is simply a question of employing a trustworthy and intelligent frame-maker. I will now deal with the advantages and disadvantages belonging to the method of painting in tempera with the yolk of egg as they appear to me. The Advantages are as follows :Pictures painted with the Yolk of Egg possess the Richness and depth of Oil Paintings, without losing any of the brilliance of colour which oil to a certain extent injures. In fact there is no medium of any kind in ordinary use for painting which so little, if at all, affects the colours with which it is mixed, whilst it gives a softness of effect which is more or less wanting in all the others; and that this quality is permanent may be seen in any Cinquecento work which has not been meddled with in any way, and the colours will there appear as brilliant as on the day they were painted. As the colour dries in a minute or two the part on which the painter is at work can be completed off-hand, the colour remaining permanently the same. The slight yellow tint caused by the yolk disappears entirely in a few days. All marks of the brush pass away as the colour dries, and a perfectness of surface is obtained without any effort on the part of the painter; and, as I mentioned before, owing to the natural grease in the yolk of egg the soft rich effect of oil is produced whilst the painting can be seen in any light as is the case with fresco or water-colour. From the day of painting the colour the surface steadily hardens and, provided the technical part of the work is properly done, this hardening process goes on without any cracking or shrinking of the surface till it reaches that pitch of hardness which is so notable in Cinquecento work. Finally, as the painter puts the colours on the panel he can judge of the permanent effect, which is not the case with mediums such as Oil, Fresco and ordinary Distemper. The Disadvantages appear to me as follows :Perfect work with yolk of egg as a medium would mean completing each day's work so that it would require no retouching, but it is rarely possible to reach this point, and retouching means the loss of a certain amount of purity and freshness in the work. The yolk of egg, after a certain time, begins to go bad, depending much on the state of the temperature and the means adopted to preserve it, a disadvantage which experience will reduce to minimum proportions. A more serious drawback is the tendency for mould to appear on parts of the surface of the picture from time to time, and this is often the case till age has entirely dried up and hardened the medium. The remedy is, however, a simple and safe one, and consists in rubbing the surface lightly with cotton wool dipped in vinegar; it does not interfere with the colour in any way, and can be used as often as required. This again is a matter of experience, for whilst one picture will show a tendency to develop mould, another will not. Some colours also appear to be more affected by it than others.

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Another slight disadvantage is that the surface of the painting remains soft and liable to injury, scratches, and so on, for a considerable time; and more care must be taken to preserve it than is the case in pictures done with other mediums. In conclusion I will repeat what I said before, that whilst I believe that the system I have described is in its main features the same as that followed by early Italian masters, there may be modifications of which I am ignorant which might diminish the difficulties. Anyone wishing to employ this process should study the different works that have been written on the subject. I can only add that the more I worked with the yolk of egg medium the less I cared for oils, till I gave the latter up for good. That oils were looked on at the time of their first introduction as being inferior as a medium to the yolk of egg is recorded in one of the early Italian works on painting, where the writer says that the newly introduced system of painting with an oil medium might be used for the less important parts of a picture, but all the most delicate work should be done in yolk of egg. Why oils have entirely superseded the employment of the yolk of egg, if it is the best medium, I can only account for by the difficulty that when painting a picture with the yolk of egg it is a paramount necessity that the design should be so carefully prepared before beginning painting that practically there should be no necessity for any alterations of the slightest importance. Alterations mean erasing the work already done and repainting it (fare di nuovo). But as artists began to discover that with oils unsatisfactory work could be painted over or altered as might be necessary, that medium became more popular, and the advantages which the yolk of egg possesses over oil were sacrificed to this new convenience of being able to paint over and alter ad libitum. So that having to destroy the work already done, as was the case with the old medium of yolk of egg, the less difficult method supplanted the former; whether the gain equalled the loss is a matter of opinion.

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ON ILLUMINATION. An attempt To recover the method of GILDING By ON VELLUM

Philip Mortimer December 1, 1903
I must disclaim to be an authority upon the subject of the evening, and it is my intention to occupy your time for a brief space only. When our Secretary wrote to me asking me to speak upon the subject of Illumination I was a little bewildered as to whether he wished me to write a sort of essay upon the history and evolution of illumination - a subject upon which I felt that most of you knew a great deal more than I did - or to give you in as brief a way as possible an account of my own researches, strivings and disappointments, and I was rather relieved when he told me that the record of one's own experiences and failures would be the best thing to speak of. I think it will be generally admitted that the Art of Illumination, as an art, has been dead for a long time - killed of course in the first instance by the introduction of the almighty press and considerations of a commercial character, and it was not until the coming of William Morris that any serious effort was made to revive even its study. I am of course leaving out altogether the fearful and wonderful productions known as illuminated addresses; these appear to have been more or less always with us, and those of you who remember the Exhibition at the Imperial Institute of some hundreds of loyal out-bursts to her late Majesty will quite appreciate that such things are not seriously to be considered in relation to the art of illumination. Now I take it that the chief interest of our Society in this evening's subject is centred, not so much in what modern illumination should or should not be with regard to decorated borders of conventionalised vine leaves with conventional grapes, or even the Morrisonian acanthus, but in the gold work which is so essentially a part of the art, and it is in this particular part of the subject that I am personally chiefly interested. Until quite recently, I believe, it was generally concluded that the art of burnished gold work upon vellum and kindred substances was a lost one, and even Morris himself does not seem to have gone very far in its reproduction; at any rate no gold work that the master craftsman himself did equalled in the remotest degree the gold work of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. The most important thing was to find a Ground which would Firstly Adhere firmly to vellum, parchment or paper; Secondly Hold the Gold Leaf upon every part of its surface; Thirdly Take the Burnish well after the Gold is laid. Now I do not think that this perfect ground has yet been rediscovered, and though personally I do not despair of its ever being found I believe that it will be by some lucky accident that eventually the perfect medium will be hit upon. I have struggled, alas! quite unsuccessfully, for a good few years to find something which would satisfy, and though I have never scrupled to bother all and sundry upon the matter by correspondence (and I would here acknowledge in what a kindly way I have been invariably replied to), I have not yet been able to produce gold that in any way touches the gold of the periods I have named. I remember that one of the earliest gentlemen I worried on the subject of gold grounds was Mr. Walter Crane himself, and I still treasure his post-card (probably he has forgotten all about it) in which he tells me that as far as he recollects Morris used ordinary tube colour and then well powdered it

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with pure gold dust. He also referred me to a lady with whom I have since had much correspondence on the matter, Miss Bertha Patmore; she in turn told me to seek advice from a Maltese gentleman, a Mr. Fredk. Mamo, who has devoted a good many years to the production of a size which should fulfil the conditions I have previously mentioned, and to a certain extent he has been successful. But I find that although the mixture he prepares answers extremely well up to a certain point, that eventually it is certain to crack very much, and this, of course, considerably discounts its value. With the formulae of the mediaeval illuminators I have had no success whatever, and although Miss Talbot, a member of our Society, says she thinks one of them with which I furnished her, can be made to answer well, its application is tedious and extremely laborious - here, by the way, I might mention that it is pretty certain that early workers did not object at all to this fact, time was on their side, and the conditions of existence were in favour of deliberate action. Mrs Herringham most kindly furnished me some years since with a series of translations from contemporary works on this particular subject, but they are all couched in such delightfully vague language, that it would be a work of more patience than I possess to get them to "work. For instance.-"The Assiso for putting gold on parchment is made in many ways, but of them this way is good and tried. Take therefore burnt plaster of Paris prepared as painters use it for putting on panel pictures - that is, slaked - as much as you like, take some Armenian bole, grind these as finely as 'possible on the porphyry stone with clear water, let it dry, take what part of it you will, keeping the other part in reserve, and grind it with parchment size and mix in so much honey as you consider will sweeten it, as much as is suitable, and in this it is necessary to be cautious that you put neither too little, nor too much, but according to the quantity of the material, so that putting a little of the mixture in the mouth you scarcely taste the sweetness. And know that for one little vase that painters use it suffices to take twice with the tip of the stick of the brush and if it were more the mixture would be spoiled. Having well ground these put then in a glazed vase and cover with clear water, anything deficient should be added, more size or more honey water; it improves with keeping. Here is another:Wilt thou make a good ground on which gold can be laid so that it is beautiful and brilliant; first take some pipe clay which leather dressers use, and which must be prepared thus: take pike scales and pike bones from the head and boil them in a glazed pot, till it is boiled a third away. The liquor must be strained through a linen cloth and this fish glue ground with the pipe clay, then put in a shell and let it get hard; when you want to make a ground take as much of this as a walnut and rub it thoroughly on a stone with white of egg water and grind it with as much vermilion as a pea and sal ammoniac as much as a pea and three saffron flowers, and mix together until it flows from a pen.* I have on doubt that these recipes were quite understood by the writers, but I defy anyone to produce anything satisfactory from them now - either the size of the nut is not quite the same now as in mediaeval times, or words have a somewhat different significance -anyhow, my efforts in the way of old masters' formulae were unfortunately quite useless. One word with regard to the laying on of any Ground I think it must have been the usual custom to put on any ground that was used in a liquid state, and not with a brush but with a pen; such no doubt was the method by which they attained such evenness of surface and freedom from any irregularity. Mr. Edmond Reuter also prepares a gesso for Illuminators, which answers very well in all but burnishing qualities, and I have at various times made mixtures of his and the Maltese Size which have been fairly satisfactory. I need hardly say that I have myself tried dozens of various mixtures with a basis of parchment size, white of egg, bole, and

31

slaked plaster of Paris, with more or less (generally less) success. I can only hope that some of our members here will give some attention to the preparation of ground for illuminators - there is scope here for earning much gratitude. With regard to white of egg, I should be interested to know if any members of the Society have tried any solutions of formalin as a preservative - it far surpasses acetic acid and kindred antiseptics, and does not, I think, at all interfere with the egg qualities, indeed, if anything, it must tend to harden and consolidate the "setting;" this is at any rate worth some investigation. Messrs. Reeves now sell a raising preparation which can be manipulated to give the best result I have at present attained. Take a small portion of a bottle, mix with water, two or three drops of fish glue, and a few drops of parchment size - which has become liquid through going bad - the smell of this is not pleasant, but that of course doesn't matter, and thoroughly mix with the finger to the consistency of thin cream - such consistency as will flow from a pen. When dry - a week is the wisest time to allow breathe well upon the ground, lay your gold (as thick a gold as will adhere) upon it, place a piece of smooth paper over and well rub it on with a burnisher - and after a very short interval (ten minutes or so) "feel" it cautiously with your burnisher. If it is successful, and I must admit it seems to be affected by all sorts of peculiar considerations, temperature of the room, state of the weather, and so on, you will feel a sort of pleasure which only illuminators get, and which in the middle ages I am persuaded went far to make the inhabitants of the monasterial scriptorium feel that life was worth living. I prefer parchment myself for illuminating; vellum as at present produced is too highly dressed to have any grain or surface and to my mind is not so nice to write upon, there is a kind of "nap" upon fine parchment which is exceedingly pleasant to the pen. I have not touched upon the subject of caligraphy at all, because my friend Mr. Johnston is himself here, and is no doubt going to speak upon this important part of illumination, etc. I know he is an expert upon this topic, so I will leave it entirely in his hands, only remarking that perfect legibility should be aimed at. Now the question which will, I presume, occur to most of us is whether illumination as an art can be revived. As a paying means of livelyhood I hardly think this possible. One might spend a very large amount of time upon the production of an illuminated M,S., devote infinite care to the scheming of its pages, spend a day upon a letter, and so on, and in the end there would be no demand at any price which would give encouragement to such paintings: for instance, I calculate that I spend at least 1,000 hours upon one of the MSS here to-night. I do not, of course, pretend that it is, as a work of art, worth anything, but I have been offered 10 for it, and as the binding is worth at least 2 2s and the vellum, say, say 8s., this leaves 7 10s. for 1,000 hours work, or something under 2d. an hour. Well, now, of course this is, as Euclid would say, 'absurd,'' and no doubt lends much weight to the argument that one should confine oneself merely to plain writing with an occasional gold capital. There is no doubt that anything in the way of modern illuminated manuscripts must either be a Iuxury for the rich American, or the pet possession of the Scribe himself. There is however, one compensation for the Scribe: that he has, at any rate, cultivated the virtue of patience. I should like, in conclusion, to add a few words about modern design. In my opinion better work would be turned out if illuminators did not strive so much for originality which mostly runs to a painful squirminess of line) but looked more to a deeper study of existing illuminated MSS. and sought more inspiration from the time:When a book was still a book, Where the wistful man might look, Finding something through the whole, Beating like a human soul.

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* Mr. Batten referring to some of the mediaeval receipts, favours me with the following notes: I think there is a mistake whenever sal ammoniac is mentioned; it is a volatile salt and could not perform a permanent base for gilding upon. The direction that it should be finely powdered is inapplicable to a salt so easily soluble in water. I believe that Armenian bole is meant. Armenian and ammonia seems to have been confused rather frequently. In the Canterbury Tales Chaucer makes one of his characters (the Chanounes Yenan) tell of the things appertaining to the craft of Alchemy: as bol armoniak, verdegras, boras, and a few lines later on, arsnek, sal armoniak and btrimstone.

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NOTES ON WHITE PIGMENTS

J. D. Batten January 18th, 1906
In October and November, 1904, I painted some trial patches of colour on a mahogany panel that had been primed in May, 1904, with lime slaked with milk. The panel has been exposed to London fog and has been kept sometimes in dark and damp places and some-times placed in the sunshine. The priming has stood well. Trying it to-day with my knife I find it firmer than when first laid on. It was at first an ivory colour and has darkened a good deal. This is mainly but perhaps not entirely due to dirt. On October 26th, 1904, I laid on this panel patches of (i) whitning (ii) zinc white and (iii) white lead, each mixed with egg tempera (by which throughout this paper I mean a mixture of yolk of egg and water) also a patch of white lead mixed with gum arabic. On November 7th, 1904, I laid patches of (i) white marble dust; (ii) baryta white (sulphate of barium) with egg tempera. On November 21st, 1904, I laid a patch of zinc white mixed with gum Arabic. Each patch shows the pigment laid on (i) thinly; (ii) thickly and (iii) in a blob dropped from a full brush. I. Whitning and egg tempera. When laid on very low in tone and much affected by the yellow of the egg. It has grown lighter by losing the yellow stain of the egg, but is still low in tone, Sound and free from cracks.

II. White lead and egg tempera. Much less affected by the colour of the egg. Very sound and firm, the blob retaining exactly the form it assumed when first dropped from the brush. Fig A. III. Zinc white and egg tempera. Sound and free from cracks in the thin and thick paintings, but in the blob, which does not retain so full a form as that of the lead, there are some marks which may perhaps be cracks. The lead and zinc whites- differ in colour but are nearly equal in luminosity. In the thick painting the zinc is perhaps a little higher in tone, and in the thin paintings, the lead, owing no doubt to its greater opacity. Fig. B. IV. White lead and gum arabic. Was exceeding]y luminous when first laid on but darkened when exposed to bad fog, turning a pinkish colour. It recovered somewhat when placed in the sunshine. Quite firm and free from cracks. V. Marble dust and egg tempera. A good deal affected at first by the yellow of the egg; has gained in whiteness and opacity. Quite sound and free from cracks and of a singular hardness. The blob assumed a characteristic form. Fig. C. VI. Bartya white and egg tempera. Sound and free from cracks. Less luminous and opaque than the marble.

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VII. Zinc white and gum arabic. Has picked up dirt very readily, but is pure white when cleaned. It softens at once when wetted. The blob had cracked right in two and has now come off. (Compare white lead and gum). Free from cracks elsewhere. Fig. E. On December 13th, 1905, I laid patches of egg shell white and of marble dust, each mixed with egg tempera. Both were very finely ground. They are both firm and sound and beautiful in colour and surface. The blob of marble white took a similar form to that noted before and the egg shell white a different form. Fig. D. The difficulty of using them as pigments in tempera is that they are so transparent when first laid on wet that it is difficult to calculate their strength when dry. P.S. - May 5th, 1907. On March 26th, 1906, I laid a similar patch of Tungstate of Barium with egg tempera. It is an opaque and luminous white arid seems as bright as when first laid on. The thin and thick paintings are perfectly sound, but the blob has cracked.

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NOTE ON THE BLACKENING By OF VERMILION

J. D. Batten January 18, 1906
In October, 1902, 1 had several samples of plaster laid on the outer wall of my studio within the glass-house. The wall faces east, and receives a certain amount of direct sunlight. A large elm keeps off much of the sunlight during the summer. A week after the patches of plaster were laid I painted patches of colour on them with egg tempera. On two samples of a plaster, called Sirapite, the nature of which I do not know, the vermilion has blackened considerably. On two samples of lime plaster I think I can detect at the edge of the paint, and in certain small spots, the black change beginning. This seems more apparent on the rough surfaced patch than on the smooth. On two samples of Keene's cement (a gypsum plaster) and on two of express (also a gypsum plaster) no change seems to have taken place. In the summer of 1899, I painted a design inside the balcony of a house at Cambridge, using colours mixed with casein size. The surface of the wall was apparently a rough lime plaster. It receives a good deal of sunlight, but is protected more or less from the rain. On examining the painting last summer I found all the vermilion had gone blackish. Some patches of vermilion painted in 1902 on a plaster of lime and marble dust, and kept indoors, have not blackened at all. I have never noticed any change in the vermilion in any picture that I have painted.

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FRESCO PAINTING
Paper read By M. Sargant-Florence March 30, 1906
INTRODUCTION In preparing a paper on the subject of Fresco Painting it has been borne in upon me how very short and inadequate an experience I have had of the subject. It is only because there are so few written records left of the technique, and that interest in the subject is so recently awakened, that I venture to put down the methods I have found personally most effectual, and leave it to others to make what use they will of my experiments. To define the nature of fresco painting I cannot do better than quote Vasari, who puts the matter into a nutshell. He says: "The picture must be painted on the lime while it is wet. The work must not be left until all that is intended to be done that day is finished. Because if the painting be long in hand a certain thin crust forms on the lime, as well from the heat as from the cold, the wind, and the frost, which tarnishes and spots all the picture. And, therefore, the wall which is painted upon must be continually wetted; and the colours employed upon it must all be earths, and not minerals, and the white must be calcined Travertine. This kind of painting also requires a firm and quick hand, but above all a good and sound judgement; because while the wall is soft the colours appear quite different from what they do when the wall is dry. It is, therefore, necessary for the artist while painting in fresco, to use his judgement more than his skill, and to be guided by experience...." It is quite outside my subject to go into the question of the durability of Fresco in our climate, but I may as well draw attention to the fact that the later the writers on the subject the more cheap and speedy are the methods suggested for getting over the work quickly, which may perhaps account for the discredit into which it has fallen, and the instances of decay by which we are so often alarmed. The subject naturally divides itself into four parts :1. Preparation of the Wall :- tools. 2. Preparation of the Wall :- Cartoons. 3. Preparation of the Wall :- Colours. 4. Laying on of colours :- tools. PREPARATION OF WALL SURFACES In the Preparation of the Walls I have been obliged to base my practice altogether on the traditions handed down by old writers, as I have not had the good fortune to come across any masons who have had experience of that kind of work. These traditions apparently vary very considerably, but I gather that the disagreement lies mostly in the number of coats laid on rather than in the material. Wall plaster always seems to consist of slaked fat lime, with some gritty material which it binds together; and a wall surface properly prepared for Fresco is composed of three different kinds of plaster, which vary according to the kind of grit. There is (1) The Undercoat (Italian: Trusilar) of lime and pounded brick (size of peas) or baked pottery, laid on coarsely on laths or bundles of rushes carefully laid in place, and left rough to serve as a base for the upper coats; (2) The Lime and Sand coats (Arricciato), (3) The Lime and Marble (intonaco). The last one receives the painting. According to Vitruvius one coat of Trusilar was sufficient, whilst three of the Arricciato or sand coats and the same number of Intonaco or marble, were necessary. Probably this very elaborate preparation was for surfaces which we associate with Pompeian style, half of whose beauty is due to the fine texture of the plaster; and which is made

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to be decorated in flat spaces of colour, as he speaks of burnishing and polishing the Intonaco in order to enrich the quality of the pigments. The instructions of Italian artists such as Alberti and Vasari and of Guevara among the Spanish, are based mostly on Vitruvius, who in Bk. VII., Chapter 3 (Gwilt's translation), gives a very detailed and practical account of preparing walls for painting in the manner of the ancients; but they are content with three or four coats in all. The lime used is a putty made from freshly burnt lime (see note A) slaked in water and allowed to rot for at least three months under cover in a damp cellar or disused well. When it is first slaked it should be sifted into the water and carefully stirred every day for some time so as to make it fine arid silky. Lime slaked roughly, in lumps, does not get properly soaked and is troublesome to break up and not being homogeneous spoils the work. It should be passed afterwards through a wire sieve and left as stated till required. The Sand must be pit sand, quite free from dirt or mud, and gritty. The Marble Dust is broken white marble pounded in a mortar till it is fine enough to pass through a piece of close muslin. The marble must be of a sharp quality and not rusty from open-air sawing. Chips from a sculptor's studio are good for this purpose, but a magnet should be passed through them to collect all the particles of steel which may be present. If the wall of the building where the fresco is to go is of a porous, sandstone nature, it is well to have it cemented internally as a protection against damp drawing in from the outside. For my own experiment in Fresco the First Coat was composed of Brick and Lime; the brick being pounded to about the coarseness of peas, well mixed with the lime, and laid on roughly about one inch thick including thickness of laths between which it was firmly keyed in. The Second and Third Coats of Sand and Lime, about the coarseness of brown sugar, were laid on about one-third of an inch thick each, the first coat on the brick surface before the latter was dry, so as to amalgamate well together; the second coat after the first sand one was well dried. This was of a finer texture than the first sand coat, and was finished off comparatively smoothly. These operations took about four months to complete, being carried out during the winter season. The Fourth Coat, of marble and lime, is laid on by the fresco painter piecemeal as his work proceeds. "The Intonaco is to be so prepared that it does not stick to the trowel, but easily comes away from the iron. " Sticking shows that it has not been sufficiently worked or beaten; it should be pounded in a mortar (both lime and marble dust should have been previously strained separately), ground on slab, and, if at all uneven, crushed several times under edge of a strong palette-knife, which is the best method of detecting any dirt or grit. The proportions of the mixture of lime and marble dust should be equal by measure. It is fit for use when it is of the consistency of a thick paste. The best plan is to prepare a good quantity and place it in a cool earthenware pot with a little water. This last coat should be laid on as thickly as possible, though I found that one-fifth inch was the limit of adhesion. In greater bulk the Intonaco tended to crack and eventually peel off. Probably the thickness depends greatly on the more or less smoothness of the sand coat beneath. Should any signs of cracks appear after laying on, tap the surface to find out by the hollow sound what is the condition of adhesion, and if unsound cut out at once and re-lay. The presence of grease on the under surface will prevent adhesion. The Intonaco must be laid working from the top downwards, so as to avoid splashing finished work, which would inevitably happen if the lower part were completed first. Sufficient for the day's work should be placed on a board. Always remember to have the tools which come in contact with the plaster well moistened, this prevents sticking and keeps the plaster compact. The Arricciato must of course be most thoroughly wetted; it is advisable in warm weather to sprinkle the portion of wall over night and keep it moist with wetted rags.

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To lay on the Intonaco satisfactorily it should be applied with steady pressure, spreading with the steel float and working from below upwards in the first laying-on. After the principal mass of plaster has been applied the float can be used in all directions, so as to ensure its being even all over; it must amalgamate with the undercoat, or it will show cracks and eventually peel off. I find Floats of two sizes (Adapted to the hand of the worker) necessary to get an even surface. The wooden float is indispensable to scour the wet plaster, so to speak; where a large area is being laid, a large float is necessary. The Plasterer's Tools, principally used in laying on the plaster are: 1. The float, 2. The Trowel 3. The Mortar board. Both wood and steel floats are used according to the nature of the work, but the former are best where the suction is strong. They are flat slabs, varying from 11 x 4 to 8 x 5, with a bridge-handle behind. Flat steel trowels of various sizes are used for pointing and filling in joins and crevices between the work of different days and to give a finer finish to the surface. The mortar board, a square slab of wood, is the plasterer's palette. There are a variety of small tools for finishing edges - the most useful are slightly bent and spoon-shaped. A Straight Edge, for testing flatness of surface, and a Plumb-line complete the outfit required. PAINTING IN FRESCO ON THE PREPARED WALLS A great deal of judgment is required in planning out the daily portion of work. I have not practically found it possible to hide the joins between different days' work, where these joins occur on plain colour-surfaces. To begin with it is difficult to lay the two edges together exactly in the same plane. In the second place it seems impossible to prevent streaking the colour. To get as exact a join as possible I have found it best at the beginning of the day to lay the plaster beyond the actual space marked, and at the close to cut back with a sharp scalpel to the desired area, cutting the edge obliquely and as cleanly as possible. In very hot weather it is advisable to leave the extra edge of plaster till the next morning, and then cut away, simply as a means of preserving the edges moister than if they were exposed by trimming. With regard to the difficulty, and I believe impossibility, of true joining in colour, it has to be realised that the same tone laid on in various coats lightens in value with each coat so that where the edge of the second day's work overlaps that of the first, streaks of a lighter value are apparent. Overlapping cannot be avoided, as the edge, requiring to be moistened, sucks in some of the fresh tone. The only solution of the difficulty lies in planning the joins to follow outlines in the design as far as possible, or wherever two colours or shades meeting make a natural variety in tone This, of course, produces much longer lines of joins than if worked in rectangles and such an extensive boundary line gives a sense of weakness. It also has the drawback of drying more quickly. However, I have found no ill effects result from these intricate junctures, and they most effectually conceal defects in plastering of edges, and in colour. The great drawback lies in the frequent difficulty of having to paint on separate days the object and its background. To obviate this it is often worth while putting in some of the background in order to get the object in right relief, and next day cutting back to outline and re-plastering for the fresh work. USE OF CARTOONS Many directions are given by the old writers on the subject of the Preparation of Cartoons. With the introduction of oil painting, which allowed time for re-touching and correcting, the habit of preparing the design very exactly beforehand fell into partial disuse. Armenino in his Golden Treatise says:-We have now to treat of cartoons which among us are considered as the most perfect mode in which, by our skill in design, we are able to express the whole force of the art; and which, to those who set about them

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in a proper manner and with diligence, and who are careful and industrious in finishing them, are so useful for the works which they have to execute, that what afterwards remains to be done appears to give but little trouble. For the sketches, designs, natural models and, in short, all the other labours which the artist had previously undergone, were for the sole purpose of uniting them properly together on the surface of the cartoon; and to speak the truth, in order to reprove those who care little to do this, or who, if they do set about it, do it carelessly. For in a well finished cartoon, it will be observed that even the most difficult part of every object is portrayed, so that by following the outlines we work without any chance of error, by means of a perfect example and model of all that we intend to do; in fact we may call it the work itself, except for the tints; and hence we see that Michael Angelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Raffaello, Perino, (del Vaga) Daniello, (di Volterra) and other excellent painters, always prepared the cartoon with the greatest care and industry. Vasari, after explaining how to stretch sheets of paper together so as to get the area needed, continues:- Afterwards, when they (the sheets of paper) are dry, a long cane is taken with a piece of charcoal fixed at the end of it, and with this everything that is drawn in the small design, is reproduced on the cartoon in the same proportion, in order to judge of the effect at a distance; and so by degrees first one figure is finished and then another. Here the painter employs all his skill in the art, in drawing naked figures from the life and draperies from nature; and the perspective is drawn by all those rules which have been observed in drawing the design on a small scale. When these cartoons are used for painting in fresco or upon walls, a piece must be cut off every day at the joining and traced upon the wall, which should be plastered over with lime and made very smooth. This piece of the cartoon is put in the place where the figure is to be painted and is countersigned, in order that, the next day, when another piece is to be joined on to it, its place may be known exactly and no error may arise. The outlines of this piece are then traced with an iron stile on to the intonaco of lime, which, being wet, yields to the paper and thus receives the marks. After this the cartoon is taken off and the colours are laid on according to those lines which are traced upon the wall, and the painting in fresco executed. There are many painters who do not use cartoons for oil pictures, but when painting in fresco they cannot be dispensed with." He also mentions in another place that it is in the cartoons that the artist uses all his skill in contradistinction to his judgement, which is chiefly needed in the actual painting. With regard to the piecemeal transfer of the cartoon to the wall I have found it less destructive to the cartoon to trace each portion on tracing paper and so transfer to wall, using a blunt wooden point for indenting the line as less apt to tear the paper than a metal one. The countersigning is very important for exactness as in large surfaces one is apt towards the end, to get some inches out in the design. Remember in planning out the transfer of design that the fresco must be worked horizontally, beginning at the top of wall surface. It can either be worked from right to left or the reverse, according to the liking of the artist ; but, as has been said already, it must always be worked downwards as the splash of the pigments spots whatever is below. With regard to the Material for the Cartoon:- I find most congenial to myself the Willesden waterproof paper prepared with a thin layer of gesso ground. This is convenient for large surfaces as it is wide, and is sold by the yard. It is not so woolly as most brown paper and stands transport well. The gesso ground is not thick enough to flake off seriously when rolled, and it receives both charcoal and brushwork in egg tempera admirably. The colour also resembles that of a wall more closely than white paper and is less dazzling to the eyes. In preparing the small-sized study of composition I find it invaluable to keep it always to scale, that is, fix the size of the study to be quarter, eighth or sixteenth of the final design, so as to carry out the perspective to scale in all its details.

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But I need not dwell longer on these points as all artists are equally well aware of the importance of exact preliminary studies for composition. THE COLOURS FOR FRESCO PAINTING The nature of Pigments suitable for Fesco is dealt with at length in all the old treatises by such writers as Armenino, Cennino Cennini, De Piles, etc. Mrs. Merrifield compiled a most useful book of reference under the title of The Art of Fresco Painting as Practised by the old Italian and Spanish Masters published 1846, in which she collected and compared instructions on the art from the writings of masters of both countries; giving valuable hints as to the properties of pigments practically unknown to us through confusion in names. I have found her book invaluable. She says: The selection of proper colours for painting in fresco is among the most important parts of the art. All the best authorities on this subject are unanimous in the opinion that natural colours only are proper to be used in fresco painting. Armenino observes: 'Artificial colours never do well in fresco, nor can any art make them last long without changing. The wall will not take any other than the natural colours which are found in the ground and which consist of earths of different colours; and you may leave to foolish painters those secrets of theirs which no one envies them of using vermilion and fine lake, because, although they make grounds for these colours with various tints of white, it is nevertheless well known that in the long run their pictures become ugly daubs.'" She adds that "Some of these colours have for a long time fallen into disuse, and the knowledge of their value, application and use is in a great measure lost. Artificial colours and pigments have been improperly substituted and failed of their object. The consequence has been that the highest branch of the art of painting, and from which the greatest masters have derived most of their celebrity, has declined and fallen into disuse." This very limited range of colour is certainly the best safeguard of decorative harmony, as, the larger the masses of coloured surfaces, the simpler should be the colour scheme. I leave this part of my subject, only saying a word or two about the bodycolour, White, which is made of the slaked lime used in preparing the plaster, purified by boiling and grinding and allowed to dry in the sun till it is in a caked condition. It is very fine and white, and is preferable to using the intonaco, which, containing marble dust, is sometimes gritty and leaves scratches on the coloured surface. With regard to the actual Laying on of the Colours, I am able to draw more upon my own experience. It is important to realise that fresco is practically water-colour ; a stain rather than a paint, and it should be treated as a liquid body. The moist ivory-like surface of the intonaco absorbs the colour, causing it to spread in soft gradations which no retouching can improve. The more transparent the pigment the better it is adapted to this surface; and it is just this purity which gives such a brilliant softness to draperies whose folds are drawn in richer shades of the local colour of the stuff. It is for this reason also, I think, that Cennino's account of his master's Method of painting flesh is so invaluable. Having first shown how to draw and model the outlines in some monotone, as a basis for the colouring, he says:- Procure three small vases and make three shades of flesh colour ; that is, the darkest, and the other two each lighter than the other in regular gradation. Now take some colour from the little vase containing the lightest tint and with a very soft pencil of bristles, without a point, paint in the lights of the face ; then take the middle tints of the flesh colour and paint the middle tints of the face, hands and body, when you paint a naked figure. Afterwards take the third vase of flesh colour and go to the edges of the shadows; and in this manner, softening one tint into the other, until it is all covered as well and as evenly as the "nature of the work will permit. But if you would have your work appear very brilliant, be careful to keep each tint of flesh colour in its place and do not mix one with another." This is practically painting "au premier coup," and I have tested the truth of it by having previously worked on other lines. Of these other methods I must mention one to caution you against it, as in theory

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it sounds so very attractive and is also recommended by an old writer (Armenino). First, just let us suppose that a head has to be painted. The modelling is put in in semi-tones, which allows more time for intricate play of light and shade than in Giotto's method, then the whole is pulled together by a wash of flesh tone laid lightly over the surface. This looks fresh and forcible whilst wet, but as it dries grows spotty and mealy looking till at last there is scarcely a true colour left. This is due to what I have already referred to as being of such vital importance to realise, namely, that fresco colours lose value in drying in proportion to the number of washes laid on. On that account in work that is modelled by hatching; the chief difficulty is to hit upon the right hatching tone; it must be darker on the palette than the pure shadow tone, or, when laid in place, will become either similar in value to the shadow or lighter. Much of the chalky or troubled look of fresco is due to this; the shadows look hollow with cold reflected lights, because the hatching strokes dry lighter than shadow wash. It is a mistake to think that fresco must be chalky; the range of tones is cooler than in oils, but not less pure, and they should not be opaque in quality any more than in water colours. It is for this reason that I do not understand the use of lime-water in preparing colours being recommended by some old writer in place of pure water. I have followed Professor Church's advice to employ baryta water in moistening the surface of the intonaco before laying on the colours, to prevent efflorescence; but have given up adding it to the pigments, or moistening any coloured surface with it on account of its clouding water similarly as lime does. I would advise anyone who is interested in this to consult Professor Church's Chemistry of Painting. In fresco, work for as direct and natural effects as possible; you may rely on its drying harmoniously and as it is called decoratively. It takes a great deal to tire out the intonaco if it has been properly prepared; should it begin to work up rough under your brush, it is only necessary to smooth it down with a wet trowel, being careful not to spread any of the plaster over the edges of the part in question. The best spirit in which to attack it is in that of the line:A wet sheet and a flowing sea, and a brush that follows fast. DIFFICULTY OF CORRECTION THERE is one more point in the actual handling of fresco which it is important to consider, indeed it is, I believe, one of its chief bugbears, namely, the Difficulty of Correction. There is really no great difficulty in it, it is rather a question of patience. So long as there is plenty of time and daylight ahead of you it is easy enough to correct on the plaster by going over the mistakes with a wet trowel and a little fresh intonaco, but it is different if the day is drawing to a close or the mistakes are not noticed till the next morning. Then the only remedy is to cut out the offending piece following outlines as much as possible. This is easily done, as the previous day's intonaco cuts like soap; use a sharp scalpel, as thin edged as possible, and cut slanting to make a better join eventually. Remove the old intonaco with trowel or palette-knife (or for a large surface a carpenter's scraper is most useful), wet the surface carefully so as to avoid splashing the surrounding decoration, and lay on a fresh coat, joining thoroughly with the previous work. It is better worth correcting in this manner immediately, or the day following, than waiting to see the effect when dry; because to postpone means that your intonaco is harder to remove-the portion to patch will by that time have been surrounded by work liable to be easily damaged-and it will be much more difficult to match the neighbouring tones. It will be perceived that the actual fresco painting is not a lengthy process. The area one can cover satisfactorily depends, to a great extent, on the strength of the worker, also enormously on the importance of the subject treated; a head which covers, say, one foot square will probably take as long as three foot square of background; it also depends, on the distance of the decoration from the eye of the spectator. Work at a height of twenty feet from the ground requires free strong handling which would appear insufferably coarse if on a level with the eye. There is no standard,

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though I think that a carefully finished life-sized head in one day's work is good average speed. The great thing to my mind to avoid is accepting the rate of oil painting as a standard of speed. Fresco must be fresh and spontaneous. You must not ignore all the previous time spent in preparation of cartoons and drawings. Nevertheless, the novice is apt to be disheartened by the coarse look of the work, as seen close to hand on the scaffold, but this essential feature of the work must be accepted. One must be willing to sacrifice personal gratification in a beautifully finished portion for the general effect of the whole. With regard to style and the laying on of colours, the more individual the style the more likely fresco is to live again. Mannerisms should be avoided, such as that of the inevitable, iron-drawn outline probably only a tradition of renovators; or the return to archaic forms which were simply a primitive style of drawing. Fresco is so essentially ''plein air'' in its effects that it should be the medium in which modern thought in painting may express itself best. PREPARATION OF COLOURS We have now arrived at the last division of our subject; it is fully as important technically as the preparation of the wall, namely, the Preparation of the Colours. To anyone accustomed to palette and tubes of paint, the question of colours will not appear so very vital, but you who are accustomed to preparing powder colours for tempera work will understand if I go into some detail on the point. In the first place we must make a small study in colour of the design, yet large enough to show gradations of tone. In preparing the design, keep in view the object for which it is being made, so that the scheme shall be suited to fresco, not to oil painting. Legros' favourite saying, ''la belle et sainte simplicite'' ought to reign here if anywhere, and as much 'plein air" effect of light as is compatible with the subject. Then, with the study hung up over the grinding slab and a full range of powder colours in glass bottles (so as to recognise each at a glance) within reach, set to work to determine what shades will be required, distinguishing between those which can be produced by more or less thinning and blending on the wall surface, and those which have their own individuality. I have found them divide into two classes, namely, the pure or unmixed colours, such as Black, Venetian, Light and Indian Reds, Ochres, etc,, which are indispensable in each day's painting. Of these, having always a supply in your bottles, you have a standard of colour to which they are bound to return when they are dry. The second class contains the mixed colours. These will of course produce unknown tones when dry if you have only seen them mixed in the moist condition. This brings us face to face with one of the chief difficulties of fresco - the alteration of tone after it has been laid on the plaster and become dry. To the old Italian masters who had been trained to it from their youth and lived in the midst of tradition, this was not the difficulty it is to us; but still, it is mentioned as a serious hindrance. They used the "pietra ombra" as the modern Italian workmen still do; that is, a porous stone, which, absorbing moisture quickly, soon dries the colour laid upon it, and discloses its ultimate shade. But in England this stone is difficult to get, and it is besides a clumsy method where many shades are in use. It is also possible to have a comparative scale of values showing the same colour in its moist and, side by side, in its dry state; but this is only approximate. I have employed another method suggested to me by a friend accustomed to work in pottery, which is so simple, and I at least have found so satisfactory, that I am sure you will be glad to know of it. It is just simply to mix your powder colours dry, to the shade you wish to get. By very intimately blending the powders on the slab (being extremely careful that all the tools and the slab itself are absolutely dry) with a glass muller ; alternately crushing with the edge of the palette-knife, which is the best means of

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detecting impurities; the different pigments used combine so closely that one can rely on the tone produced to remain true to itself, after being moistened, spread on the wall, and eventually dried out. Of course this does not apply to artificial pigments, which, as shown above, can under no conditions keep their colour. In order to ensure matching work done on different days and in varying lights, compound a fair quantity of each shade, and when quite satisfied that the tint has been mixed by mechanical combination as completely as possible, cork up in a clean test tube with name of colour, and which shade it represents, with a note as to its constituent pigments written on a strip of tracing paper gummed round the test tube. Do not grudge devoting several days at the beginning of your work to this preparation. It will be time gained in the end if only that it has made you so acquainted with your colour scheme that you feel master of it when the time arrives for attacking it on a larger scale on the wall. Having got your stock of pigments in good order, it only remains to accustom yourself to a method for a day's work. The most excellent plan is to lay them out over night, moistening the pans in which they stand, which should be well covered over with an oiled sheet of paper to prevent evaporation. It is always a pity to have to spend the fresh morning hours in mechanical grinding on the slab. First decide on your colour study how large an area you are likely to cover in the days work, and what colours will be required and approximately how much of each. Then take from each test tube, in turn, some of its contents and grind with pure water on the marble slab, beginning with those lightest in tone, as the slab and muller are apt to get stained by each pigment in spite of constant washing. Lay each colour when ground to a paste in a little white saucer, and set the saucers side by side in any regular order you prefer, on a slab or board of white wood, as you can then paint a streak of each colour close to its own saucer on the board, which drying, will be an index to the eventual tone of the mist pigments. A pipkin of clean water in the middle of the board completes an extempore palette, which, placed on a high stool, forms a kind of table. The working palette on which the shades can be mixed is very good made of aluminium with depressions to told extra large quantities of paint; it is of the ordinary shape and is held on the thumb, completing with the brushes, trowel and palette-knife the equipment of the artist. This closes about all that I believe I can tell you concerning fresco without actual demonstration of the practice. It has been a pleasure to me to have had the opportunity of sharing any knowledge I may have with so interested an audience. Fresco arouses enthusiasm in its votaries as a form of art which does not entirely depend on one set of emotions. As you have learnt from Vasari, judgment, foresight, diligence, all are called into play as well as the more purely artistic faculties. The actual work in consequence has the advantages of a craft as well as of an art, and the result tends to a noble and full expression of thought.

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THE MEDIAEVAL PAINTER IN RELATION TO THE MODERN

By J.E. Southall December 6, 1906
So far as we know there has been no great artist or school of art whose success was not based upon the work of an earlier time. The idea of a great genius dropping down from Heaven and studying only Nature," is one which exists only in the imagination of those theorists who have never been in contact with practical work. Men as widely separated from one another as Cennino and Sir Joshua Reynolds have pointed out the necessity to the young artist of imitating a master (or masters) as well as studying Nature; and life is too short for any man to discard the experience and teaching of the past even if that were in itself a desirable thing to do. How many great men have been at their best in their early days when they were largely imitators. Reynolds (Sixth Discourse) says that imitation "has ever been inveighed against with great keenness both by ancient and modern writers. To derive all from native power, to owe nothing to another is the praise which men who do not much think on what they are saying, bestow sometimes on others, sometimes on themselves; and their imaginary dignity is naturally heightened by a supercilious censure of the low, the barren, the grovelling, the servile imitator. It would be no wonder if a student, frightened by these terrific and disgraceful epithets, with which the poor imitators are so often loaded should let fall his pencil in mere despair (conscious as he must be, how much he has been indebted to the labours of others, how little, how very little of his art was born with him), and consider it as hopeless to set about acquiring by the imitation of any human master, what he is taught to suppose is matter of inspiration from heaven." He says some allowance must be made for "the gaiety of rhetoric," and that those who appear more moderate allow that our study is to begin by imitation, but that it is hurtful afterwards - and then adds -"For my own part, I confess, I am not only very much disposed to maintain the absolute necessity of imitation in the first stages of the art, but am of opinion that the study of other masters, which I here call imitation, may be extended throughout our whole lives, without any danger of the inconveniences with which it is charged of enfeebling the mind, or preventing us from giving that original air which every work undoubtedly ought always to have. I am, on the contrary, persuaded that by imitation only, variety and even originality of invention is produced, I will go further; even genius, at least what generally is so-called, is the child of imitation." I wonder how many of the present worshippers of Rubens and Velasquez remember that these painters did not despise copying the works of earlier times, even when they were in the height of their powers - thus following the example of the Italian masters whom they admired. I will take it for granted then, that the young artist ought to, and indeed must imitate. But whom should he follow? In the days when Europe was full of living schools of art, the youth naturally followed the fashion of his time and place, and so the great schools grew: but this natural tendency cannot now be trusted to, while license, decadence and confusion are rife. Who can look back upon the last twenty or thirty years and not think of the Art fashions that have come and gone! What has become of their followers, and what will become of the heedless followers of the ruling fashion to-day! A little temporary popularity of success, and then what! Prudence then would dictate a wider outlook and a more deliberate choice. With the whole art world before us why not choose the best on which to found one's style ? Opinions will differ as to what is best; but it is a strange thing that if one man chooses Giotto and another Velasquez, the former only will be accused of imitating the

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peculiarities of a bygone age. Yet Velasquez is as much dead as Giotto, and the real question is not one of date but of merit. And, moreover, it is a question of the merits of the style, and not of the power of genius of the individual. You can follow a style with advantage - you cannot follow a genius. The sixteenth and seventeenth centuries are strewn with the wreckage of those who tried to do so. Let us then consider this question of Style in painting. I will not deal with the greater questions of sentiment, religious, political, or domestic, for these are far too profound, and while feeling that they cannot be entirely separated from the consideration, I want, as far as possible, to look at the subject from the purely artistic side. The very noticeable facts, as they affect the practical artist of to-day, appear to me to be these. In looking at figures or landscapes there have been three principal points of view which may be very roughly stated thus:--'The Byzantine and Primitive Painters looked at things with a full light, or nearly full light, upon them. The men of the Renascence looked at them with the light upon one side. The Moderns look at them with the light behind, and consequently in the face of the artist. I say again, these are rough distinctions, and there are many exceptions, especially in the last two divisions. Now the result of these different practices or habits might be stated thus: The Primitives get outline, tone, and colour; The Renascence painters get strong relief; The Moderns get shadow and "atmosphere." In the simple diagram in the margin I have represented the painter's subject, be it what it may, by a circle, its Southern side lighted by the sun, its Northern side in shade. In setting to work every artist knows the importance of selecting the right point of view. The Byzantine or primitive artist had no doubt on this question, he took his stand at S., whence he saw his subject in full light, just as surely as we should hold a book in full light when we wished to read it. But later on men began to move round to E. or W. and to see part of the shadow, thus they obtained bolder relief (which was really the province of Sculpture). Yet at the very time when painters were attaining this greater appearance of relief and outward realism, they were losing their grasp of spiritual Realities and the greatest glory of their art. What appeared to be a new birth was in reality the beginning of decay. At last artists came right round to N., where they saw all in shadow and had the sun in face of them. Here also they found atmosphere,' for the effects of mist are always most noticeable when we look at shadowed objects. This last method has arrogated to itself the supreme virtues of being like Nature and Modern, assuming thereby that the sunny side of things is out of date and that Nature in these days is air shadows and mist. Yet perhaps if we talked less about Nature and observed her more, we should see her yet to be sometimes wonderfully like she appeared to be to Duccio, to Lorenzetti or to Pisanello, and might even find that the style of Lorenzetti was capable of rendering Nature just as truly as that of Rubens. Let any unprejudiced observer go and look at a homely piece of English landscape either on a grey day or with the sun shining fully upon it, and see if it be not made up largely of simple pieces of colour like a mosaic. A green meadow, a silvery stream, grey-green willows, darker green elms, the brown roof of the farm, the stone or brick-coloured walls, the cows brown or red or black or white or motley; all these things come before us as pleasant pieces of colour in a beautiful mosaic. Nature will be found to be a

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Primitive yet; and not only in her colour but quite as much in her minuteness and care of detail. This care for and delight in detail is another striking distinction between the methods of early art and those of to-day, and it is a point in which we find a resemblance between Nature and Primitive art - as opposed to Modern art - for Nature does not neglect details, but furnishes them with exquisite care. There can hardly be two opinions as to the advantage to Velasquez in copying Titian, but there is reason to think that it would have been better for him if he could have copied Titian's earlier works, which were more like those of Bellini. For to the reasonable admirer of the great Spaniard, who can revere his genius without being blind to his faults, it is clear that he followed and accentuated the weaknesses of Titian's later days, an over-attention to atmosphere'' and a sketchiness in detail and in backgrounds. These defects lead rapidly away from any decorative quality in painting into what is called realistic painting, or painting like Nature." And here it may be well to observe that the term "like Nature'' is a loose and misleading expression. No painting is, or can be, like Nature - the two things are not on the same plane. Nature, with her constant movement, growth, and decay, her changes from day to night, from hot to cold, from dry to wet, from summer to winter, cannot be imitated, nor can any picture approach for a moment her brilliant lighting. All that we can do is to represent, by a convention, some small part of her in some particular aspect. The convention may be that of the fourteenth century, or that of the nineteenth or twentieth, but a convention it must be. It has been generally accepted for three centuries, as an axiom, that a picture must represent only a given scene as it can be observed from one spot and at one moment. The Primitive painter acknowledged no such restriction; he saw that he could greatly enlarge his power of expression by including several scenes in one picture, by moving his point of view farther or nearer, and by including things seen at different times. He was none the less like Nature for this his greater liberty. The question then simply is as to which convention is the best. Here the claim of decorative art is surely a strong one, for Nature is a decorative artist, and he who would follow Nature must be a decorative artist also. One has but to look at the fur of a cat, a tiger, or a leopard, at the plumage of a peacock, or cock, or hen, or goose, at grasses and flowers, at a mountain side, or a pebble on the shore to see how decorative Nature is. Show me the tree - the youngest sapling in the most up-to-date plantation - whose foliage consists of shapeless dabs of colour and not of finely formed individual leaves, and I will consider whether the style of Constable or Corotis more advanced and more like Nature than that of Benozzo Gozzoli. Is it not a fact that the Byzantine and Mediaeval painters appealed to a trained and keen perception, while the Impressionist appeals to the hasty glance of those who do not take the trouble to look ? The one style shows us how much we may see - the other how little. But it has been complained that some modern painters have not only imitated archaic masters, but have also used mediaeval costume, whereas those masters depicted contemporary costume. Thus are these unfortunate artists accused at once of imitating and of not imitating the pre-Raphaelites. Because the latter used their beautiful contemporary costume (and would have been fools indeed if they had not), we must now use our hideous dress of to-day, a dress which makes most of the best figure subjects ridiculous and impossible: and because the old painters had no need and little knowledge of historic costume, we, who have both the need and the knowledge, must neglect it. Such is the argument, but is it based on truth ? Look at the pulpits of Niccolo Pisano and his sons, and see how they imitated the antique, and what a great school of sculpture theirs was. Look again at the classicism of Botticelli and his contemporaries, and we shall soon see the emptiness of the claims of that dull modern realism which would have every man painted in a top hat, and every woman in a tailor-made gown.

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No one, I imagine, fails to see that it would be far better for us if we could use the costume of to-day in our pictures - no one, I think, feels more deeply than I do myself that Art will never be in a flourishing condition until Life is made beautiful, and that it is Life that matters, far more than Art: but meanwhile we have to meet the situation as it is, and we may as well face the fact that frock coats and trousers, railroads and factories do not make beautiful pictures. As historical documents it may be necessary to depict them, but don't let us persuade ourselves that such pictures can be other than dreadful warnings, regarded by posterity as we now regard illustrations of the tortures of the Inquisition. And if the artist to-day wishes to conjure up some vision of beauty that has been possible in the past, and may well be possible again why should he be forbidden to do so ? That it can be done is proved by such pictures as those of Ford Madox Brown and Rossetti. There is in the Lower Church at Assisi a fresco of The Betrayal in the Garden of Gethsemane,'' painted by Pietro Lorenzetti, which is to me the most impressive picture in the world. It is true that his olives have but a few leaves each, that the fleeing apostles are out of all proportion to the mountains, that the perspective is childish and that it has not a particle of what is called atmosphere, but it reaches heights that neither Rubens nor Rembrandt nor Valesquez ever neared - a triumph of a great soul working in a noble style. If ever painting is again to make great progress I believe we must begin in some such simple methods (not imitating known faults, of course), and what is so done, though it maybe quite truly called "archaic," will be found to be like a house built upon a rock. JOSEPH E. SOUTHALL,

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THE PRIMING AND BACKING OF A CANVAS FOR TEMPERA PAINTING By

J. D. Batten June 1, 1907
The following is the method that (with slight variations) I have used in preparing the ground for most of my pictures. To Prime the Canvas. Choose an oil primed canvas of good texture. Pin it face downwards on a board or on the floor. Use plenty of drawing pins and push them well in. Allow a margin on all sides of one-and-a-half or two inches beyond the "sight'' measure of the picture. See that the back of the canvas is clean and free from dust. Rub it lightly with a benzined rag to remove any superficial grease. To prime eight square feet of canvas, put one ounce of casein into eight ounces of water and stir for a quarter of an hour with a wood or bone spoon. Then add strong ammonia drop by drop - stirring all the while - till the casein dissolves in the water and forms a strong size. Keep on stirring till the size is the consistence of a thick honey and flows from the spoon without clots. The size ought not to be diluted with water after it is made. Take plaster of Paris that has been slaked in water for more than three weeks and squeeze it tightly in a linen cloth. Of this take a lump nearly equal in bulk to the casein size. Mix it thoroughly with the size and work it with a spoon through a hair sieve. Take a large hog's hair brush and lay this priming on the canvas, working it well in. If a rough surface is wanted a second coat may be dabbed on before the first is quite dry. If a smooth surface is wanted, let the first coat dry, and then sweep on another. The priming is better for drying fairly quickly, so if the weather is damp a good fire should be kept in. Undue inequalities of the surface may be scraped down with glass paper, or with a knife, after the priming is perfectly dry. To make a backing for the Canvas. - Take one or more sheets of ''Wire wove roofing cut to the size of the picture and fasten on to a wooden frame or stretcher by means of brass screws and copper nails. Mix equal quantities of Venice turpentine and oil~copal varnish (commercial). Add white lead in powder and grind into a putty of such consistence that it can be spread with a palette-knife but is too thick to lay on with a brush. With a palette-knife spread a fairly thick coat of putty over the surface of the Wire wove roofing'' as evenly as possible. Roll up the prepared canvas with the oil primed surface outwards. (Do not cut off the margin yet.) Apply the roll of canvas to one edge of the puttied surface and unroll slowly, pressing the canvas down with the photographers roller squeegee. Work from the middle outwards, so as to avoid enclosing bubbles of air. If any air should have been enclosed prick the blister with a needle and press again with the squeegee. If after a few days it is found that any part of the canvas is not stuck down firmly, it can be pressed down with a hot iron. Cut off the margin of the canvas.

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THE CHAPEL, MADRESFIELD COURT. Paper contributed By

Henry A. Payne October 1907
THE little description I can give of my experience in painting the walls of the chapel At Madresfield Court in tempera seems almost unnecessary, for I had no difficulties with the method - nothing that could serve as a lesson to others not to do this or that. I was at first doubtful what method to use for painting the walls. Buon fresco seemed to require years of practice before one could expect to be competent to work in it, and then it is always said that buon fresco is not suitable for England owing to the damp climate. Since painting the chapel walls, however, I have heard from competent authorities that it is a fallacy to suppose that it is not durable here, especially in the country where the air is pure. Given the proper method and the use of simple earthcolours, buon fresco is quite permanent. Spirit fresco is what I inclined to use as being a method which allows of indefinite retouching, and being also, above all things, permanent but the effect of it was not pleasing to me; it is too heavy and solid looking. The contrast between the results of this method, and the ravishing luminousness of Italian frescoes is very great. All the charm of the plaster ground seemed clouded and lost. (Footnote: An account of this painting was given to the Society at a meeting on January 1st, 1906) Then I turned to tempera. I had never painted in this way at all, but my friends were doing beautiful things in tempera, and the (so called) new medium fascinated me by its quality and enamel-like surface. 0f course I was aware that many of the Italian frescoes are really painted in tempera, but I knew nothing about this method, and imagined all kinds of difficulties. Now I feel that it is a delightfully simple medium, especially on a wall, being rich and luminous and giving a fine sense of quality. The walls of the chapel had to be stripped, as they were covered with a coat of Parian cement, very smooth and hard and with no absorbency. It was impossible to use that as a ground, for the tempera would have dried and peeled off in course of time. I had Millar, the plastering expert, down from London, and he advised re-plastering with a special lime-putty which he had laid down many years ago, and which I fancy had been part of the stock of lime-putty laid down for the Houses of Parliament when the frescoes were being painted there. The pIaster was one part of lime to two of sand and by the end of two months the walls were quite dry. The lime having being so long slaked, was no longer caustic and was quite fit to take tempera. I find that Professor Church recommend that the wall should be washed over with distilled water and then with a thin coating of size before painting; but in my ignorance I did neither, but a thin wash of the egg medium and yellow ochre or umber which was always passed over the figures no doubt served as a preparatory ground. I made very simple cartoons and transferred them to the wall by having tracing-paper rubbed with raw umber in powder and then marking the outlines with a stylus. The eggs we used were fresh every day. Occasionally, I am sure we must have used egg when not good, but I have not been able to discover any perceptible bad results, and it is nearly five years now since the first painting was done. In one or two cases we worked over things that had been painted many months before which I do not think ought to be done, as when the surface of the painting has dried hard the second painting cannot bind itself firmly to it and so perishes. We beat up one yolk of an egg in about double the quantity of water and ground up the powdered colours with this and placed them in palettes having deep hollows, for if the

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colours are put in flat saucers they soon dry. As we worked we diluted the colours still further with water or egg as it was felt to be necessary. The Colours we used were Yellow ochre Raw Siena Venetian Red Raw umber Vermilion Cobalt Terra Verde Viridian Aureolin Blue Black

I am not sure whether we ought to have used aureolin. I believe it is inclined to be darkened by the sulphur in the egg, but I have not yet observed any traces of that darkening. The only change that has happened in the colours has been the blooming of the cobalt, terra Verde, and viridian. On the whole this has lightened the tone of the work more than I really like, but as a rule they bloom with a quality that is very charming. The painting was all done thinly, no white was mixed with the colours, for I was loth to lose the deep ivory tone of the plaster; though I feel now that it would have perhaps been a gain to have used white with all the colours - the tones would have sat more perfectly on the wall, - would have belonged more to it. The tempera worked very easily, our methods for making the tints were simple We usually painted the flesh in terra verde and umber, and then glazed with yellow ochre and vermilion, and so on -- once or twice I had to scrub out a figure after it had been painted for a month or so. (Footnote: *Aureolin with me once turned nearly burnt siena colour painted on a panel with egg which had gone bad. Sulphur seems to be liberated by the decomposition of the egg which joins with cobalt to form a red sulphide of cobalt. (C. J. H.)) I was astonished at the hardness of the painting. Even with a scrubbing brush, I found it difficult to move the colour. I was very charmed with the richness and the body that tempera gives - luminous and full, like enamel, and yet with that quality of restraint that makes it an ideal medium. The painting in the chapel is as brilliant as when it was started five years ago. The blooming is the only change. It has been suggested that the paintings should be varnished with wax to effectually preserve them, but I am not very clear about the necessity for this. NOTE BY AUTHOR, 1928 Millar, the author of the book on "Plastering,'' did the plastering for me and I am sure the lime he used was soft, that is lime-putty from the Houses of Parliament. The surface was beautiful to work on and no crumbling took place. I regret I did not use white with the colours, it would have had a broader effect, and a better sense of things with the wall; I mean the tones would have sat better on the wall. My impression is that the cobalt blooms rather quickly and after the first few years there was not further change. The viridian bloomed as much as the cobalt. Apart from these two colours no change took place in any of the others as far as I remember. We used the tempera very thinly almost as a water-colour; a quite good method, I think; though, as already stated, I regret not having used white in all the colours. The work seems to be lasting extremely well, and as far as I remember there seemed no need to cover it with wax.

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Some notes on tempera. Extract from a letter, May 4, 1903, by Joseph E. Southall.
I think that Mr. Fry is too ready to conclude that old work has been blended or worked in oil, when really it is tempera worked with minute faint stipple or lines, and then washed over with films of thin body-colour. This I believe to be the method of Piero della Francesca's Baptism,' and generally Italian pictures of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries seem to me to be worked on this method. First raw siena or some such colour worked transparently on to the white gesso, and terra verde under flesh so as to match the tones and perhaps some of the modelling faintly. Over this will come the local colours, probably in numerous very thin washes of semi-opaque colour, then the shading and finishing, either with transparent colour, or with colour containing a little white. The whole of the processes are carried out (especially on a large scale) with very- fluid work in the majority of pictures. I imagine that thick viscous paint or impasto in either tempera or oil were, the exception, very rarely used if ever, and were experiments rather than the accepted system of work. The three processes indicated above, seem to me to explain Piero di Cosimos 'Procris' (some rather thicker body in the flowers and bit of white drapery) and P. della Francesca's 'Baptism' and most of his 'Nativity.' I came to the conclusion that the 'Baptism was distinctly the finer work of the two as to technique. There does seem to be some more decided fusion of opaque colour in the flesh colours of the 'Nativity' and they are not so well preserved in consequence. Possibly this was an experiment in oil, but I doubt it. The flesh and draperies of the 'Baptism' are modelled up with almost invisibly fine small touches and so delicate as to be only perceptible on the closest inspection. I certainly think the 'Death of Procris' and Francescas 'Baptism' and 'Nativity and the 'Nativity' of Botticelli to be ordinary tempera pictures. I think so still the Piero della Francesca pictures are both worked with very fine stipples. One of the most wonderful and beautiful pictures we have is the new Lorenzo Monaco JOSEPH E. SOUTHALL

The Le Begue Medium. A reply to the queries which close Mr. Roger Fry's paper on Venetian Tempera.
In the above paper, Mr. Fry draws a hard and fast line between tempera and oil, qualifying it somewhat by a statement that he does not mean oil as at present, but as used in the 15th century. Also that tempera was handled by certain painters in such a way as to give the effect of oil. What he does not take into consideration is the possibility of the existence of a medium other than oil, which might form a bridge between the two, and with which, such painting as that of the Flemish and allied schools could be done. Yet, in the writings by Mr Fry which I have consulted, although technique is not, as a rule, the principal object of his essays, I find a number of occasions where he has given opinions which appear to indicate such a medium as I have in mind, for instance - ''some at present unknown method was discovered, by which tempera could be handled so as to imitate the fusion of oils''. ''What probably impressed Italian artists most must have been the technique of a painting like this, a varnish medium in which just those results of depth and transparency of colour which

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Northern Italian artists like Pisanello sought to attain through the medium of tempera were here compassed with far greater ease and certainty.'' Having here a definite pronouncement that the "unknown" is a "varnish medium" which, I take it, does not mean a varnish as we understand it now, resinous and sticky, but as used in the Flemish painting of the 15th century - I will endeavour to trace the pedigree of the Le Begue water-wax medium For this I am indebted to Eastlake, who in his 'Materials for a History of Oil Painting, gives very fairly all information he has found re the use of wax; and though he finally decides on the oleo-resinous theory he harks back again and again, even in his essay on Correggio, to the possibility of a wax medium having been used. Eastlakes theory has since been ousted by more definitely 'varnish'' methods, but I will not touch upon these, having found the Le Begue medium easier to handle and more certain in its results, throughout my 7 years experience of its use. Pedigree of the Le Begue Medium. A medical writer of the 2nd or 3rd century remarks that the lixivium wood-ash dissolves (saponifies) wax. Again in the 11th century we find a recipe for a varnish or polish as follows:- Equal quantities of potash lye, wax and size, to be applied with a brush and rubbed when dry - for painting walls it could be used as a medium with which to grind powdered pigments in the preparation of the colours required. In 1348-51 Ceracolla, apparently a similar vehicle, is recorded as having been supplied to Andrea Pisano for painting a statue. Nearer home the Westminster recipes (about 1350} record the following item of white varnish supplied by Lonyn of Bruges. Used for interior work - perhaps for the verdegris light green walls in fashion at the time. Other references to Vernix Album, Vernix Germanorum, Vernix Chiara, may have originally meant the same. Most of the recipes for varnish as we know it are later. The early varnishes were very thick, not suitable as painting mediums but had to be rubbed on while hot. Eastlake mentions the Le Begue, but the version he obtained is defective. The subsequent history of the Le Begue medium is scrappy, to a great extent legendary. Facius, an Italian historian and contemporary of the Van Eycks, wrote in 1456 that Jan Van Eyck studied ancient traditions with profit: beyond that no definite information was given. Facius' writings were first published in Latin in 1745. Shortly after (whether in connection with this or not we cannot say,) attempts were made to revive wax painting both in Germany and France, where in the former, the lixivium, and in the latter the encaustic method was used -Both Reynolds and Lawrence also tried experiments with wax, but failed to discover how it could be used to advantage. In 1795 a 'Practical Treatise on Painting in Oil Colours was published. The author's name is not given but the technical information is drawn chiefly from two previous writers, M. De Piles and Thomas Bardwell. At the close of a quotation from the former the writer adds, "If M. De Piles knew the above, he might have also stated the names of the colours, and the medium in which they were ground." Evidently at that date (1795), there was still a tradition of some medium other than oil. A text book, published in 1827 contains the same technical information, but has a fresh introduction in which there is no reference to any medium except oil I have how-ever found its instructions very useful when experimenting with Le Begue in the Flemish manner, though not of much service for oils. It is not necessary to consider here the composition and use of the medium, which is given in Vol. II. Characteristics of the Le Begue Medium. When a thin film is laid on glass it appears semi-transparent and on being slightly magnified looks like ground glass. When used as the medium in which powder colours

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of solid or chalky body are ground it produces a pigment of a smooth and homogeneous nature. Several coats can however be super-imposed without forming more than a thin skin, as can be seen if a scratch is made penetrating to the ground on which the colour is laid. Thickened however by evaporation the medium can be used impasto without cracking away from the ground, even though laid on with a palette knife. Using it in this manner it is possible to imitate "encaustic" painting. Suggestions for the solution of the problem embodied in Mr. Fry's queries. 1. How did these early Venetians, Jacopi Bellini and Michele Giambono get the richness of their effects? It is quite possible that they may have obtained knowledge of the Flemish method earlier than is supposed. Our first task is to find how early a date call be proved as the starting point of this method. Now Jacques Daret (born between 1403-6) was, in 1418 already domiciled with Robert Campin. As he was earning his keep he had probably been in the workshop some time, and his master, described in the record as the most important painter of Tournai, must have had years of experience behind him. The Van Eycks were quite as early: tradition gives 1410 as the date of the invention ascribed to them, but even that was obviously not the beginning. I think it probable that the method had been in use as tempera, in Flanders as well as elsewhere, long before it had been discovered how to enrich the colouring by means of transparent glazes. At any rate, during the twenties, a few paintings are recorded, which exhibit the method as we know it, while in the next decade many painters were working on the same lines, and Cologne over 150 miles from Tournai and Ghent, was in possession of the same method fully developed, glaze and all. Thence no doubt it spread in ever widening circles. The journey to Italy was not very formidable - South through the Brenner Pass and down the pleasant valley of the Adige and the chief art centres of Northern Italy are scattered on the plain below. It is difficult to believe that no artist took this journey in one direction or the other till Roger Van der Weyden went to Ferrara in 1449. There is another route by which the Flemish method may have reached Italy. In 142829, Jan Van Eyck was sent with an embassy to Portugal. While there, he travelled in Spain for about four months. Starting on a pilgrimage north to Santiago, zigzagging across central Spain southwards through Castile and Andalusia back to Lisbon, we can realise from the distance travelled in terms of how many miles a day a horse would cover, that Jan could not have stayed more than a few days at any one place. Therefore any paintings he did during his journey would most likely remain at the tempera stage as there would not be time for the glazing. We are not therefore surprised to hear that, though the artists from Portugal to Catalonia were influenced by Van Eyck's method, they continued to use tempera. From Spain then the Flemish method may have entered Italy and in that case we should hardly expect to get the glazes. They would have "fusion" and what more could they want? After all tempera is more decorative. 2. "How, in particular, did they get fused high-lights in their flesh painting?" With the Le Begue medium fusion comes easily whether in handling high-lights or shadows, or dealing with the textures of flesh, of draperies, of stone or other materials. 3. Why did they never adopt German oil methods which seemed so peculiarly suited to their aims?" I Claim that the difference between the German and the North Italian painting was not a difference in the medium used but in the manner of using it, and that even the Squarcione may have employed the same medium, in their own manner. 4. Why did the second generation adopt the simpler and more ordinary hatched tempera and yet take to oil as soon as Antonello da Messina introduced it? My reply to the last query practically covers this. That it was no different medium that was introduced and that the development came about in the natural course of each

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man's inclination or aim and that Giovanni Bellini, as soon as the influence of Mantegna was removed, steadily progressed in the direction of fusion and richness of effect. As most of the painters of the next generation came under his influence in the course of his long life the whole trend of development would be in the same direction. I should like to conclude with a few remarks on my method of forming an opinion as to which paintings may have been executed in this medium. If a painting strikes me as a likely specimen, from my point of view, with some part giving a suitable green or blue for my purpose, I do not ask who painted it or what country it hails from. I only test whether the particular green or blue can be made with the pigments which were in use in the 15th century. Knowing from experience how these act with each other, which are friendly and which otherwise, I try to imitate a small portion to get the colour and quality, not sitting in front of the example but working at home and simply letting the pigments and medium guide me. If this gives a satisfactory result on comparison with the original I conclude that I am on the right track. Sometimes it is a case of making a colour fail, as for example, in the Nativity by Piero della Francesca in the National Gallery, where the foliage in the foreground in particular, has changed to a dark brown. I started by using orpiment and indigo, which give a dull green, the fact that I had toned the ground of slaked plaster with a little yellow ochre and white lead of course did not give it much chance for orpiment and white lead are not "friendly." After a day or two I put on a bright grass green of verdigris and yellow lake, it looked quite satisfactory, but not for long. I could almost see the change, in about half an hour it was obvious that it was not going to last, and by the morning it was more brown than green. After a week a satisfactory result was reached. The brown had darkened almost to the depth of that in the original painting, very little change has taken place since. Chemical action between unfriendly pigments usually takes place at once. Vermilion turns black in contact with verdigris. Even scarlet madder, which is only "scarlet" from a slight admixture of vermilion, when used in a study of roses turned dark grey at once. In Jan Van Eyck's 'Amolfifi in the National Gallery the vermilion on the wife's slippers is carefully isolated from her verdigris dress by the shadowed part which is in the same earth colours as the red draperies. In Italian paintings vivid greens are less frequent than in the Flemish. The fact is that the copper colours, verdigris and azurite cannot company with white lead unless carefully isolated. This would apply to the blues equally if the latter (like those of Flanders) were made of these pigments, but most of the later Italian blues are, I think, of azures composed of white lead and indigo with glazes of the latter and ultra-marine in various proportions - a glaze such as this, a combination of transparent and more opaque pigments seems to give a richer effect than a purely transparent one. In the reds of Van Eycks "Amolfini" I think Indian red and lake are used as a glaze - full glazing as a final process certainly adds to the resistance of a painting against damp. Out door tests show that work completed to include the final glaze will stand severe tests even to exposure in beating rain. As tempera, especially when thinly painted with the gesso ground used for the lights, it has not the same power of resistance - the ground goes first, it will not stand continued rain. This may be one reason why the Italians were slow in adopting the fully glazed technique. It was necessary in a damp climate, not so in a dry one such as Italy. M. LANCHESTER.

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Note on the Le Begue Medium by Harry Morley.

I have tried glazing tempera (egg) with Le Begue. This gives a richness to the colours which could be brought up to the strength of oil colours. My view in favour of Le Begue is the varying in the thickness i.e. the thick darks and thin lights which come naturally in working with the medium. This characteristic greatly struck me on looking at the early Flemish work. It is not present in egg tempera and is reversed in oil, i.e, thick lights and thin darks.

A Contribution to the discussion on R. Fry's "Paper on Venetian Tempera".

The problems posed by Mr Roger Fry at the end of his paper on Venetian Tempera painting still remain unsolved after a lapse of close on 27 years. They have, however, been of service in directing the attention of painters in tempera media to the very various methods which distinguish the work of the older masters before the universal adoption of oil as the medium in the painting of pictures. The distinctions which he made at that time between the fusion of tones obtained by flat washes of pigment in contradistinction to that arising from the use of hatching with fine strokes, or of stippling with points, raised much discussion and led to a good deal of experimenting with a view to the solution of this question of modelling by first intention as it may be called. No one who has handled pigments can ignore the superior quality in colour effect when gradation either in pure line or in broken tones has been attained by the imperceptible flow of the medium melting one value into another without resort to their amalgamation by retouching. The question of how this desirable end was obtained at a period preceding the introduction of painting in oils still demands a definite answer but it should be recognised that research, at least in regard to the first two of the queries and following the initiative of the proposer, has hitherto been limited solely to the nature of the media entering into the composition of the pigments. Now my own personal experience leads me to demand that this field of research should be extended to both that of the grounds upon which the pigments are laid and to the manner in which the latter are applied. The ease with which the desired effect of fusion is obtained in fresco painting, where the moisture of the stucco ground tends to invite the graded flow of the pigments, only demanding the skilled guidance of the painters' hand to achieve fusion, first drew my attention to the very different conditions obtaining on dry grounds, such as are used for tempera work. I have in consequence particularly experimented on this factor of the problem and am satisfied that the ground plays as large a part in the production of the desired end as does the painting medium. Hence it is not a question of providing one recipe for a ground which shall suit all forms of temper media, but rather of producing one that shall have affinity for the particular medium suited to the purposes of the individual painter. Personally I avoid a gesso grosso, or a gesso sottile ground as having too quick a suction to allow time for "premier coup'' manipulation. To obtain the freshness of true fusion' no after touching is permissible, hence a ground of a richer or more mellow character is required for successful co-operation with a size, or an egg, tempera. I have found one possessing this quality of slower absorption in a

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modified form of the gesso duro of the Italians, the base of which is very similar to the frame-makers composition. On this ground it has been possible to get results which closely approximate to those obtainable in fresco work owing to its nature which allows of deliberation in grading the pigment on its initial application. Again where the ground is in affinity with the medium, the problem of "fused high-lights in flesh without hatching" is solved, not by the addition of a pigment, but by leaving the ground in its pristine whiteness to supply these high-lights. The second factor which has, I think, been too much ignored when considering the problem is that of the handling in the actual laying on of the pigments. Turning to the Entombment' of Michael Angelo in the National Gallery as probably the most perfect instance of fusion in flesh painting we can see in England, it is obvious that its attainment demanded the most consummate draughtsmanship. Second thoughts, or "repentances," are no more allowable than in fresco work. To remedy a failure nothing short of replacing that patch of ground by a fresh one is possible. Hence to my mind fusion of this high standard implies a mastery of form as well as a congenial medium in collaboration with its appropriate ground. M.S-F. May 1928

1.A gesso duro ground for tempera painting. Preparation of the gesso duro. Ingredients required Raw linseed oil. ... ... Best Scotch glue.... ... ... Rosin (powdered).. ... ... Whitning... ... ... ... ... Parchment size. Proportions I unit by measure. Ditto unit From 3 to 4 units when moistened with the parchment size.

Preparation. Strain the oil through muslin to remove impurities and measure after straining. Soak the glue overnight in clean soft water and measure the swollen pieces without any liquid, then heat and melt these in the glue pot. Powder the rosin in a mortar and strain through fine muslin; measure the strained powder. Soak the whitning to a stiff paste with parchment size. Manipulation. Heat the oil in a jacketed pot (bain Marie) on the stove, then add the powdered rosin little by little, sifting it into the oil and stirring continually till the two are completely amalgamated. Into this thickened liquid pour the measure of melted glue and stir thoroughly till the whole is a stiffish liquid. Take another earthen ware pot and in it mix equal quantities of this hot liquid and of the soaked whitning, keeping the pot warm on the stove whilst stirring the ingredients into a smooth cream. This constitutes the Gesso duro. The liquor can be allowed to harden and kept for future use after re-heating but the gesso duro requires to be kept moist until required.

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2.Preparation of the painting ground. Ingredients required Marble dust... ... ... Zinc white ... ... ... Plaster of Paris.. ... Proportions Equal parts; employing the same unit of measure as for the gesso duro

Sift each ingredient separately through book muslin, or bettercloth, according to the fineness required in the ground. Manipulation. Moisten the plaster of paris with parchment size and thoroughly mix it with the other two ingredients. This forms the matrix of the ground. When reduced to a stiff paste add three parts of the matrix to two parts of the gesso duro, mixing thoroughly on the slab, or with a pestle and mortar, till its fluid consistency allows of its being laid on the panel surface with a stiff flat brush. Application. Apply whilst moist with a hog's hair brush, and to obtain a good surface, go over the wet ground with a house-painters knife using both the edge and the flat of its blade, and working quickly in all directions to make it as even as possible whilst the ground is warm and malleable. When after drying for at least 24 hours it is found to be hard and well set pumice the surface and apply a fresh coat. This can be repeated till it has become as close and fine as desired. This method of laying on the ground is suited to all rigid surfaces such as a wall, or panel, and canvas or linen which is marouflaged on to a firm backing. In the case of canvas on a stretcher, or some such similar elastic foundation, the ground should be laid very thinly and limited to two coats only; the first should be rubbed in, and made to key into the meshes of the canvas, whilst the second is laid on as a finish, after pumice stoning the previous one, and thinly enough to show the grain of the material.

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The four volumes of the papers of the Society of Painters in Tempera reproduced here have been edited, in that, certain footnotes, not relevant today, have been omitted. The old English spelling over certain words has been retained, however, where there were obvious type setting errors, these have been corrected.

R.M. Editor 2002

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