Oil painting

“ Oil painting derives its name from the mixture of the colors in oil. The oils used for this purpose are extracted from vegetables; and, on account of the rapidity with which they dry, are denominated drying oils. For most purposes, this mode of painting is decidedly superior to all others. It admits of a higher finish, as it allows the artist to retouch his works with greater precision. The colors also blend together more agreeably, and produce a more delicate effect. Oil paintings are executed on canvas, wood, or copper. ”

“ To the Flemish painters of the fifteenth century belongs, not the invention of oil-painting, for it was known before their time, but its acceptable application in picture-making. They applied oil with color to produce brilliancy and warmth of effect, to insure firmness and body in the work, and to carry out textural effects in stuffs, marbles, metals, and the like. So far as we know there never was much use of distemper, or fresco-work upon the walls of buildings. The oil medium came into vogue when the miniatures and illuminations of the early days had expanded into panel pictures. ”

“ From the aesthetic point of view therefore we have to regard early oil painting as only another form of the older tempera, expressing exactly the same artistic ideals and dominated by the same view of the relation of art to nature. ”

“ The first medium I shall notice is oil, or some modification of oil. The great objection to oil for mural work is the impossibility of seeing the painting when it faces the light. An absorbent ground will to a certain extent mitigate this evil. The use of spirits of turpentine, benzine, and other essences, will also contribute toward giving a flat surface; but do what we will, we can never get in an oil-painting the pure, clear qualities of water-color or fresco. ”

“ Audemar, and in the British Museum MS., of oil-painting to wooden surfaces, because movable panels could be dried in the sun; while, for walls, the colors are to be mixed with water, wine, gum, or the usual tempera vehicles, egg and fig-tree juice; white lead and verdigris, themselves dryers, being the only pigments which could be mixed with oil for walls. But the MS. of Eraclius and the records of our English cathedrals imply no such absolute restriction. They mention the employment of oil for the painting or varnishing of columns and interior walls, and in quantity very remarkable. ”

“ We do not say that the total force of the material is exhibited in this picture, or even that it in any degree possesses the lusciousness and fullness which are among the chief charms of oil-painting; but that upon the whole it would be selected as uniting imperishable firmness with exquisite delicacy; as approaching more unaffectedly and more closely than any other work to the simple truths of natural color and space; and as exhibiting, even in its quaint and minute treatment, conquest over many of the difficulties which the boldest practice of art involves. ”

“ Otherwise, the custom of painting with the ordinary oil colours, to be bought at any colourman’s, would not have been going on for nearly a hundred years, in spite of all the clearly shown evil results—results due chiefly to the principal enemy of oil painting, that is to say, the oil. ”

“ From the beginning of the 15th century, however, oil painting rose rapidly in estimation, and from the end of that century to our own time it has practically dominated the art. Wall-painting in fresco continued to be practised till the last part of the i8th century, and has been revived and supplemented by various other monumental processes in the 19th, but even for mural work the oil medium has proved itself a convenient substitute. Water-colour painting in its present form is essentially an art of the last hundred years. ”

“ The processes of plain oil painting are in themselves extremely simple, and depend so much on manipulative skill that a description of them must be taken only as a general guide, not by any means sufficient in itself to make a good painter. ”

“ We perceive from this the radical imperfection of water-colour for portraiture, and the impossibility of rendering by such means, at least with truth, the effect of skin colours. Oil painting offers far better resources, and here is the secret of its incomparable superiority. The colouring matter, diluted by the oil, remains suspended as before in its transparent medium when the painting is dry; so that the luminous rays, in order to arrive at the eye, start from the surface of the paint as well as from its interior substance. We find exactly the same process in nature ”

“ Latterly water-colour painting has come to rival oils in its application to all sorts of subjects; and it is used now with absolute freedom by a very large number of skilful artists. Many of the men who have done the best work in this medium are known as oil painters of the highest rank; and among living workers the same capacity to excel in either mode of expression is by no means uncommon. ”

“ After seeing all the fine pictures in France, Italy, and Germany, one must come to this conclusion—that [Pg 78] colour, if not the first, is at least an essential quality in painting. No master has as yet maintained his ground beyond his own time without it. But in oil painting it is richness and depth alone that can do justice to the material. Upon this subject every prejudice with which I left home is, if anything, not only confirmed but increased. What Sir Joshua wrote, and what our friend Sir George so often supported, was right ”

“ 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. ”

“ These are all qualities which are never got by dexterity of hand, dodges about color, or chance, to which much of the fascination of oil-painting on canvas must be attributed. They are only attainable by patient and laborious work. ”

“ There seems no reason why all this mural and panel work in oil of the 14th century should have perished, unless the medium was faulty, and, as is natural, many attempts have been made to identify extant examples as representing these early phases of the oil technique. Mural work we need not perhaps expect to find, for we know from the later experience of the Italians of the 16th century that it was difficult even then to find a safe method for oil painting on plaster. ”

“ Methods of handling oil color may be reduced to two general classes: (a) the paint is used thin, as a wash, on a prepared canvas, or (b) it is put on in thick opaque touches. In either case the aim is the same—to paint for depth, vibration, illusion of light and color. If brush strokes are to be left intact, each of them must have shape and meaning,—that is, line; if color is put on in a thin wash, then its value, gradation, hue and texture are the main points,—and these belong to structural harmony. Mural painting is the highest form of the art, demanding perfect mastery of Composition. ”

“ An oil painting can be rubbed out and done over time and again until the artist is satisfied. A sumi e or ink painting must be executed once and for all time and without hesitation, and no corrections are permissible or possible. Any brush stroke on paper or silk painted over a second time results in a smudge; the life has left it. ”

“ There is question too of a colourless spirit varnish, and of the process of mixing varnish with oil for a painting medium, in documents prior to the fifteenth century. The technique of oil painting is described by Theophilus, about 1100 A.D.; in the Hermeneia or Mount Athos Handbook; and in the Trattato of Cennini, while numerous accounts and records of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries establish incontestably, at any rate for the lands north of the Alps, the employment of oils and varnishes for artistic wall and panel painting. ”

“ In oil painting, the dark shadows, or dark portions of the picture, are painted thinly, while the lights are laid on, or “impasted,” with a full pencil and a stiff color. In the lights of the foreground, and of parts not intended to be remote or to “retire,” the impasting should be bold and free; while in the more brilliant lights it cannot well be too solid. The palette knife has always been a favorite instrument of this “impasting,” or laying on of color, capable as it is of producing an agreeable brightness on, and of giving an appropriate flatness to, the pigment. ”

“ As the term "oil-painting" is generally accepted to-day, it is fairer to credit these brothers with the invention, than to speak of their achievement as an improvement in oil-painting, for hitherto the medium in common use had been a preparation of gum and white of eggs. And as there is neither definite proof nor any good evidence that oil had ever been used as a medium to mix the colours for panel-painting before Hubert and Jan made their experiments, we surely have an easy distinction to draw. ”

“ You will see, then, how impossible it is, with such materials, to paint in the same style in which you paint a picture in oil-colour. Fresco painting involves the adoption of an entirely different style from oil painting. The frescoes of the old masters are not highly wrought up, highly-finished works. ”

“ Strength belongs to oil, tenderness and subtlety to pastel, together with freshness and elegance.
The pre-eminent technical advantage, in addition to those already mentioned, is the permanence of the tones. In watercolours there is an admixture of gum and glycerin which may attract moisture from the air; and, besides, the pigment is used in very thin washes. In oil-painting not only does the oil darken with age but sometimes draws oxygen from a pigment and changes its hue. In pastel the colour is put on without any moist admixture, and can be laid on thick. ”

“ On the contrary, in the exercises of artists, oil should be the vehicle of colour employed from the first. The extended practice of water-colour painting, as a separate skill, is in every way harmful to the arts: its pleasant slightness and plausible dexterity divert the genius of the [Pg 88] painter from its proper aims, and withdraw the attention of the public from excellence of higher claim; nor ought any man, who has the consciousness of ability for good work, to be ignorant of, or indolent in employing, the methods of making its results permanent as long as the laws of Nature allow. ”

“ WATER-COLOUR painting is in one sense the most ancient mode of pictorial art. We find examples of it in the tombs of the Egyptians, in the Roman catacombs, and in the houses of Pompeii. Oil painting is, in comparison, a modern process, though the statement that it was only discovered by the Van Eycks in the beginning of the fifteenth century, is now known to be a mistake. The earliest pictures were produced with colours soluble in water and mixed with certain ingredients necessary to fix them. ”

“ M. Angelo's "Madonna in the Last Judgment" might (for colour) be by Tintoretto, and many figures on this glorious wall are as glowing as Titian's! As regards the disadvantages of oil-painting, I can only say that they often blister in the shadows, and that one can only see them from one point of view. I know very well that fresco is exposed to damp, but one can, indeed one must, have one's wall examined before one begins to work, and if it is well dried and "drained" there is no danger; at the worst, one can cover one's wall with sheets of lead ”

“ It is inappropriate to the painting of classic compositions, although in point of fact it has been so used, not without success. It is best adapted to the rendering of still life, of landscape and of portraiture. But in these cases it is not advisable to aim at that solidity which is the virtue of oil-painting, if only because oil can bring about a better result. The real reason is that, in securing solidity, pastel tends to forfeit that lightness and grace which constitute its special charm and merit. ”

“ In oil painting you cannot do it so well except you paint over large parts, because the colours in drying acquire a yellower hue, than they have while fresh; there will always [Pg 68] be a difference between the very same tints; besides, oil pictures are frequently greasy-like and refuse the new colours, so that you are obliged to rub those parts with oil, to make the new colours adhere to and flow over the old ones, which rubbing with oil very often makes a dull and yellow spot when the colours are dry ”

“ Where the work is to be finished with oil paints, more oil can be used in the priming. It should be borne in mind, however, that interior work should always dry hard and firm to insure good results from its present painting, also to allow of satisfactorily repainting. ”

“ The compound known as Parris’ medium and sold by Roberson, is not a bad thing for diminishing the shine of oil-painting. It is made of white wax dissolved in spirits of lavender, but I am inclined to think that an absorbent ground prepared with parchment size and whiting is the best preventive of the greasy surface inseparable from oil-painting. The great desideratum in all mural and decorative oil-painting is that every part should have an equal amount of shine. ”