Part 1

HOW TO PAINT PERMANENT PICTURES

_By THE SAME AUTHOR_

THE CHEMISTRY AND TECHNOLOGY OF PAINTS

_Second Edition, Revised and Enlarged_

6½ x 9½. 366 pages. Illustrated. $4.50

MATERIALS FOR PERMANENT PAINTING

A manual for manufacturers, art dealers, artists and collectors.

5 x 7½. 208 pages. Illustrated. $2.50

D. VAN NOSTRAND COMPANY

HOW TO PAINT PERMANENT PICTURES

BY

MAXIMILIAN TOCH

PROFESSOR OF INDUSTRIAL CHEMISTRY, COOPER UNION; MEMBER OF THE FIRM OF TOCH BROTHERS; AUTHOR OF CHEMISTRY AND TECHNOLOGY OF PAINTS; MATERIALS FOR PERMANENT PAINTING, ETC., ETC.

NEW YORK D. VAN NOSTRAND COMPANY EIGHT WARREN STREET 1922

COPYRIGHT, 1922 BY D. VAN NOSTRAND COMPANY

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

PREFACE

The observant visitor to the great art galleries is astonished and pained to see the large number of pictures of the highest artistic excellence gradually being ruined on account of decomposition as shown by fading, darkening, cracking and peeling of the paint films. This is all the more deplorable because the cause of the deterioration is well known and pigments, vehicles, canvas, in fact all the materials needed by the painter to make absolutely permanent paintings are equally well known and require only intelligent choice and use by the artist.

The author has attempted to give this information in this volume which is intended to be a popular common sense treatise for all artistic painters who desire to produce permanent pictures which might otherwise in a few short years show most glaring defects.

The author believes that manufacturers of artists’ material should be compelled by law to label every tube of paint as to its permanence and chemical composition so that artists could be assured that they were getting what the label indicated.

I acknowledge with great gratitude the valuable assistance of Prof. Carel F. L. DeWild in reviewing this manuscript, and for the excellent suggestions he has given me.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PAGE

PREFACE 5

INTRODUCTION 9

THE SIMPLE PALETTE 21

THE COMPLEX PALETTE 23

COMMERCIAL PAINTING 26

PALETTE KNIVES 29

BITUMEN 30

TEMPERA COLORS 32

WATER COLORS 44

PERMANENT FOUNDATIONS FOR PAINTING 51

PREPARATION OF WOOD AS A FOUNDATION FOR PAINTINGS 57

PAINTING ON METAL 61

OILS AND MEDIUMS 63

VARNISHES 67

BEESWAX AND OTHER WAXES 74

SUMMARY 76

MADDER LAKE AND HARRISON RED 81

LAKES TO BE AVOIDED 83

PAINTING THE NEXT DAY 84

TRUE NAPLES YELLOW 86

NEW WHITES 89

AMBER VARNISH 91

BLOOM 93

REPAINTING 96

RESTORATION AND CLEANING OF PAINTINGS 98

FRAMING 103

_How To Paint Permanent Pictures_

INTRODUCTION

It is astonishing that, in these days of progress, no corresponding advance has been made in practical instruction in the composition of pigments, mediums and all material necessary to the production of permanent works of art, whether they are easel paintings, or water colors for the adornment of the home or public places, or in tempera and fresco for decorations.

There is not, to my knowledge, a regular course of lectures on this subject at any of the Art Schools in England, Italy, France or America, in which students are taught what materials to use and what to avoid.

During an experience of more than thirty years in the manufacture of pigments and mediums for all types of painting, I have investigated the methods, analyzed the material and demonstrated the folly of most of the procedures in common use to-day, and feel that there is a demand for a little book of this kind, which painters can use, and from which art students can acquire a sane method of producing permanent results.

If the painter once knows, either mechanically or unconsciously, the pigments that are absolutely permanent, and the principle involved in producing paintings which will not crack, fade, darken, peel, blister or decompose, his or her mind can be taken up completely with the artistic effect to be produced, without thinking for a moment of either the mechanical or the scientific side of the question, and without his or her artistic feeling being disturbed during the process of painting. It is quite natural that a man in my position, who has met many painters and who has discoursed with them on this subject, has had many of them confess time and again that the practical and technical side of painting has always disturbed their peace of mind whenever they have been in the midst of serious work.

And so, the object of this book is to convey to the painter, in simple language, and without going into any abstruse science of any kind, the reasons why certain materials should be used and certain materials should be avoided. I wrote a book which went into the subject of all the pigments and all the mediums in a more scientific manner[1] and in that book I gave what is regarded as the simple permanent palette. But it is obviously essential that a more complete and practical dissertation on this subject will be of benefit to those who have selected artistic painting as their life work. I have heard, time and again, the statement that we do not know in this age how to make the materials which the older and great masters used. It has been dinned in my ears frequently that our materials are so worthless that uniform and permanent results cannot be obtained. Nothing is further from the truth, and all one has to do is to see the enormous amount of permanent painting that exists outside of the artistic field to realize that the science of paint making is more perfect to-day than it ever has been.

The manufacturers of ordinary house paints in the United States all, more or less, guarantee, within reasonable limits, that the paints which are applied to the exterior of buildings will last five years. I have a case in mind where four huge smokestacks were painted, near the seashore, and at the end of ten years the paint was still in perfectly good condition. I ask anyone who reads this, and who is an artistic painter, how long does he or she think an artistic painting would stand, exposed to the sea air, to the sun, rain, frost and winds? The chances are that no artistic painting, executed with the same thickness of coating as structural paint, would last three months. This is fair evidence of the fact that structural paint, which is really simple paint, contains the inherent quality of permanence, for reasons which I will explain later. Take the case of entrance doors in France, England and the United States, which are painted and varnished and exposed to the elements, and see how perfectly these stand for several years. It is on this principle that artistic painting must be based for absolute permanence, for artistic painting is never subjected to the elements and is never subjected to the extremes of temperature which menace the longevity of house or automobile painting. In fact, there is no reason why a painting on the interior of any building, or suitably framed or covered in any gallery, with reasonable care should not last for an unlimited time. I have seen the fresco decorations in Italy, which are as good to-day, so far as I know, as the day they were applied. Many of the primitive Italian paintings are simply remarkable for their permanence, even though the wooden panels on which they were painted are worm-eaten and rotted; and I have seen any number of paintings executed within my time by prominent painters that have cracked, faded and deteriorated because wrong materials were applied and insufficient care was exercised in the application and proper sequence of the pigments and mediums employed.

There are not more than fifteen pigments necessary for the painting of a work of art; and, out of these fifteen, nine or ten are sufficient for every purpose. To show the folly of so many colors, you can pick up any catalogue and find the following Green Pigments:

Chrome Green, Nos. 1, 2, and 3, which means Light, Medium and Dark. Cinnabar Green, Pale and Light. Olive Green, Medium and Deep. Emerald Green. Prussian Green. Malachite Green. Oxide of Chromium. Oxide of Chromium, Transparent. Viridian Green. Cobalt Green. Emeraude Green. Emerald Oxide of Chromium. Ultramarine Green. French Veronese Green. Green Lake. Permanent Green, Light, Medium and Deep. Zinnober Green, Light, Medium and Deep. Alizarin Green. Paris Green. Sap Green. Venetian Green. Copper Green.

One German manufacturer of considerable reputation mentions seventy-nine varieties of Green; one hundred and twenty-three varieties of Yellow; one hundred and seventy-nine of Red; seventy-five of Brown; seventy-nine of Blue; thirty-two of Black and twelve of White. There is absolutely no license for the manufacture of such an enormous variety of pigments, when, at most a dozen will do. All in all, one German catalogue contains five hundred and seventy-nine varieties of colors.

In addition to these, there are probably a number of others that are sold under proprietary names, and I ask any painter who has the slightest skill, whether it is necessary to have more than one or two Greens to produce any and every shade that he may desire. If he is a painter of any skill, there is no need for him to have all of these Greens, some of which are good--most of which are fugitive. In addition to the one or two Greens which he may have on his palette, various mixtures of Yellow and Blue give various tones and shades of Green. I have singled out Green as an example of the multiplicity of colors that exists.

The same repetition and duplication of pigments will be found under the Yellows, Reds, Blues and Blacks.

As far as Whites are concerned, there are a large number of proprietary Whites; and, in addition, there are Silver White, Zinc White, Flake White, White Lead, Permanent White, &c.; whereas, the only two necessary on the painter’s palette are Zinc White and Flake White (White Lead), and perhaps, occasionally, Permanent White (Blanc Fixe).

The more colors that are presented to the painter, the more embarrassed he will become as to which he really ought to use. Painters make the one serious mistake of attempting to get immediate results. It was told of Sir Joshua Reynolds that he would not use permanent Vermilion in order to obtain flesh tints; for, he said he wanted certain warm tones produced by mixtures of Lakes and other pigments, so that when his pictures were finished they would be pleasing to him. The results showed that even during his lifetime they were displeasing to his patrons, and particularly to him, but yet he would not learn the lesson that the multiplicity of the application of pigments involved.

It is very unfortunate that the artificial coal tar dyes are so beautifully brilliant and give such immediately enticing results. It is equally unfortunate that when these artificial colors are exposed to our civilized atmosphere, which contains chemical substance due to the gases of cooking and of manufacture, many of these pigments are attacked. They tone down, and not only do they oftimes lose their brilliancy, but frequently they lose the characteristic shades for which they were employed. Then, again, sunlight, as we all know, has a deleterious effect on all of the organic pigments, and darkness has an equally deleterious effect on many of the varnishes and all the drying oils.

Sir Joshua Reynolds must have glazed his portraits with a great variety of Lakes, including Madder; and, where he used vegetable Lakes and Carmine as a glaze, the faces have assumed, in time, a ghost-like appearance.

THE SIMPLE PALETTE

The average painter can get along perfectly with ten colors. In fact, the skilful artist can paint practically any picture he wants with Red, Yellow, Blue, Black and White. The Red, in this instance, would be a bright iron oxide, sold under the name of Venetian Red or Light Indian Red. The Yellow would be Medium Cadmium. The Blue would be Ultramarine Blue. The Black would be Lamp Black. The White would be Zinc White.

But, in order to work no hardship on the painter, ten colors are all that are needed for the average work. These ten can be intermixed, with the exception of Madder Lake, will not fade, will not react upon each other, nor will they interfere with the drying of each other. Following is the Palette with which an average painter can get along perfectly and from which no bad results are ever obtained:

Lamp Black. Zinc White. Bright Red Iron Oxide. Raw Sienna or Yellow Ochre. Burnt Umber. Chromium Oxide, Opaque. Chromium Oxide, Transparent. Ultramarine Blue, or Cobalt Blue. Cadmium Yellow. Madder Lake.

Madder Lake must not be mixed with any pigment containing the Yellow Oxide of Iron, like Ochre or Raw Sienna. It is wise, if it can be helped, not to mix it with any other pigment, but to use it as a glazing color. Yet, there is no harm in mixing Madder Lake with Lamp Black or bright Red Oxide of Iron, or Cadmium Yellow.

THE COMPLEX PALETTE

The following are colors which may be mixed with each other without producing any deleterious effect or without undergoing any change; excepting Madder Lake, as mentioned on the previous page.

Lamp Black. Ivory Black. Bone Black. Graphite. Zinc White. Permanent White. Bright Red Oxide. Venetian Red. Indian Red. Burnt Sienna. Raw Sienna. Yellow Ochre. Burnt Umber. Roman Ochre. French Ochre. Oxford Ochre. Chromium Oxide, Opaque. Chromium Oxide, Transparent. Ultramarine Blue, Natural or Artificial. Cobalt Blue, Natural or Artificial. Cadmium Yellow, all shades. English Vermilion; or any Vermilion made of Mercury. Madder Lake or Alizarin Lake.

With the exception of the Madder and Alizarin[2] Lakes, all the other colors can be mixed with each other without any danger of decomposition, and Madder Lake can be mixed with most of these colors, with the exception of the following:

Yellow Ochre. Raw Sienna. Transparent Chromium Oxide.

For diluting, Madder Lake, Permanent White (Blanc Fixe) may be used.

COMMERCIAL PAINTING

If you take up any art dealer’s catalogue, you will find more than a hundred varieties of colors; and, among them, the vast majority should not be used by the average painter. But, there is a legitimate use for them in commercial painting. In sketching, for advertising purposes or for book illustration, brilliant colors are permissible, where half-tone reproductions are desired; and, under the circumstances, it would be well for the painter to know exactly what he is using. The average painter does not know that Cremnitz White, Flake White and White Lead are identical in composition. Nor, does he know that Silver White and Zinc White are the same. In many of the States of the United States, laws have been enacted which compel manufacturers of house paints to label each container as to its true composition. If a man is buying a ready-mixed paint and is supposed to be getting a mixture of Zinc Oxide, White Lead, Linseed Oil and Drier, the label must so state, and I have advocated for a long time that artists’ tube colors ought to be labeled as to their true composition.

A color, for instance, like Zinnober Green, which is purely and simply a name that trades on the reputation of Zinnober Red,[3] should be labeled as to composition. This is a mixture of Prussian Blue, Chrome Yellow and White, and is only permanent when used alone on surfaces, excepting plaster or Portland Cement concrete. The painter would then know what to use and what to avoid. It must be understood that I am not condemning the manufacture of the brilliant aniline tube colors entirely, because there is some legitimate use for them; but, it is my object to attempt to educate the painter in a simple Palette, so that he may be sure of the lasting qualities of his art.

PALETTE KNIVES

Painters should adopt horn palette knives instead of steel palette knives. To illustrate the reason for this--if Naples Yellow be taken and smoothed out with a steel knife, the Naples Yellow turns Brown and Black in streaks, because there is a chemical action between the steel and the chemical composition of the Naples Yellow. This is true of many colors; and where painters are inclined to do some painting with knives instead of brushes, it is preferable to use a horn or hard rubber knife, because no decomposition can possibly take place.

BITUMEN

Bitumen and its homologues, such as Vandyke Brown, Cassel Brown and Asphaltum, should, under no circumstances, be used by any artistic painter. If you will look up the literature of photography before the days of the daguerreotype, photographs were taken on Bitumen, because it was so sensitive to the light that within a day a negative or positive imprint could be obtained by coating a sheet of silver or glass with a Bitumen solution. Where the light acted on the Bitumen it became Black and insoluble, and where the light did not strike it, it remained Brown and soluble. More damage has been done to artistic painters by the use of Bituminous pigments than by any other.

Dupré and Jacque, of the Barbizon School, are two examples of painters whose work deteriorated through the use of Bitumen. It may be true that a pleasing effect is obtained when Bitumen is employed as a glazing material, but in time the picture darkens, and restoration is impossible--first, because of the solubility of certain parts of the Bitumen that have not been acted upon by light; and second, because any attempt to remove the part that has turned Black destroys the original painting.

Vandyke Brown and Cassel Brown contain Bituminous materials, and Asphaltum is the same thing as Bitumen.

TEMPERA COLORS

Tempera Colors, or Tempera Painting, existed long before Oil Colors were known, and Tempera Medium was used five thousand years ago by the Egyptians in their painting. Egyptian coffins and sarcophagi were painted with both glue size and egg tempera. It is well known that the Egyptians manufactured very excellent grades of glue either by boiling parchment or bones and hides of animals. They were excellent cabinet makers and used glue very largely in joining pieces of wood. In the great museum at Cairo there are to-day many samples of furniture glued together with Egyptian glue, which are still in excellent condition. It is, however, more than likely that little or no binder was used when the pigments were applied on the various tombs or temples, even to those built about 1500 years later, like the Temple of Karnak. We all know that the climate of Egypt is exceedingly dry and therefore no rain can wash off or disintegrate a cold water paint made by means of pigment and glue. The Nile clay and Nile mud largely used in building are slightly alkaline and in many respects similar to the adobe mud in New Mexico and Arizona. This mud contains a small percentage of free lime, and any earthy substance which contains free lime will in time act like a weak cement and become firmly bound. It is therefore my opinion that many of the decorations made by the Egyptians were made without any binder other than the lime naturally found in the soil, and in a few cases the glue was used. I also judge, from the nature of the implements used, that the pigments were rubbed into the surface and they in time became part of the surface.

I do not refer to the splendid decorative work on the wooden sarcophagi when I say little or no binder was used, for in these coffins and on the outside of the linen wrappings there are some really wonderful decorative paintings in which binders were used. The portraits outside of the mummy wrappings in the second century were done with wax and resins and are excellent works of art.

The primitive Italians were past-masters at the art of making Tempera Medium, as evidenced by their paintings still in existence, a large number of which are in absolutely perfect condition.

Tempera Medium, generally speaking, is a mixture of either the whole egg--or, more correctly speaking, the white of the egg--and a small quantity of drying oil and water. When the white of the egg is beaten up with linseed oil or poppy oil, it forms a very weak emulsion or soap, from a chemical standpoint. This is really nothing more or less than a solution of flexible adhesive, or glue. Tempera Medium is also made from Casein, which is an adhesive element held in solution in milk. This is separated from the milk, chemically, and dried, dissolved in weak ammonia water, and mixed with linseed oil. In other words, Tempera Medium is a Water Color Medium, to which a little drying oil, or other adhesive, has been added. On account of the weakness of the binder and the large quantity of water contained, which entirely evaporates, the color is left absolutely flat and without the slightest sign of gloss, unless piled on too thickly. After this has been allowed to dry for a few days, it may be varnished with a number of varnishes, which I will describe later on, when it has all the appearance of an oil painting. There are such a large number of tempera tube colors made that it is unnecessary for the artist to make his own. Tempera Colors do not change, excepting, of course, those which are inherently defective, and it is unfortunate that in looking over the list of Tempera Colors for sale, Aniline Lakes should be manufactured and sold at all. Colors, however, which really have inherent defects, like Flake White, Chrome Yellow and Paris or Emerald Green (which turns Black and Brown when submitted to sulphur fumes of the atmosphere) remain absolutely permanent as soon as they are varnished. Tempera Medium made with the whole egg contains a very large percentage of sulphur, and for this purpose the Tempera Medium, when pigments like Chrome Yellow, Flake White and Paris Green are used, should be replaced by a Tempera Medium made of White of Egg and Oil, or Casein and Ammonia. The Ammonia, it must be understood, plays no role, since it is only used as a solvent for the Casein, and during the process of cooking or boiling is driven off, so that a boiled Casein emulsion of Linseed Oil has no effect on any color. The white of the egg contains a very little oil, while the yolk of the egg contains as high as twenty per cent. of fat or oil, thus adding to the flexibility of the medium. But, since the yolk of the egg ranges from a light Yellow to an Orange, it can be readily seen that it is not suitable for the manufacture of white or light shades of Tempera Colors.

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