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CHAP. 14.
RUBRICA; LEMNIAN EARTH: FOUR REMEDIES.
Some persons have wished to make out that sinopis is nothing else but a kind of rubrica of second-rate quality, looking upon earth of Lemnos as a rubrica of the highest quality. This last approaches very nearly to minium, and was as highly esteemed among the ancients as the island that produces it: it was never sold except in sealed packages, a circumstance to which it was indebted for its additional name of “sphragis.” It is with this material that they give the undercoating to minium, in the adulteration of which it is also extensively employed.
In medicine it is very highly esteemed. Applied to the eyes in the form of a liniment, it allays defluxions and pains in those organs, and arrests the discharges from lachrymal fistulas. To persons vomiting blood, it is administered with vinegar to drink. It is taken also internally for affections of the spleen and kidneys; and by females for the purpose of arresting flooding. It is employed too, to counteract the effects of poisons, and of stings inflicted by sea or land serpents; hence it is that it is so commonly used as an ingredient in antidotes.
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CHAP. 15.
EGYPTIAN EARTH.
Of the other kinds of rubrica, those of Egypt and Africa are of the greatest utility to workers in wood, from the fact of their being absorbed with the greatest rapidity. They are used also for painting, and are found in a native state in iron-mines.
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CHAP. 16.
OCHRA: REMEDIES DERIVED FROM RUBRICA.
It is from rubrica also, that ochra is prepared, the rubrica being burnt in new earthen pots well luted with clay. The more highly it is calcined in the furnace, the better the colour is. All kinds of rubrica are of a desiccative nature, and hence it is that they are so useful for plasters, and as an application even for erysipelas.
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CHAP. 17.
LEUCOPHORON.
Half a pound of Pontic sinopis, ten pounds of bright sil, and two pounds of Greek melinum, well mixed and triturated together for twelve successive days, produce “leucophoron,” a cement used for applying gold-leaf to wood.
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CHAP. 18.
PARÆTONIUM.
Parætonium is so called from the place of that name in Egypt. It is sea-foam, they say, solidified with slime, and hence it is that minute shells are often found in it. It is prepared also in the Isle of Crete, and at Cyrenæ. At Rome, it is adulterated with Cimolian earth, boiled and thickened. The price of that of the highest quality is fifty denarii per six pounds. This is the most unctuous of all the white colours, and the most tenacious as a coating for plaster, the result of its smoothness.
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CHAP. 19.
MELINUM: SIX REMEDIES. CERUSE.
Melinum, too, is a white colour, the best being the produce of the Isle of Melos. It is found also in Samos; but this last kind is never used by painters, in consequence of its being too unctuous. The persons employed in extracting it, lie at full length upon the ground, and search for the veins among the rocks. In medicine it is employed for much the same purposes as eretria; in addition to which, it dries the tongue, acts as a depilatory, and has a soothing effect. The price of it is one sestertius per pound.
The third of the white pigments is ceruse, the nature of which we have already explained when speaking of the ores of lead; there was also a native ceruse, formerly found on the lands of Theodotus at Smyrna, which the ancients made use of for painting ships. At the present day, all ceruse is prepared artificially, from lead and viuegar, as already stated.
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CHAP. 20.
USTA.
Usta was accidentally discovered at a fire in the Piræus, some ceruse having been burnt in the jars there. Nicias, the artist above-mentioned, was the first to use it. At the present day, that of Asia, known also as “purpurea,” is considered the best. The price of it is six denarii per pound. It is prepared also at Rome by calcining marbled sil, and quenching it with vinegar. Without the use of usta shadows cannot be made.
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CHAP. 21.
ERETRIA.
Eretria takes its name from the territory which produces it. Nicomachus and Parrhasius made use of it. In a medicinal point of view, it is cooling and emollient. In a calcined state, it promotes the cicatrization of wounds, is very useful as a desiccative, and is particularly good for pains in the head, and for the detection of internal suppurations. If the earth, when applied with water, does not dry with rapidity, the presence of purulent matter is apprehended.
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CHAP. 22.
SANDARACH.
According to Juba, sandarach and ochra are both of them productions of the island of Topazus, in the Red Sea; but neither of them are imported to us from that place. The mode of preparing sandarach we have described already: there is a spurious kind also, prepared by calcining ceruse in the furnace. This substance, to be good, ought to be of a flame colour; the price of it is five asses per pound.
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CHAP. 23.
SANDYX.
Calcined with an equal proportion of rubrica, sandarach forms sandyx; although I perceive that Virgil, in the following line, has taken sandyx to be a plant —
“Sandyx itself shall clothe the feeding lambs.”
The price of sandyx is one half that of sandarach; these two colours being the heaviest of all in weight.
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CHAP. 24.
SYRICUM.
Among the artificial colours, too, is syricum, which is used as an under-coating for minium, as already stated. It is prepared from a combination of sinopis with sandyx.
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CHAP. 25.
ATRAMENTUM.
Atramentum, too, must be reckoned among the artificial colours, although it is also derived in two ways from the earth. For sometimes it is found exuding from the earth like the brine of salt-pits, while at other times an earth itself of a sulphurous colour is sought for the purpose. Painters, too, have been known to go so far as to dig up half-charred bones from the sepulchres for this purpose.
All these plans, however, are new-fangled and troublesome; for this substance may be prepared, in numerous ways, from the soot that is yielded by the combustion of resin or pitch; so much so, indeed, that manufactories have been built on the principle of not allowing an escape for the smoke evolved by the process. The most esteemed black, however, that is made in this way, is prepared from the wood of the torch-pine.
It is adulterated by mixing it with the ordinary soot from furnaces and baths, a substance which is also employed for the purpose of writing. Others, again, calcine dried wine-lees, and assure us that if the wine was originally of good quality from which the colour is made, it will bear comparison with that of indicum. Polygnotus and Micon, the most celebrated painters of Athens, made their black from grape-husks, and called it “tryginon.” Apelles invented a method of preparing it from burnt ivory, the name given to it being “elephantinon.”
We have indicum also, a substance imported from India, the composition of which is at present unknown to me. Dyers, too, prepare an atramentum from the black inflorescence which adheres to the brazen dye-pans. It is made also from logs of torch-pine, burnt to charcoal and pounded in a mortar. The sæpia, too, has a wonderful property of secreting a black liquid; but from this liquid no colour is prepared. The preparation of every kind of atramentum is completed by exposure to the sun; the black, for writing, having an admixture of gum, and that for coating walls, an admixture of glue. Black pigment that has been dissolved in vinegar is not easily effaced by washing.
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CHAP. 26.
PURPURISSUM.
Among the remaining colours whic
h, as already stated, owing to their dearness are furnished by the employer, purpurissum holds the highest rank. For the purpose of preparing it, argentaria or silver chalk is dyed along with purple cloth, it imbibing the colour more speedily than the wool. The best of all is that which, being thrown the very first into the boiling cauldron, becomes saturated with the dye in its primitive state. The next best in quality is that which has been put into the same liquor, after the first has been removed. Each time that this is done, the quality becomes proportionally deteriorated, owing, of course, to the comparative thinness of the liquid. The reason that the purpurissum of Puteoli is more highly esteemed than that of Tyre, Gætulia, or Laconia, places which produce the most precious kinds of purple, is the fact that it combines more readily with hysginum, and that it is made to absorb the colouring liquid of madder. The worst purpurissum is that of Lanuvium.
The price of purpurissum is from one to thirty denarii per pound. Persons who use it in painting, place a coat of sandyx beneath; a layer on which of purpurissum with glair of egg, produces all the brilliant tints of minium. If, on the other hand, it is their object to make a purple, they lay a coat of cæruleum beneath, and purpurissum, with egg, upon it.
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CHAP. 27.
INDICUM.
Next in esteem to this is indicum, a production of India, being a slime which adheres to the scum upon the reeds there. When powdered, it is black in appearance, but when diluted in water it yields a marvellous combination of purple and cæruleum. There is another kind, also, which floats upon the surface of the pans in the purple dye-houses, being the scum which rises upon the purple dye. Persons who adulterate it, stain pigeons’ dung with genuine indicum, or else colour Selinusian earth, or anularian chalk with woad.
The proper way of testing indicum is by laying it on hot coals, that which is genuine producing a fine purple flame, and emitting a smell like that of sea-water while it smokes: hence it is that some are of opinion that it is gathered from the rocks on the sea-shore. The price of indicum is twenty denarii per pound. Used medicinally, it alleviates cold shiverings and defluxions, and acts as a desiccative upon sores.
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CHAP. 28.
ARMENIUM; ONE REMEDY.
Armenia sends us the colouring substance which is known to us by its name. This also is a mineral, which admits of being dyed, like chrysocolla, and is best when it most closely resembles that substance, the colour being pretty much that of cæruleum. In former times it was sold at thirty sesterces per pound; but there has been found of late in the Spanish provinces a sand which admits of a similar preparation, and consequently armenium has come to be sold so low as at six denarii per pound. It differs from cæruleum in a certain degree of whiteness, which causes the colour it yields to be thinner in comparison. The only use made of it in medicine is for the purpose of giving nourishment to the hair, that of the eyelids in particular.
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CHAP. 29.
APPIANUM.
There are also two colours of very inferior quality, which have been recently discovered. One of these is the green known as “appianum,” a fair imitation of chrysocolla; just as though we had not had to mention sufficient of these counterfeits already. This colour, too, is prepared from a green chalk, the usual price of it being one sesterce per pound.
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CHAP. 30.
ANULARIAN WHITE.
The other colour is that known as “anularian white;” being used for giving a brilliant whiteness to the figures of females. This, too, is prepared from a kind of chalk, combined with the glassy paste which the lower classes wear in their rings: hence it is, that it has the name “anulare.”
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CHAP. 31. (7.)
WHICH COLOURS DO NOT ADMIT OF BEING LAID ON A WET COATING.
Those among the colours which require a dry, cretaceous, coating, and refuse to adhere to a wet surface, are purpurissum, indicum, cæruleum, melinum, orpiment, appianum, and ceruse. Wax, too, is stained with all these colouring substances for encaustic painting; a process which does not admit of being applied to walls, but is in common use by way of ornament for ships of war, and, indeed, merchant-ships at the present day. As we go so far as to paint these vehicles of danger, no one can be surprised if we paint our funeral piles as well, or if we have our gladiators conveyed in handsome carriages to the scene of death, or, at all events, of carnage. When we only contemplate this extensive variety of colours, we cannot but admire the ingenuity displayed by the men of former days.
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CHAP. 32.
WHAT COLOURS WERE USED BY THE ANCIENTS IN PAINTING.
It was with four colours only, that Apelles, Echion, Melanthius, and Nicomachus, those most illustrous painters, executed their immortal works; melinum for the white, Attic sil for the yellow, Pontic sinopis for the red, and atramentum for the black; and yet a single picture of theirs has sold before now for the treasures of whole cities. But at the present day, when purple is employed for colouring walls even, and when India sends to us the slime of her rivers, and the corrupt blood of her dragons and her elephants, there is no such thing as a picture of high quality produced. Everything, in fact, was superior at a time when the resources of art were so much fewer than they now are. Yes, so it is; and the reason is, as we have already stated, that it is the material, and not the efforts of genius, that is now the object of research.
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CHAP. 33.
AT WHAT TIME COMBATS OF GLADIATORS WERE FIRST PAINTED AND PUBLICLY EXHIBITED.
One folly, too, of this age of ours, in reference to painting, I must not omit. The Emperor Nero ordered a painting of himself to be executed upon canvass, of colossal proportions, one hundred and twenty feet in height; a thing till then unknown. This picture was just completed when it was burnt by lightning, with the greater part of the gardens of Maius, in which it was exhibited.
A freedman of the same prince, on the occasion of his exhibiting a show of gladiators at Antium, had the public porticos hung, as everybody knows, with paintings, in which were represented genuine portraits of the gladiators and all the other assistants. Indeed, at this place, there has been a very prevailing taste for paintings for many ages past. C. Terentius Lucanus was the first who had combats of gladiators painted for public exhibition: in honour of his grandfather, who had adopted him, he provided thirty pairs of gladiators in the Forum, for three consecutive days, and exhibited a painting of their combats in the Grove of Diana.
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CHAP. 34. (8.)
THE AGE OF PAINTING; WITH THE NAMES OF THE MORE CELEBRATED WORKS AND ARTISTS, FOUR HUNDRED AND FIVE IN NUMBER.
I shall now proceed to enumerate, as briefly as possible, the more eminent among the painters; it not being consistent with the plan of this work to go into any great lengths of detail. It must suffice therefore, in some cases, to name the artist in a cursory manner only, and with reference to the account given of others; with the exception, of course, of the more famous pro- ductions of the pictorial art, whether still in existence or now lost, all of which it will be only right to take some notice of. In this department, the ordinary exactness of the Greeks has been somewhat inconsistent, in placing the painters so many Olympiads after the statuaries and toreutic artists, and the very first of them so late as the ninetieth Olympiad; seeing that Phidias himself is said to have been originally a painter, and that there was a shield at Athens which had been painted by him: in addition to which, it is universally agreed that in the eighty-third Olympiad, his brother Panænus painted, at Elis, the interior of the shield of Minerva, which had been executed by Colotes, a disciple of Phidias and his assistant in the statue of the Olympian Jupiter. And then besides, is it not equally admitted that Candaules, the last Lydian king of the race of the Heraclidæ, very generally known also by the name of Myrsilus, p
aid its weight in gold for a picture by the painter Bularchus, which represented the battle fought by him with the Magnetes? so great was the estimation in which the art was already held. This circumstance must of necessity have happened about the period of our Romulus; for it was in the eighteenth Olympiad that Candaules perished, or, as some writers say, in the same year as the death of Romulus: a thing which clearly demonstrates that even at that early period the art had already become famous, and had arrived at a state of great perfection.
If, then, we are bound to admit this conclusion, it must be equally evident that the commencement of the art is of much earlier date, and that those artists who painted in monochrome, and whose dates have not been handed down to us, must have flourished at even an anterior period; Hygiænon, namely, Dinias, Charmadas, Eumarus, of Athens, the first who distinguished the sexes in painting, and attempted to imitate every kind of figure; and Cimon of Cleonæ, who improved upon the inventions of Eumarus.
It was this Cimon, too, who first invented foreshortenings, or in other words, oblique views of the figure, and who first learned to vary the features by representing them in the various attitudes of looking backwards, upwards, or downwards. It was he, too, who first marked the articulations of the limbs, indicated the veins, and gave the natural folds and sinuosities to drapery. Panænus, too, the brother of Phidias, even executed a painting of the battle fought by the Athenians with the Persians at Marathon: so common, indeed, had the employment of colours become, and to such a state of perfection had the art arrived, that he was able to represent, it is said, the portraits of the various generals who commanded at that battle, Miltiades, Callimachus, and Cynægirus, on the side of the Athenians, and, on that of the barbarians, Datis and Artaphernes.
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