The secret of the old masters

Preface

In this little book I have undertaken to lay before the reader the fruits of the labor of twenty-five years. As soon as I could understand and appreciate the splendors of the Grand Masters of painting, I had begun to form a determination to discover the technical principles, methods, and material that enabled the Masters to produce their work. Years ago, I never had any real satisfaction when I did paint a fairly good study head, because I felt instinctively that it was in no sense related to the technic of the Masters. Therefore, the search for the Masters' technic became for me an all-absorbing life work to the exclusion of all else. This life work was more or less an injury and loss to me in many ways. On the other hand it had many V

PREFACE compensating pleasures. I had said to myself in the beginning: If I can only paint one head with the Old Masters' technic I shall be satisfied/' Had I known how long it wonld take me to solve the problem, I certainly would not have attempted it, but as the years passed I felt less like giving up than I might have at the beginning. As I proceeded on my way in the search I met many that had lost themselves, or fallen by the wayside. I feel now that I ought to make public my theories and conclusions, so that the younger and stronger enthusiast may make fuller use of my discovery of the

Masters' Venetian Secrets." He will be better armed to fight his battles, hard enough in any event without this lifelong technical thorn in his side.

The Old Masters' technic always has been enveloped in mystery and confusion. I think I have brought some order out of the confusion and considerable light to bear upon the mystery. I do not presume to tell the vi

PREFACE

reader how he shall paint, but I am glad to be able with some show of authority, as I rest somewhat spent by the wayside, to point out to him in which direction the Masters have gone over the horizon. Should anything in this book bring success, lighten labor, make results more beautiful, certain, and permanent, then I shall not have labored in vain.

A. A.

vii

Contents

CHAPTER PAQB

I. — Introduction: Decay of paintings, artist blamable for decay — ^Technical copies of the Masters 1

II. — ^The Mystery: Varnish painting — Varnish and wax or encaustic painting — Resins or gums — Copal — ^Turpentine, spike oil, and benzin — Petroleum — Oil . . .18

Chapter I

In reference to the Old Master's technic, in his book the Graphic Arts," edition of 1886, Hamerton says: It is wonderful that so little should be known, but it is the more wonderful since eyewitnesses have positively attempted to give an. account of the Venetian methods and stopped short before their tale was fully told, and that neither from inability nor unwillingness to tell all, but simply because they did not foresee what we should care to know about, or else took it for granted that we should be inevitably acquainted with all that belonged to the common practice of the time." Hamerton thus confesses his 1 lack of knowledge on a subject that formed the greater part of his book. It further indicates the general knowledge among artists in England and on the Continent up to that time.

In January, 1891, the following little despairing note came to a New York paper from Paris, the greatest productive center of paintings in the world: The members of the French Society of Artists are pondering upon a proposed abandonment of oil colors and brushes in favor of some more permanent mediums of preserving their works for posterity. Detaille, Bouguereau, Robert Fleury, Vibert, Saint-Pierre form a committee of investigation. One expert, Gabriel Deneux, proposes a system of encaustic painting by which hot irons would be used instead of brushes. The work, after being branded instead of painted, would have to be treated chemically. The conservative painters, however, hope that some improvement may be attained in the mixture of colors in which 2 such a radical innovation as cautery will not be resorted to.'' This indicates plainly that the best-known artists and teachers in Paris at that time (1891) were somewhat at a loss as to how to paint soundly or durably. They were all fine artists and painters, but they were aware that their system was somehow not that of the Masters. Then, in 1893, Vibert published his book, La Science de la Peinture/' in which resin with petroleum is announced as the true medium for painting (of which more anon). Again, in April, 1904, we have this anent some work exhibited in the Salon: For some time past, X, like so many of the greatest living painters, has been dissatisfied with modern methods of technic. He argues, as I have heard other great painters argue, that the art of painting has been lost; that while the artistic instinct and the intellect of the painter are just as great and keen as ever, he is no longer in possession of the same means as the Old Masters.

He does not prepare his canvas in the same 3 way, nor build up his pictures as they did. He knows well enough what he is aiming at, but not how to attain the end by methods which are at once solid, masterly, and lasting. A profound study, a minute technical dissection, as it were, of the greatest works at the Louvre, have revealed secrets to X which have made him the pioneer of the most brilliant modern retreat to the ideals of painting pursued by such giants as Rubens, Velasquez, and Franz Hals. . . . The actual painting is that of the Old Masters ... a thin ^ jus de couleur ' over an elaborately developed * grisaille. ' . . . But Rubens has merely guided X's brush. There is no slavish imitation in the young French master's work.'' These quotations can give but a faint hint of the number of men who have knocked on the door of the Old Masters' painting room to be admitted to their technical secrets. Through the centuries there have been a few admitted, hardly more than a dozen perhaps. And so every earnest art student, if the Old Masters' great 4 work has any influence on him whatever, in time is confronted with the problems purely of technic, apart from the problems of drawing, painting, and composition. The selection and nse of colors, logical methods, mediums, varnishes, and grounds to paint on remain perplexing questions even to eminent artists, as we have seen. Considering the enormous amount of painting done it is amazing that so little is known on this subject. Drawing, painting, and composition are, in modern times, freely taught in many countries, but I have never heard of the real technic of oil painting being taught anywhere.

Every student and artist picks up his knowledge about the technic of his art wherever and however he can. It is mostly chance, guesswork, a friendly hint and some experience that finally weds him to some manner of painting, some favored colors, and some favored canvas. It is only within a few years that the quality and durability of colors has become generally questioned, and some dis- 5 crimination in their use become evident on the part of artists. Still, this discrimination has not advanced much beyond the acceptance of the ochres and the rejection of aniline colors, most artists knowing enough not to use them when they know them to be such. Every new and loudly heralded make of material is hopefully taken up and tried, and as sadly laid away again, while the same old feeling of uncertainty and perplexity remains. If any artists have hit upon what they considered the real and only technic, th^y have, like Sir Joshua Reynolds, kept it carefully secret. I once asked a friend in Munich, who had many years of experience in painting, what medium or vehicle he used to dilute the colors on the palette, and he said, balsam copaiba, spike oil, with a little wax melted in,'' adding the usual injunction, don't tell anyone." I thought at the time the injunction showed a narrow spirit — I had heard it before, and have often since, but when I found by my own experience that it 6 took a great deal of time and study to invent useful and beneficent things, I became somewhat reconciled to the idea.

The one distressing thing about my search for the true technic of oil painting was, that even with an exhaustive amount of experimenting and with notebooks, it was impossible to come to any positive conclusion without the necessary lapse of considerable time. And if the reader will have the patience to follow me through this little book, I hope to prove to him beyond the shadow of a doubt that the conclusions I have arrived at are the only logical ones, and that the principles of the process described are those of the'

Grand Old Masters and no others! I am very well aware that many more or less eminent men have in the last three and a half centuries sought for and claimed to have discovered this precious process; that many theories other than the ones herein contained have been advanced by able artists. Their theories have been for a time, to a great ex- 3 7.

tent, accepted, but in no case have such theories been sustained by any conclusive evidence, proof, or facts that could be accepted by any logical mind. The theories were all more or less built up on dogmatic assertions. Some inspiration like the petroleum theory would be seized, and an attempt made to fit it in with practice. It would be asserted that the Venetians painted with petroleum, because a vague tradition says Correggio once made a varnish of it! The great difficulties in the search lay in the strange fact that an artist may have found a part of the principles governing the true technic, and yet not know it positively until he had proved it, and by elimination disproved all theories that came in conflict with it. This in course of time even necessitated going over the same ground, and many times experimenting around a circle back to the starting point, and in my case has covered a period of twenty-five years. Many times I was stuck/' to use one of Thomas A. Ed- 8 ison's expressions, not knowing which way to turn to go forward, feeling that the labor of years was thrown away. Then I would try to dismiss the whole subject from my mind for a short time, to find at the end that a new path was revealed that led to final success. The very simplicity of the problem made it so baffling, like looking for an elephant where a mouse should have been expected. One of the great stumbling-blocks to a quick solution of the problem was the well-nigh universally known fact among artists that oil in a picture darkens and yellows it to the verge of destruction. No one seemed to be able or willing to give any help or advice. Some years ago I heard one prominent artist say that experimenting was dangerous." His work painted at that time has since reached the dark yellow, and some the brown, stage, all its former charm having vanished. Other capable artists when questioned, revealed on this subject the ignorance and innocence of children. I even knew of a French painter, 9 a former Prix de Rome " pupil painting a picture with colors mixed with vaseline ! But it did not take him long to discover how unwise this was, for his work never dried, and had to be repainted. And of other painters using equally silly material, there are many. Chemists have been appealed to from time to time, but, excepting in regard to a few colors, have not been able to help us out. The cause of this was not far to seek, since they were not artists and could not know or understand our wants ; but, on the other hand, the artists did not seem to solve the problem either.

Without going into the history of oil painting here, let us ask, What is the logical course to follow in establishing true oil-painting principles ? It is obvious that the best and oldest we know of in oil painting must be the subject of our investigations and should guide us, and that best must have stood the test of time, not of fifty or one hundred years, but of centuries ; the older the better, provided the technic is also combined with excellent drawing 10 and fine coloring. Therefore, as we look back in the dim past, the works of the Grand Old Masters — Titian, Paul Veronese, Velasquez, Rubens, Van Dyck, Reynolds — must be the source to which we must travel to gain knowledge. There are a few others who belong to this grand company, but only those will be referred to who will best serve our present purpose. Now we must bear in mind that most of those men during their lives had two or more ways of painting, a fact apparent even to the unprofessional eye of the art historians. Even the Masters had to go through a period of evolution. We must choose that which is of undoubted authenticity and has necessarily stood the test of time. This means that it was interesting and attractive enough to have escaped the attic, museum cellar, or scrap heap, and, last and most important reason for our purpose, stood the test of atmospheric changes — light and darkness, removal from place to place, revarnishings, etc.; and further, its very existence proving that at its 11 birth each work had a sound physical constitution.

The causes of decay of oil paintings are

very numerous. Many are foredoomed to early

decay before they leave the artist's easel,

Decay of because, although the artist may have Paintings *^

been a great artist, he may not have

been an equally great craftsman, and exercised the wisdom and care necessary for the production of great and lasting work. Some modern painters have affected to despise any discrimination in the selection of materials and method as being inartistic and beneath them. And when artists do seek for light on technical matters, they soon find, as did Sir Joshua Keynolds, that there is no one who can teach them, and so they go a short and uncertain distance in what seems an endless and uncertain path of experimenting. They soon satisfy themselves with one or two formulas that seem to work well, and with that they are apt to remain content, and keep on producing paintings attractive enough at the time they 12 leave the easel, but soon becoming uninteresting, and forming part of that great procession going ' ' down and out. ' '

Some of the causes of decay in paintings for which the artist can be blamed are, first, an unsound canvas ground, one improperly

Artist

Blamable made. On such a canvas the greatest for Decay genius's work is bound soon to yellow, blacken, crack or peel off from the ground and from the threads. Without mentioning a poor quality of linen, the principal cause of the ground peeling from the linen threads is inferior glue or improper application thereof to the linen. Upon decomposition this causes the peeling off of the ground, exposing the threads. Next the ground itself, the surface the artist puts his work on, may lack every essential of permanence or even of logical use. (On this subject of grounds I will have more to say later.) The Old Masters were in this, not only logical, but scientific as well, nothing being left to chance or haphazard. Method and order were instinctive, and the phrase any 13 old thing is good enough to paint on, ' ' so frequently heard from modern artists, would to them have been a species of artistic heresy, a ground being to them fully as important as the painting itself, not merely from the view point of permanence, but as a factor in the completed picture. This was particularly the case with Eubens, the greatest of all technical painters, and his equally great pupil. Van Dyck. When we leave the ground to consider causes of decay or deterioration, we enter a boundless field. Let me enumerate just a few. First, insufficient drying of first sketches or paintings, and the same for second or any succeeding paintings. I will show later how important this appeared to the Masters. Second, absurd mediums, vehicles, or combinations in which there could be no chemical union; unclean, stale paints, wax, adulterations, dryers, magilps, etc., were all a fruitful cause of deterioration.

The commonest of all causes of deterioration is a medium made up of two, three, and even four or more different materials, 14 where one of them is sure to destroy the effect intended, in time, and if the other two or three should in themselves carry no injurious consequences, their combination is sure to bring about final destruction. And furthermore, the immediate effect with such combinations is rather attractive, and so such pernicious concoctions make lifelong slaves of some artists, and they never get out of the habit of using them. During a period of more than twenty-five years I have experimented with very many of them, and it would not serve any good purpose to go over them all here. Suffice it to say that the artist is to blame in nearly all cases for the darkening, excessive yellowing, cracking, peeling, and premature decay of his painting. Owners of fine oil paintings, as a rule, take tolerably good care of them, but when they begin to darken they are apt to go to the restorer, or even the framemaker (!), and to have them clean the painting, which means a kick down the hill for bad ones, and a start downward for good ones 15 that may have only a little ordinary grime on them through neglect. There are few artists who prepare their own canvas and grind their own colors. The paints and canvas ordinarily used are at the present time made by large firms, and sold as other merchandise. This is a very convenient proceeding for the modern artist, but it produces bad pictures in most instances.

The Old Masters had the knowledge, experience, and wisdom to produce great work, Technical considered from every standpoint, and it Copies of is necessary in establishing, or rather the Masters p^ggtablishing, a sound system to study their work. Many great artists have studied the Old Masters for technical guidance, and have done so by making copies, reproducing, not the aspect alone, but the method and the * ^ handling, ' ' ground or surface on which the work is produced, and character of material throughout. Thus Velasquez himself copied Tintoretto and Paul Veronese, and it is well known that Rubens and Van Dyck, as well as 16

Sir Joshua Reynolds and many other great and lesser artists, have made many copies of Titian's paintings and of others of the Venetian Masters. Much of this work was so well done that it now passes for the work of the painter of the original, and sometimes the original is regarded as the copy, as happened to Holbein's Dresden Madonna. In modern times a copy is condemned without a hearing; in the old days a copy was appreciated with the original, if it was equally well painted. There is no doubt that when the abovenamed artists copied a picture it was done to study and analyze everything there was in it — composition, drawing, color, technic,, ground, method, and probably medium. We know these copies were sometimes highly prized by the artists themselves.

Chapter II

In copying a fine Old Master in a good state of preservation we strike at the outset mysterious obstacles if we attempt to make a copy by using the modern direct method of rendering each color and tone as nearly as possible at the first touch. By mixing any colors, the true, or even approximate tone or color, is not reproduced with equal transparency and luminosity. The obstacles seem almost insurmountable. One of the first things encountered is a transparency and wealth of color to which our methods and material seem crude, heavy, and opaque. At once the thought would occur that the effect in their pictures was more the result of time, but that is the 18 case only in a very small degree, so well proved by the pictures of Rubens. Some of them in Munich are as fresh as though they had just been painted. This is also the case with the Van Dycks in the same gallery. This, then, brings us face to face with an unknown quantity. Did they use different material from that in use at the present day? If so, what did they use? The glow and richness," Sir Joshua Reynolds said of Rubens' coloring, ' ' is that of a bunch of flowers ! ' ' Was it produced by varnish and luscious magilp? Perhaps ; why not ? But where is the proof ? Every material fact should be susceptible of proof before we can here accept it as an axiom to build on further. But as my Munich instructor used to say, * ^ Gentlemen, it is difficult, but there is no witchcraft in it," and to solve the problem I proceeded to experiment in varnish alone as a medium.

Among other experiments, I painted an entire life-size head on an absorbent ground, that is, zinc white and size, the colors and 19 medium being without a drop of oil in the entire picture, and solely with varnish ! If any of my readers have struggled through Painting ^ similar problem they can afford to smile. The transparency obtained was beautiful, but the difficulties were tremendous, and I have no hesitation in condemning the process as not that of the Masters, on the ground of impracticability, that is to say, a very slow, costly, tedious, and extremely difficult process. I felt convinced the Masters could not have painted thus, because for each man to have produced as much as he did, he would have had to be reincarnated five or ten times, and even then the freedom of their work would have been in this method impossible.

The next question in the problem was, could

it be some other varnish ? After more experi-

Varnish menting I came to the conclusion that

and Wax, or varnish whatever would have pre- Encaustic ^

Painting cisely the same objections, although slightly differing in the handling on account 20 of more or less rapid drying, and becoming gummy and sticky. Then I tried the incorporation of wax with the various varnishes to retard the drying and allow some freedom in handling. Wax with Venetian turpentine, wax with amber, wax with mastic, wax with dammar, wax and copal, wax and balsam copaiba, wax and oil of turpentine, and other varnishes in like manner in very many varying proportions, and, when possible, in cold combinations, that is to say, a close union was obtained when possible without resorting to heat. Spike oil or spirits of turpentine were used with most of the above combinations more or less. Wax was chosen as an inert neutral body to retard rapid oxidation or evaporation, and on account of its transparency when used in a comparatively small quantity. It also had the additional advantage of eliminating the glassy surface of the varnish. The wax also had the property of giving a body to a color or medium without itself imparting any noticeable color. All 21 these combinations, be it understood, were used with color without any oil whatever. In due time I found that if the proportion of wax was large enough to retard the varnish, to enable a modicum of deliberation in handling — as in ordinary oil painting — and give time to draw, color, and model with any degree of accuracy, the paint, although the effects were sometimes beautiful beyond anything possible with oil color, was entirely unsuitable for first use on the clean canvas and for intermediate layers. It would often remain in a semi-dry state for days and days. And with the application of heat to force the drying, the results were apt to be startling. Either the varnish sank down with the color, and even shifted, or the wax arose to the surface, giving its semidull sheen, and producing a spotty surface. Then again the varnish arose to the top and gave a disagreeable glassy surface. It was almost impossible to proceed when body colors and white were necessary, not to mention a decidedly pronounced tendency for the paint- 22 ing to become quite yellow and darker all over, and the fine delicate gray, violet, and pearl carnations to lose their original beauty in a very short time.

All this proved that the Masters did not paint their pictures with pigment and medium composed solely of color substance mixed with varnish. Some of the efEects obtained, namely, those with the Venice turpentine and wax, were very beautiful for final paintings, glazings, or semi-veilings of flesh tones, such as Sir Joshua Rejraolds was so fond of producing with the same material. It was charming, but alas ! the effect or aspect would not remain as painted, and in a comparatively short time become yellow, darkened, cracked, and otherwise deteriorated. In the above tests I had added more or less spirits of turpentine as a diluent or solvent and then, when a slower evaporating one was necessary, the turpentine was replaced by spike oil. Even then the drying " that took place on the palette and brush was so rapid that there was 3 23 no such thing as free and deliberate painting with its attractions as observed in the Masters' works. Beautiful chance effects, were of course, obtained, but if an attempt was made to follow nature, as in a portrait, the time required to find a correct tone, as in ordinary oil painting, was necessarily increased, and the handling was also extremely difficult. On its face, the Masters had no such difficulties to contend with. Combinations of resins or varnishes with wax, mixed with colors, without any oil, were therefore condemned as not feasible.

I then proceeded to make tests with these resins and wax plus the colors ground in a little oil. In the actual handling of the various resins named there was not much difference, excepting in the greater or less elasticity or hardness and softness. Venice turpentine and balsam copaiba are the softer, while dammar, mastic, amber, and copal are in a class by themselves, though still differing much from each other. Speaking 24 of resins from an artist's standpoint, one of the greatest difficulties in connection with resins in the dry state is the total lack of any standard quality, excepting as to more or less mixture of foreign matter, the clean resins being simply selected and possibly washed. If, for instance, of a given resin, say copal, a package of selected was bought one day, it was quite likely to be very different in its physical properties from a package of selected copal bought from the same house six months later. This condition of affairs I found could not very well be changed, since the largest buyers have the same trouble, and hence the deviltries of varnish " have be-' come one of the expected trials of the making of commercial varnish for ordinary purposes. The only way, it seemed to me, was to get the best resin possible from a reliable house and make the varnish, and afterwards subject it to the required test to ascertain if it fulfilled all the artist's demands, viz., transparency, proper drying, remaining inert " and not 25 contracting violently (so that the paint underneath, being in time perhaps a trifle less dry and in a softer state, should not be torn apart and cracked), and last, but most important, its durability should be beyond question.

The tendency to get yellow and change in color I found was strongest in the more elastic varnishes. That tendency of all varnishes to darken, I had come to believe was caused by the rapid filming over but slower drying, and especially the lack of thorough drying au fond.'' Ordinarily most varnishes will dry in a way, but only on the surface, and sometimes the warmth of the finger placed for a moment on the surface will reveal the sticky state underneath, which, of course, unless it is a final varnish, is very bad for any further application of oil colors or varnish colors viewed from the standpoint of durability. I have further been impressed with the fact that of the various varnishes named, one was more valuable to the artist than the others. Mastic when first used is 26 beautiful, but when a painting needs to have its varnish removed on account of extreme yellowness and semi-opaque state, it is usually found to be mastic. Its propensity to get quickly yellow and deteriorate is undoubted. Before its volatile part evaporates entirely it becomes yellow, the remainder soon loses i^s cohesion, and very minute cracks appear producing opacity and discoloration. These characteristics are common also to most other varnishes, but in markedly different degrees. Dammar will remain in a good state a much longer time and then suddenly begin to deteriorate. Venice turpentine has a still greater measure of instability, with the added disadvantage that when it is bought in the open market it is in a semi-fluid state, but very thick, slow-moving, and is almost always subject to adulteration, which vitally changes its normal character. Amber has the same characteristics as mastic, and is somewhat too viscous and glassy. Balsam copaiba is bought on the market in a semi-fluid state similar to 27