Jean-Henri Müntz

“ Every body in the least acquainted with colours, knows that water colours, tempered or employed either with gum or size, grow paler and lighter in drying, and that they acquire their true tone only when [Pg 62] dry;—in encaustic they grow paler and lighter too in drying, but they recede from and lose their true tone.—Encaustic is the reverse of size-painting as to effect, while you are at work and the colours wet;—of the latter you cannot judge positively until the colours are dry; of the former you can only judge while the colours are wet, or which is the same, when fixed with the wax. ”

“ Naples-yellow is the only colour that ought to be used in composing the tenderer flesh tints of women; it proves a very tender, bright and beautiful lasting colour for all manner of painting, if properly prepared and managed, if not, a dirty, weak and treacherous one, and particularly in oil. It is a mineral compound of lead, antimony, sulphur, and some arsenic, which latter is the cause of its changing, and hurting other colours, and particularly the white, so much complained of by the painters. ”

“ Red-orpiment, so called to distinguish it from the other, is properly not red, but of a rich orange colour, and is a compound of arsenic and sulphur too; but here sulphur prevails, which is the reason of its standing its ground better and doing less harm in oil than the other.
In encaustic it is of universal use, throughout a whole picture to give warmth to lights and shades; in landscapes it may be used from the horizon down to the fore ground, to good purpose; for shades in flesh it is admirable, it gives a clear, soft and transparent strength ”

“ As the foregoing Treatise is written and published with an intention to communicate a discovery that will prove of infinite advantage to the loveliest of arts, in all its branches; the author, conscious of wanting the necessary qualifications of a writer in a language not natural to him, hopes for indulgence, for all the inaccuracies and improprieties of expression he may and must have fallen into: as to facts, he begs leave to assure the public, that nothing has been advanced but what is strictly true. ”

“ In short, it is a manner of painting susceptible of all the boldness, freedom and delicacy of any other whatsoever; you may leave off and cherish your work at pleasure, [Pg 18] you cannot fatigue your colours, you are not subject to that inconvenience attending oil painting, viz. of setting one’s picture by to dry, &c.
You will have all the effects and sweetness of painting in oil, and the colours will not be liable to fade and change; no damp can affect it, no corrosive will hurt it; nor can the colours crack and fall in shivers from off the canvas. ”

“ The facility and conveniency for retouching a picture after the colours are fixed, without the new colours differing from the hue of the old ones, is an advantage no other manner of painting is possessed of. ”

“ The being able to work and retouch at pleasure, and at any time, without fatiguing the colours, or any other detriment arising from it, is an advantage peculiar to encaustic only; for, the new colours will unite with the old ones without making spots, as is the case in common size-painting; nor will there be that inconveniency of rubbing the places to be retouched over with oil, as is the case with oil pictures ”

“ If all books upon arts and sciences, manufactures and mechanics, had been or could be written by the respective professors thereof, things would appear in another light; we should, perhaps, not have the finest language in those performances; but we do not want that, plain truth and common sense is all that is required; if a guide leads us the right way, we need not mind his dress. ”

“ In painting upon the wax by virtue of the whitening, you will not have that conveniency of retouching or altering of any part, and before the colours are fixed, so well, as painting upon the raw and bare canvas will afford you; because the texture and fibres of [Pg 46] the cloth being thoroughly invaded by the wax, there remains nothing for water colours to fix or adhere to, capable to retain them; those colours once dry, the slightest touch of a moist pencil will, as it were, attract them, and frequently make and leave a bare spot ”

“ This colour is very unfit to be used crude, either for painting in encaustic or crayons, its pores are too close for the wax to penetrate; or to say better, [Pg 89] this colour or earth is very much impregnated with a nitrous principle, with which wax cannot sympathise, and for this very reason it is as unfit to be used crude in oil. Those painters that use it freely have always but too much reason to repent. ”

“ In grinding the colours upon the stone, and managing them upon the pallette, care should be taken not to use an iron knife, the steel or iron that grinds off, in mixing with the colours spoils their brightness and vivacity; flake-white and white-lead, yellow-oker, lacque and light-red, suffer greatly by it, it gives them a dull and dirty cast; Naples-yellow suffers most of all from it; its vivacity is entirely destroyed by the iron’s touching it. Horn, ivory, or tortoise shell knives, or [Pg 54] wooden spatulas are fitter for all manner of painting; they will affect no colours ”

“ Upon canvas fully imbibed with wax, you can neither use so great a body of colours, nor employ them with such freedom, boldness, or delicacy as you may upon cloth, whose texture is not pre-occupied with wax—the reason is obvious—the one has its pores and interstices filled up with wax ”

“ And how far it will answer, either whole or in part, the general ends of painting, one single sketch will be enough to judge by; in arts, one experience is worth a thousand conjectures.
[Pg 21]
In the prosecution of my system, oil-colours came always in for a part of the experiment, in opposition to those fixed with wax, in order to judge better and with more precision of their variation. By this it happened that I often painted oil-colours over a waxed ground; which colours always appeared brighter and cleaner than the very same painted over an oil-cloth ”

“ To make discoveries that may be of infinite advantage to arts, subservient to private avarice, is the foible of a weak, jealous, and ill-natured mind.—Here follows the process; and first the preparation of the cloth. ”

“ When your picture is entirely finished, and you should want [Pg 70] to give the canvas more solidity, you may paint it over on the back with any colour or tint, and bring it again and for the last time to the fire, to fix that colour; if you apprehend there is not wax enough, apply a little dissolved in spirit of turpentine, as mentioned in the foregoing observations on Art. ”

“ The use of the crayons in encaustic is the very same as commonly practised, there is no difference; you must work and paint upon the waxed ground as you do upon the bare paper. Encaustic has the advantage over the common way as to expedition. The fine grittiness procured by the particles of the chalk mixed with the ground you work upon, will file off more colour from the [Pg 111] crayon than the grain of the unwaxed paper; and the wax diffused through the ground will retain the colours better ”

“ While the picture is wet it appears very near what it will be when fixed; when it is dry it looks like a weak dead colouring in oil. You will see enough to judge of the general effect, but none of the tenderer half tints will appear discernable enough to judge of them with precision. In large pictures where the cloth will be required stronger, a picture is kept wet with great ease and security, by moistening it on the back with a large brush as often as there is occasion, for the [Pg 35] water will soon soak through the texture and take hold of the colours ”

“ The most essential point in encaustic—the fixing of the colours—is the simplest and easiest for paintings of any size, moveable or immoveable. A surface of forty feet may be fixed as conveniently as a picture of twelve inches ”

“ It must be allowed, that nothing can be more simple than this method; and it is thought, that this kind of painting is capable of withstanding the injuries of the weather, and last longer than painting in oil; which I will not answer for.
The effect produced by these colours upon wax is very singular; nor can one have any notion of it without seeing it. The colours have not that natural varnish or shining, that they acquire with oil; but you [Pg 9] are capable of seeing the picture in any light, or in whatsoever situation you place it ”

“ Now, the half A C being fixed, will shew you at one glance what strength every tint will acquire; and if you moisten again the other half B D, or paint the same tints upon a fresh piece of cloth, you will see which are the colours that grow deeper still, fixed with [Pg 58] wax than they appear when only moistened with water, and the references 1 2 3 4 5 &c. telling you what each tint is composed of, you will be enabled to amend any one that might be amiss. ”

“ Every artist may go on in his accustomed method; the use of all the colours is in encaustic as in oil, as may be seen by the following list.
The direction for painting with crayons will illustrate some passages of the foregoing process, and what other advantages [Pg 73] encaustic painting will have over oil and size-painting will be shewn by conclusions drawn from the experiments. ”

“ The whole proceeding is founded upon the foregoing principle; the same materials and agent are required.—The only difference between painting in encaustic with the pencil, and painting in encaustic with crayons, [Pg 98] consists in employing the colours; in the former—you paint with colours tempered with water; in the latter—you employ, and paint with the same colours dry; the effect and solidity will be equal and the same in both.—
The encomiums I bestowed upon the penciling system, are applicable to that of the crayons ”

“ There is no particular or uncommon preparation or composition required for encaustic, all crayons hitherto commonly used may be employed; some great lights only will be wanted for every set of tints; for what has been said on colours, and their growing deeper when fixed with wax, penciling system Art. ”

“ Tho’ professed artists (whose long experience enables them to judge of the value of each colour) will not have absolute occasion for the comparative use of such a standard, yet they will not do amiss to make an essay of their tints before they employ them. ”

“ ART. IV. To fix the colours by melting the wax.
When your picture is finished and dry, have a good clear fire of sea-coals, [Pg 36] 8 approach your picture with the painted side towards it, at about two feet distance, let it grow warm by gentle degrees, always approaching nearer, till within a foot distance from the grate, but never closer, holding your picture perpendicularly or a little inclined as you shall find necessary. If the picture is large do one half first, then the other; there is not the least difficulty for any size. ”

“ Bone black is the most valuable of the black tribe for sweetness, and a transparent warmth for landscapes and figures; bone black and white alone will make softer and more natural turning tints than any other colours can produce ”

“ For painting with crayons I should prefer cloth prepared according to the first method, without paper, for the same reason I gave for deviating from Count Caylus’s system, page 48, 49. however, artists may decide for themselves.
Besides the two methods mentioned for preparing the cloth, one might paint upon paper pasted upon cloth as directed, without first laying on any wax or preparatory ground; but such paintings would not have that lasting solidity they [Pg 114] ought ”

“ No. 3. seemed to have suffered by the smoke; but after washing it with a stout brush, and soap and water, it recovered its original hue, pinks, yellow-orpiment, smalt and verditer excepted; the first was sensibly decayed; the second grown darker, inclining towards red-orpiment; the third grown dull, but mixed with Prussian blue [Pg 132] it was as bright as the new; verditer grown dark and dull.
No. 2, 4, 5. were just as the new ones, there was no difference.
Oil colours did not stand the test so well; their general appearance in opposition to old and new encaustic,—was:
No. 1. ”