ARTIST ON COLOURS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XVIII, Issue 6063, 23 April 1881, Page 6

ARTIST ON COLOURS.

A local artist writes as follows in reference to the article on " Colours, and how to ensure their permanence," by , Mr. Alfred Sharpe, in last Saturday's issue :—"Mr. Sbarpe seems to be rather hazy in his account of Tjlues and yellows. As I take an interest in these matters I have looked into some authorities, and find that chromes are not considered safe. Ochres are the only safe yellows. There have been some modern inventions, but time alone will prove their durability. •. As to the blues, Mr. Sharpe is again wrong. According to my authorities Prussian blue is better than indigo, of which it .may be said its relative permanence as a dye lias obtained for it a false character of extreme durability in painting, a cxuality in Which it is nevertheless very inferior even to Prussian blue. Mr. Ruskin says : 'Antwerp blue and Prussian blue are not very permanent colours ;' while indigo is marked by Field as more fugitive still, and is very Htrly. Cobalt is next to real ultramarine. In speaking of the latter Mr. Sharpe does not say whether be means real ultramarine — lapis lazuli —or the imitation. Cobalt is more easily used than true ultramarine, and is (juite lasting enough for our Auckland artists. In a lecture given lately by Mr. Holmau Hunt, ' he laments that artists know so little about the quality of the colours they use.' It was not so iu the old days, when artists prepared their own colours. Michael Angelo is said to have prepared his own colours when painting the Sistiue Chapel., The Egyptians, ■ the Assyrians, and the people of Pompeii and Herculancnm had for colours— first, the natural eartks, the ochres ; secondly, the colours made from stones.; aud, in addition, chemical combinations ichioh by mo- j tieru. analyses have been prov-isd to be pro- ] ducts, .indicating no little skill in their makers—all evidence going to prove that the materials were sold in...their.unmanipulated state, and that the painters themselves prepared them for use. Ceunini; who wrote inorabout the fourteenth century, says:—'To become an artist, a youth should devote himself for the first seven years of his career[to the mechanical part of his pursuit!' The I most precarious colours of the present day, such as bright greens and yellows, arc to be seen in the works of Van Eyck, and in some of the early Italians, just as fresh as when [first p-kiiited. This is Hot the case with the pictures of Wilkie, Turner, or even with those 'painted by artists now living..; Turner's pictures ' are frightfully altered, owing to his being so,fond of chromes. That the English climate is not in fault can be proved by going back to the earliest cabinet paiuting existing '■of native production, a portrait oE Richard 'the Second, a.d. 13S0. Perhaps that is the picture Mr. Sharpe alluded to iu a previous letter, but it is not in oil. Real oil painting wa3 not much in use before the time oE Titian aud Corregio, about A.D. 1500. From my. own observation I have come to the conclusion tha't neither artists nor colour-, men ; care about their materials lastening. All the former care about is the sale o£ their pictures, and the latter are only anxious to sell their colours. I was once, just previous to the Exhibition, looking at the pictures of an artist, famous for using bright colours, and I expressed a doubt as to their durability. The artist said : ' I don't trouble myself about that; the colours will last till the pictures are sold.' "