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DIRT AND PICTURES 
 
 SEPARATED, 
 
 IN THE 
 
 WORKS OF THE OLD MASTERS. 
 
 BY 
 
 HENRY MERRITT. 
 
 ‘ Who, in contemplating one of Raphael’s finest pictures, fresh from the 
 master’s hand, ever bestowed a thought on the wretched little worm which 
 works its destruction?’ — Maria Edgeworth, 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 HOLYOAKE AND CO., 147, FLEET STREET. 
 1854. 
 
Cofst>. 
 
 hr> 
 
 ) &4o 
 
 <^S7 
 
 fQS4 
 
TO 
 
 WILLIAM ALFRED DELAMOTTE, ESQ., 
 
 WHO, 
 
 WHEN I WAS A BOY, A STRANGER, UNKNOWN 
 TO HIM EVEN BY NAME, 
 
 CAREFULLY AND GRATUITOUSLY INSTRUCTED ME 
 IN THE RUDIMENTS OF ART, 
 
 I INSCRIBE THIS LITTLE VOLUME, 
 
 WITH LONG-CHERISHED FEELINGS 
 
 OF RESPECT, 
 
^nblistjtrB' Ifinhu, 
 
 The scholar, the gentleman, and the connoisseur, are 
 naturally interested in the picture art. They claim to 
 understand whatever relates to it, and to appreciate the 
 varied discussions and criticisms of which the great art 
 of painting is the constant subject. At first sight it 
 would seem that interest in this topic must be confined 
 to these classes. But literature, which has penetrated 
 to all orders of men, has made even the fine arts to 
 have a definite relation to the humblest, to whom some 
 of the noblest collections of pictures and sculptures 
 have been opened for popular contemplation. Thou- 
 sands now flock to witness and to wonder at produc- 
 tions of the pencil and the chisel, hitherto confined to 
 favoured eyes. Statesmen and friends of education 
 have borne witness to the refining influence of art on 
 
the multitude. The Author of this treatise is justly of 
 opinion that refinement can scarcely take place without 
 a thorough understanding of the objects gazed upon 
 and venerated. Some urge that the English have not 
 that constitutional aptness for the fine arts peculiar to 
 certain nations. But if our people, to use the lan- 
 guage of Prince Hoare, are not ‘ driven impetuously 
 by constitution or passion ’ to such pursuits, it is very 
 manifest that they can be c directed regularly, by reason, 
 to the same ends.’ 
 
 One objection will occur to many — namely, that any 
 dissertation on the practical details of art must be un- 
 fitted for general perusal. This is one of those appre- 
 hensions that have survived the period when they were 
 true. 
 
 When education was altogether deficient, and the 
 people were generally neglected, papers on practical 
 art were of course unintelligible. But now matters 
 are changed, and whilst we have economical and fiscal 
 disquisitions, including all the practical details of states- 
 manship, as a necessary portion of newspaper informa- 
 tion, architecture, painting, music, and sculpture are at 
 last become questions of national taste and universal 
 
XI 
 
 * 
 
 accomplishments. These arts are capable of being 
 made intelligible, and there can be no doubt that they 
 will be found as interesting as rival theories and inter- 
 minable controversies on matters social and political. 
 
 We are persuaded that striking facts and experiences 
 relating to the works of great painters will be welcome 
 and useful to all. A truly national care is beginning 
 to be felt for those master works which are collected in 
 the large room in Trafalgar Square, and at Marlbo- 
 rough House. The means employed for the preserva- 
 tion of the national pictures have been very generally 
 discussed. Controversies on this subject in 1846, and 
 again in 1852, have occupied the attention of parlia- 
 ment, the press, and the public. The fact is, people 
 are really growing in earnest about works of art — an 
 interest which, we conceive, can best be rendered per- 
 manent, intelligent, and refining, by affording them 
 intelligible information upon the creation, criticism, 
 and preservation of those universal instructors — Great 
 Paintings, which speak, with the eloquence of nature, 
 to people of all tongues and all times. The following 
 work, as respects authorship, matter, and spirit, we 
 deem calculated to promote this end. 
 
Stntljijr’s ^ refact. 
 
 A part of this work has already appeared in the 
 columns of the Leader. Other portions are derived 
 from a few letters which received publicity in the 
 pages of the Athenaeum. To these additions have 
 been made, with the object of realising something 
 like a complete whole. In this design, however, the 
 author is very far from satisfied that he has been 
 successful. 
 
 His incidental object has been to assist in defining 
 the province of the Restorer in relation to the Works 
 of the Old Masters. 
 
 1, Woburn Buildings, Tavistock Square. 
 
Intel of ^>m\m (Cittte 
 
 Name. 
 
 Backhuysen . 
 
 Claude .... 
 
 Correggio 
 
 Cuyp (Albert) 
 
 Dolci (Carlo) 
 
 Dow, or Douw (Gerard) 
 Durer . 
 
 Etty . 
 
 Eyck (John Van). 
 Gaddi (Taddeo) 
 
 Giorgione 
 
 Greemer, or Grimmer . 
 Guido (Reni) 
 
 Heem (John David De) 
 
 Hogarth 
 
 Holbein 
 
 Hoppner (John) . 
 Huysum (John Van) 
 Jervas (Charles) . 
 Lawrence (Sir Thomas) 
 Messina (Antonio da) . 
 Mieris (Francis) . 
 Mignon 
 
 Birthplace. 
 
 Born. 
 
 Died. 
 
 Embden 
 
 1631 
 
 1709 
 
 Lorraine 
 
 1600 
 
 1682 
 
 Correggio . 
 
 1490 
 
 1534 
 
 Dort . 
 
 1606 
 
 1667 
 
 Florence 
 
 1616 
 
 1686 
 
 Leyden 
 
 1613 
 
 1674 
 
 Nuremberg . 
 
 1471 
 
 1528 
 
 York . 
 
 1787 
 
 1849 
 
 Maaseyk 
 
 1370 
 
 1441 
 
 Florence 
 
 1300 
 
 1352 
 
 pastel Franco, ] 
 near Venice ' 
 
 | 1478 
 
 1511 
 
 Antwerp 
 
 1510 
 
 1546 
 
 Bologna 
 
 1574 
 
 1642 
 
 Utrecht 
 
 1600 
 
 1674 
 
 London 
 
 1697 
 
 1764 
 
 Basil . 
 
 1498 
 
 1554 
 
 England 
 
 1759 
 
 1810 
 
 Amsterdam . 
 
 1682 
 
 1749 
 
 Ireland 
 
 — 
 
 1740 
 
 Bristol 
 
 1769 
 
 1830 
 
 Messina 
 
 alive in 1494 
 
 Leyden 
 
 1635 
 
 1681 
 
 Frankfort . 
 
 1639 
 
 1679 
 
XIV 
 
 Name. 
 
 Murillo 
 
 Piles (De’) . 
 
 Netscher (Gaspard) 
 Ostade (Adrian) . 
 Ostade (Isaac) 
 
 Piombo (Sebastiano del) 
 Polidoro, or Caravaggio 
 Raphael 
 Rembrandt . 
 
 Reynolds (Sir Joshua) . 
 Roger of Bruges, or 1 
 "Van der Weyde J 
 Romano (Giulio) 
 Romney (George) 
 Rubens 
 
 Ruysdael ( J acob) 
 Seghers (Daniel) . 
 Teniers (the younger) . 
 
 Titian .... 
 
 Turner (J. M. W.) . 
 
 Vandevelde (the young.) 
 Vandyke 
 Velasquez 
 
 Vinci (Leonardo Da) . 
 Watteau 
 
 Birthplace. 
 
 Born. 
 
 Died. 
 
 Seville 
 
 1613 
 
 1682 
 
 j" Clameci, in 
 \ France 
 
 } 1635 
 
 1709 
 
 Heidelberg . 
 
 1639 
 
 1684 
 
 Lubeck 
 
 1610 
 
 1685 
 
 Lubeck 
 
 1613 
 
 1671 
 
 V enice 
 
 1485 
 
 1547 
 
 Caravaggio . 
 
 1495 
 
 1543 
 
 Urbino 
 
 1483 
 
 1520 
 
 Near Leyden 
 
 1606 
 
 1674 
 
 Plymton 
 
 1723 
 
 1792 
 
 Brussels 
 
 1480 
 
 1529 
 
 Rome 
 
 1492 
 
 1546 
 
 Dalton 
 
 1734 
 
 1802 
 
 Cologne 
 
 1577 
 
 1640 
 
 Haerlem 
 
 1636 
 
 1681 
 
 Antwerp 
 
 1590 
 
 1660 
 
 Antwerp 
 
 1610 
 
 1694 
 
 f Friuli, near ) 
 \ Venice J 
 
 > 1480 
 
 1576 
 
 London 
 
 — 
 
 1851 
 
 Amsterdam / 
 
 1633 
 
 1707 
 
 Antwerp 
 
 1598 
 
 1641 
 
 Seville. 
 
 1594 
 
 1660 
 
 Florence 
 
 1445 
 
 1520 
 
 Valenciennes 
 
 1684 
 
 1731 
 
CnntBiits 
 
 Page. 
 
 Chap. I. Obscured Pictures 1 
 
 II. Durability of Pictures in Oil . . . 8 
 
 III, Antipathy to Picture Restorations . 13 
 
 IV. Picture Cleaning 22 
 
 V. The Varnish Glaze Theory ... 25 
 
 VI. Standard Pictures 32 
 
 VII. Vandyke’s Process of Working . . 37 
 
 VIII. Special Cases from Rembrandt . . . 43 
 
 IX. An Ideal Process of Painting ... 49 
 
 X. Idiosyncracies of Picture Collectors . 54 
 
 XI. Professional Advisers . . . . . 58 
 
 XII. Picture Destroyers 64 
 
 XIII. The Restorer ....... 67 
 
 XIV. Devotion of the Restorer . ... 70 
 
®irt anil Itpratti. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 OBSCURED PICTURES. 
 
 jJT has been said that the delight of a connoisseur is ‘ a 
 |j dark, invisible, very fine old picture / and there can 
 * be no doubt of the existence, among admirers of the 
 old masters, of considerable reverence for the myste- 
 rious stains and discolourations which pictures acquire 
 by neglect, in the long lapse of years. Enthusiastic 
 collectors will exult in the ‘ golden ’ splendour of a 
 Claude, the 1 glowing warmth ’ of a Cuyp, or the 1 rich 
 transparent browns ’ of Rembrandt, which qualities, in 
 a large degree, are occasioned by coatings of disco- 
 loured varnishes and oils, producing upon the pictures 
 effects similar to layers of stained glass. A celebrated 
 critic, speaking of Sebastiano del Piombo’s 1 Raising 
 of Lazarus/ in the National Gallery, grows eloquent 
 on the dark incrustation by which that famous compo- 
 sition is obscured. He says, i the figure of Lazarus is 
 very fine and bold. The flesh is well baked , dingy , 
 and ready to crumble from the touch, w r hen it is libe- 
 rated from its dread confinement to have life and motion 
 impressed on it again/ Thus it is inferred that Sebas- 
 tiano stooped to the trivial artifice of imparting an ap- 
 pearance of half putrefaction to the exhumed corpse. 
 The i baked ’ look of the figure is an affair of time 
 
 B 
 
2 
 
 and the critics, and not of the original painter. Did 
 not Hazlitt overlook the too evident fact, that the noble 
 picture referred to is embedded beneath a thick cover- 
 ing, compounded of half opaque varnish, patches of 
 modern paint, and dirt, and that the figure of Lazarus 
 is only discoloured in the same degree as the other 
 portions of the work ? The same critic dwells raptu- 
 rously on the decayed cartoons of Raphael at Hampton 
 Court. After describing the spirit and beauties of 
 those divine pictures, he proceeds to account for their 
 transcendental qualities, which he thinks ‘ perhaps are 
 not all owing to genius — something may be owing to 
 the decayed and dilapidated state of the pictures them- 
 selves,’ which ‘ are the more majestic for being in 
 ruins.’ He delights to observe ‘ that all the petty, 
 meretricious part of the art is dead in them ;’ that 
 ‘ the carnal is made spiritual ;’ that ‘ the corruptible 
 has put on incorruption ;’ and that f amidst the wreck 
 of colour, and the mouldering of material beauty, 
 nothing is left but a universe of thought, or the broad, 
 imminent shadows of calm contemplation or majestic 
 pains.’ We dissent with deference from the opinions 
 of one who so often thought justly, and always ex- 
 pressed himself well. But when the mind escapes 
 from the enchanting thraldom of these imposing words, 
 we are disposed to ask, e Did it never occur to critics 
 accepting these views absolutely, that if the painter had 
 intended all these appearances of decay, and included 
 the infirmities of age among the beauties of his design, 
 that it was in his power to have produced them before 
 he dismissed the work from his studio ?’ Doubtless, he 
 never contemplated such effects, and we are bound to 
 study the intention of the master, and to respect it. 
 Is not every eminent picture-buyer jealous of the im- 
 
3 
 
 position of modern copies upon him as the incontestable 
 productions of the master? The artistic impostor — 
 the dread of the connoisseur and the disgrace of art — 
 owes the success of his counterfeit issues to this fashion 
 of preserving the genuine productions in a half invisible 
 state. Artificial discolourations and layers of dirt are 
 to these creators of the ‘ modern antique ’ what night 
 and darkness are to the highwayman and the burglar. 
 If decay is to be trusted as the source of so much 
 beauty, it should lead to practical results, which we 
 never see attempted by any partisan of the theory. 
 Whatever principle is true in theory may become the 
 foundation of practice ; but what would be said if some 
 ingenious theorist, of a scientific turn, should haply dis- 
 cover some process by which the decay of pictures might 
 be facilitated, and the picture-gazer of this age be enabled 
 to possess himself of intellectual delights which in the 
 ordinary course of things he would never live to enjoy? 
 What would be said if, seized with this idea, the trus- 
 tees of the National Gallery should order the most 
 valuable of the pictures in their charge to undergo an 
 ordeal to get rid of their gross ‘ material ? and ‘ carnal ’ 
 qualities ? We should soon see this theory of beauty 
 by destruction considerably recast. 
 
 The value in which the learned Doctor Cornelius 
 held the 1 rust, the precious aerugo/ which clung so 
 tenaciously to the famous shield, is not extraordinary, 
 when contrasted with the singular affection manifested 
 by able connoisseurs for the 1 venerable verdure ? which, 
 obscures so many chefs-d'oeuvre of the old painters. 
 The strange appearances of decay which that learned 
 doctor styles 4 the traces of time/ and ‘ beautiful 
 obscurities, where doubts and curiosities go hand in 
 hand, and eternally exercise the speculations of the 
 b 2 
 
4 
 
 learned’ — these awaken quite as much interest and 
 admiration when discovered on the surfaces of old pic- 
 tures as when found on half-obliterated coins and bat- 
 tered armour. But whoever shall employ any artifice 
 to decay pictures, in order to realise these beauties, 
 will soon be reminded that we keep costly Picture 
 Galleries and National Museums, in which to preserve 
 valuable remains of the Fine Arts ; and, despite our 
 theory that 
 
 ‘ Statues moulder into worth 
 
 and that pictures put off the ‘ corruptible ’ to put on 
 ‘ incorruption,’ we keep the day of supreme perfection 
 as far distant as we are able. 
 
 Hogarth, being much in the company of cognoscenti, 
 and hearing them continually aver that the works of 
 the old painters were much indebted for the charms 
 which they possessed to the mellowing influence of 
 time, took an opportunity to venture a contrary 
 opinion, asserting that ( pictures only grew black and 
 worse by age.’ Walpole, commenting upon this, sides 
 with the collectors, saying that Hogarth could not 
 ‘ distinguish in w r hat degree the proposition might be 
 true or false.’ Doubtless Hogarth intended his words 
 for those who, in his time, were affecting such unquali- 
 fied admiration of rust and dirt. The painter would 
 have admitted that colours do gradually soften in the 
 drying ; but this natural softening is a very different 
 effect to that which is produced by a horn-like incrus- 
 tation spread equally over the whole surface of the 
 picture. 
 
 It may be said with confidence, that the charms of 
 pictures having any pretensions to fine colouring 
 cannot be enhanced by this over-rated ‘ varnish of time’ 
 
5 
 
 * — especially those subjects which partake of a ‘ gay and 
 festive ’ character, of which the productions of Rubens 
 and Watteau furnish examples. The annoyance which 
 the delicate, fantastic ladies of the Frenchman would 
 have felt at its presence on their sparkling robes of 
 silk and satin, is precisely what the gazer should feel 
 when it interferes with his enjoyment of the pictures of 
 this charming court painter; and the same may be 
 said of the incrustation, when it hides from us the 
 ruddy, glowing objects depicted by the luscious pencil 
 of the great Fleming. It has been said of another 
 painter’s colours — whose pictures, from the intense 
 religious sentiment they possess, are so well suited to 
 the cloister — 6 That it would seem as if he could have 
 dipped his pencil in the hues of some serenest and 
 star-shining twilight ;’ and let it be urged that colours 
 so pure and refined as to merit this distinctive eulogy 
 little need the addition of a ‘ golden ’ glaze. 
 
 The great preponderance of brown colour which we 
 observe on the pictures of Rembrandt, and the yellow 
 or gold cast on the works of Titian, have resulted from 
 causes in no way originating with those painters. Few 
 masters’ productions are seen to worse advantage than 
 Titian’s, and that by reason of the very effects which 
 are said to mellow and improve them. In illustration 
 of this, we may cite an example offered by the present 
 writer in a letter to the Atlienceum. A portrait by 
 one of the Venetian masters (which came under the 
 writer’s notice) furnished a striking example of time- 
 mellowing. The lawn robe of the Ecclesiastic, pre- 
 cisely and delicately pencilled, with a Century’s dirt 
 upon it, is not like lawn, but like sackcloth. Its innu- 
 merable small folds and indentations— its chaste, lily- 
 like whiteness and violet-hued shadowings — are all 
 
6 
 
 buried and lost. His holiness has no longer the fiery 
 eye of the serpent. The emerald stone on the shrivelled 
 finger is no longer lustrous. The clean, elaborate 
 grey beard is a fiction ; the truth of the carnations a 
 matter of faith ; and the ample cape of crimson velvet 
 has sunk into a coarse cloth of sober brown. 
 
 Granting to admirers of richly-toned pictures that 
 old oils and varnishes sometimes produce pleasing 
 effects in parts of the foregrounds in sunny pictures, 
 yet the impropriety of preserving them, even on such 
 portions, cannot be doubted, when we reflect that 
 neither Claude nor Cuyp, nor any painter, is to be 
 justly credited with the creation of beauties which are 
 the result of chance ; for chance never formed part in 
 any great artist’s calculation of effects. Reflection 
 brings us to believe that the slightest film on a fine 
 picture is an undoubted evil. Every good picture, no 
 matter what the subject — whether figures or landscape, 
 or both combined — suffers more or less in proportion 
 to the extent of its obscuration. An idea of distances, 
 and the appearances of remote objects, can only be 
 realised by a skilful management of air tints. Truth 
 is as much obscured in a picture by the corruption of 
 these tints as in linear perspective by the perversion of 
 the lines. 
 
 The horn-like glazing of old varnish and oils must 
 needs defile all the refinements which constitute a fine 
 landscape. Nor is the hateful incrustation less hurtful 
 in other portions of the picture. Its pernicious influ- 
 ence is alike traceable on the boldest parts of near ob- 
 jects. The 1 purple tinge which the mountain assumes 
 as it recedes or approaches ; the grey moss upon the 
 ruin ; the variegated greens and mellow browns of 
 foliage’ — in short, the colours in every part of nature, 
 
7 
 
 suffer alike from the much-admired 1 varnish of time.’ 
 In historical pictures, the nicer points, which are the 
 evidence of mastery, are alike involved. The various 
 distinctions of colour in age and in sex, the ‘ bloom of 
 youth and the wan cheek of sickness,’ are not spared. 
 The ( golden ’ compound is permitted to reduce each 
 and all into one level tone; and cheerfulness and 
 gloom, hope and despair, the times of the day and the 
 seasons of the year, all wear the same look of sadness 
 when beheld through the smoked glass of the picture- 
 worm ; for there are picture- worms as well as ‘ book- 
 worms.’ 
 
8 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 i 
 
 DURABILITY OF PICTURES IN OIL. 
 
 T HE complimentary language of Pope to Jervas, 
 the portrait painter, in the following couplet — 
 
 ‘ Beauty, frail flower, which every season fears, 
 
 Blooms in thy colours for a thousand years,’ 
 
 might be applied to many of the old painters with con- 
 siderable show of truth. It is no uncommon thing, 
 on cleaning pictures which have been painted two, 
 three, and even four hundred years, to discover the 
 colours fresh and beautiful as when they left the palette. 
 The flower pieces of John Van Huysum, Mignon, 
 Seghers, and He Heem, yet vie with nature in bright- 
 ness of tints. While penning this, the author has 
 before him a work by Seghers, composed of a few 
 white and red roses interwoven with an ivy wreath, 
 side by side with some roses fresh from the garden, 
 placed in a sunny window, so as to have the shadows 
 of a dark grove, at a short distance beyond, for back- 
 ground ; and such is the truthfulness and tenderness of 
 the flowers in the picture, so little are they injured by 
 time, that art and nature live side by side, and art 
 seems to derive advantage by the rivalry. Van Hay- 
 sum’ s vase of flowers at Dulwich College (the one in 
 which the blue tint predominates) could never have 
 been more perfect in respect to its colours than at the 
 present time. Tints of the utmost conceivable bright- 
 ness and delicacy are yet perceptible to the naked eye, 
 and are even enhanced when viewed through a magni- 
 
9 
 
 fying lens of great power. There is a vase of flowers 
 by Mignon at the Hague, in which the dew-drops have 
 a diamond-like freshness, and reflect the delicate hues 
 of a warm sunbeam which falls upon the flowers and 
 displays a number of insects 1 clothed in rainbow and 
 in fire.’ The connoisseur is familiar with pictures by 
 Carlo Dolci — of lovely Madonnas and penitent Mag- 
 dalens, with pale marble faces and tearful eyes — which 
 pictures, for freshness and solidity, might still bear 
 comparison with any pictures similar in style of yes- 
 terday’s painting. In contrast with the enamelled 
 softness of the Italian, we have crowds of mythological 
 deities and personages of every description from the 
 pencil of Rubens. Fair, round, Cyprian queens, in 
 loosely flowing crimson robes, accompanied by sportive 
 cupids, wing their airy flights in chariots of silver and 
 gold, drawn by fairy-like doves or graceful swans. 
 The glowing limbs of the love-gods and goddesses, 
 the bright plumage of the birds, contrasted with the 
 azure sky and purple clouds, appear still in all the 
 depth and richness of the rose and purity of the lily — 
 while the gorgeous display of Vulcanic skill, the silver 
 and gold, present no sign of dimness ; on the contrary, 
 time seems to have imparted to the colours of the 
 great Flemish artist a purer and deeper lustre, a lustre 
 and purity which pictures at first seldom possess. One 
 might enumerate in every school pictures which are 
 instances of high preservation. We still contemplate 
 the pride and beauty of Spain in the virgin tints of 
 Velasquez and on the canvases of Vandyke, as in a 
 glass — we compare the still fairer women of England, 
 who, if they exceeded in beauty the transcripts of the 
 courtly Vandyke, must have been more than humanly 
 beautiful. Here still the mild radiance of the costly 
 
10 
 
 pearl reveals the dark recesses of the silken robe, or 
 glitters like morning dew on the soft folds of luxuriant 
 tresses. The glare of colour and its grossness have 
 departed — but over all there still lingers an intense 
 beauty, a life-like warmth and transcendent sweetness. 
 
 The juicy, luscious look in the colours of Flemish 
 and Dutch masters, is not owing to the presence of 
 liquid oil still in the colours, for in the process of dry- 
 ing, the oil in which the colours were ground, found its 
 way to the surface, whence it has subsequently been 
 removed, and its place supplied by varnish. Albert 
 Durer’s pictures are still remarkable for a certain juicy 
 freshness, in contradistinction to what is called the 
 ‘ brick tone,’ and it is evident this master’s works are 
 as hard and dry as enamel. The fact is, with respect 
 to colours, when laid on in cool, tender tones, in perfect 
 imitation of natural freshness, it is not, and it ought 
 not to be, necessary to their permanent truthfulness, 
 that they should always retain an actual moisture. 
 For instance, a dew-drop by a Dutch painter will 
 always look like a dew-drop, however hard and dry 
 the colours may become. 
 
 Look at the best preserved pictures of Jacob Ruys- 
 dael. Their calm, soft airiness, subdued sunlights, 
 and quiet shades, still possess all we can conceive of 
 intense beauty. The pictures of Ruysdael are as op- 
 posite, in their simple chasteness, to the splendid alle- 
 gories of Rubens, as the mellow notes of a solitary 
 flute to the outburst of an orchestra. Yet Ruysdael’ s 
 representations of woods, lanes, villages, waterfalls, and 
 scenes on the ocean, have not, as far as we can guess, 
 been despoiled of a single charm. Again, look into 
 the interiors of Adrian Ostade; you may almost guess 
 the hour of the day with no other guide save the lights, 
 
11 
 
 reflections, and shadows. Thus you imagine in one 
 picture it is three o’clock on a summer afternoon, and 
 the boor on the ale-house bench is dozing over his 
 after-dinner cup. Or, in another picture, in which the 
 painter has represented himself at work, that it is early 
 morning, by the cheerful sunlight which steals so 
 calmly into the apartment ; you feel the desire to step 
 across the room and look through the old-fashioned 
 window into the garden. You feel sure there is a 
 garden without, nay, that it is the month of June, and 
 that the painter’s roses are in full bloom. Such are the 
 nice distinctions of light, shade, and tint yet preserved 
 in the pictures of Adrian Van Ostade. 
 
 These instances of durability of colours in the works 
 of the old painters are taken almost at random. The 
 same quality would be found to exist in the greater 
 proportion of pictures in any choice collection. The 
 earliest specimens of Italian pictures in distemper are 
 mostly very solid and pure in colour — that is, where a 
 direct cause for their decay, such as gross exposure, 
 has not existed. The pictures of Taddeo Gaddi, in 
 the National Gallery, present an instance of colours 
 which have survived the influence of time, through a 
 period of nearly five hundred years. In the represen- 
 tation of ‘ Saints in Glory,’ those early pictures display 
 a great variety of colours, and frequently very striking 
 and beautiful effects of sunlight. The blues and reds 
 have often an enviable degree of purity, depth, variety, 
 and force, even when compared with less ancient pro- 
 ductions. 
 
 It is commonly observed that portions of old paint- 
 ings are in good preservation, while other parts of the 
 same pictures are almost obliterated, the obliterations 
 having been occasioned either by accident, neglect, or 
 
12 
 
 wilful, bad treatment. The cartoons of Raphael, at 
 Hampton Court, are a painful case in point. If the 
 whole series of that work had been preserved, as, by- 
 chance, some favoured parts have been, it is clear that 
 the whole would now be almost as perfect as when they 
 left the master’s pencil. 
 
23 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 ANTIPATHY TO PICTURE RESTORATIONS. 
 
 jjN the spring of 1854, on the abatement of the con- 
 troversy on picture restoration, the author wrote the 
 ® following protest against the unphilosophical spirit 
 in which the controversy had been conducted. 
 
 If the apparent verdict of public opinion is to be 
 credited, the picture restorers’ art is abolished in 
 England. The restorers are in danger of being driven 
 from our public galleries. These unostentatious con- 
 servers of the works of genius are described as 1 pic- 
 ture rats their studies are styled ( shambles ;’ their 
 careful and patient manipulations, Systematic and 
 wanton destructiveness.’ In these controversies the 
 non-restorationists always assume that cleaning pictures 
 means no less than scrubbing out the pictures them- 
 selves — repairing small blemishes they regard merely 
 as a pretext for repainting entire works ; lining, bat- 
 tening, cradling, and transferring have received no 
 sort of recognition. But will not this judgment suffer 
 reversal when the public shall become practically 
 informed upon it? Vituperation in art is no more 
 likely to produce lasting conviction or intelligent satis- 
 faction than in other party controversies. A discus- 
 sion of critics which has triumphed by assuming an 
 utter want of conscientiousness, reason, devotion, or 
 skill on the part of their opponents (the restorers) can 
 never retain its victory — unless art controversies are 
 privileged to be conducted without discrimination or 
 
14 
 
 justice. Take the matter in merely a popular point of 
 view — for the appeal lies from the critics to the people. 
 Does it stand to common reason that the dark, unsightly 
 blotch on the serene sky is preferable to the subtlest 
 imitation of the true tint which the ablest artist can 
 produce ? Are the soft shadows broken up and dis- 
 figured by patches of ghastly white (pieces having 
 fallen out, laying bare the ground) ? We are not to 
 stop the cavities with binding cement and tint the eye- 
 sores into harmony with the rest, but submit to con- 
 template the picture under the distracting influence of 
 these disfigurements. If the panel has become rent, 
 we are to let it remain until the crack becomes widened 
 into a chasm. In many instances a century will suffice 
 to render every thread of the canvas which supports 
 the masterpiece sufficiently brittle to crumble to dust 
 at the slightest touch, and it has only been by lining 
 old canvases upon new that the chief pictures of the 
 great masters now hang on our walls entire. It is rare 
 to find an old canvas picture which has not received 
 the benefit of lining — and not unfrequently the process 
 has several times been repeated. To line a picture 
 properly, is to renew the lease of its existence for a 
 century. A corresponding care is indispensable to the 
 preservation of old pictures painted on wood. Through 
 the labours of the ever-active tooth of the worm, and 
 other agents, few works of the great Roman master 
 would have descended to these times but for their 
 timely transfer from the worn-out timber on which they 
 were painted to other and sounder material. 
 
 Mr. Buchanan informs us that M. Hacquin, of 
 Paris, transferred the chief pictures of Raphael, in- 
 cluding the ‘ Madonna del Pesche,’ the ‘ Elizabeth 
 receiving the Virgin,’ the famous work known as the 
 
15 
 
 Pearl of Raphael, the ‘ Holy Family/ in which the 
 angel scatters flowers, and the well-known picture en- 
 titled ‘ St. Cecilia/ together with the ‘ Martyrdom of 
 St. Peter/ by Titian. These pictures were not placed 
 in the hands of the renovator until their 1 utter ruin ’ 
 became the only alternative — and thus were these chefs- 
 d’oeuvre of art rescued from the dust. The large pic- 
 ture in our National Gallery, by Sebastian del Piombo 
 (on the authority of Mr. John Landseer), was found 
 to need transferring. And let it not be overlooked 
 that hundreds of old painters painted on the same 
 kind of timber as Raphael, and that their works have 
 suffered from the same casualties, and, in important 
 cases, received the same treatment. Services of this 
 kind may be appreciated without the possession of a 
 profound knowledge of painting. 
 
 ‘ If neither brass nor marble can withstand 
 
 The mortal force of Time’s destructive hand/ 
 
 it is easier to ascertain the liabilities of mere canvas 
 and timber.* 
 
 The author being on a visit to an enthusiastic col- 
 lector of pictures, and observing many valuable speci- 
 mens of the old schools in a very dilapidated condi- 
 tion, took occasion to elicit his opinion with respect to 
 the restoration of damaged pictures, and of the persons 
 usually employed to repair them. It was at once 
 evident that the very mention of Restoration’ was 
 sufficient to disconcert the ardent lover of the picture 
 art. 
 
 ‘ Sir/ said he, ‘ I am happy to say there is not a 
 
 Author’s letter, Athenceum , No. 1371. 
 
1(3 
 
 picture in my collection which has been cleaned and 
 repaired.’ 
 
 Of this there was no want of proof. Some of the 
 early Italian pictures were chipped, and large pieces, 
 loosened by heat or damp, had dropped from the 
 panels, in which worms, the growth of a warmer clime, 
 had been busy for centuries. Our collector, being 
 asked if he considered restoring old pictures advisable 
 under extreme circumstances, prescribed extreme pe- 
 nalties for any one who should have the temerity to 
 entertain the idea. 
 
 ‘ Could anything be more absurd,’ he insisted, ‘than 
 for a modern dauber to scrub, plaster up, and repaint 
 an old picture?’ 
 
 ‘ Certainly not.’ 
 
 ‘Very well, then,’ continued he, ‘would you have 
 some image maker commence operations on the Elgin 
 marbles, wash and scrub them, plaster up the chinks, 
 replace the absent limbs, remodel the obliterated fea- 
 tures, and, in a word, restore them ? What would 
 you think of such a proceeding ? How great would 
 be your indignation ! How would you mourn the 
 loss of Phidias, and curse the miscreant who could so 
 abuse the sublime productions of that Athenian chisel. 
 Thus should I feel if some officious hand, some 
 restorer, should attempt to practise his remorseless 
 craft upon yonder noble specimen — the gem of my col- 
 lection — a Leonardo da Vinci.’ 
 
 As respects fragments of ancient sculpture, the views 
 of our enthusiast possess some show of reason, but 
 are, at the same time, full of exaggeration ; while the 
 comparison between old pictures and ancient sculp- 
 tures is far from being happy. If the lost member of 
 a mutilated Apollo could be found, there could be no 
 
17 
 
 difference of opinion as to the propriety of its resuming 
 its original position. If a Yenus stood complete in 
 every limb, in good preservation throughout, with 
 the exception that some unfortunate blow had struck 
 out one eye, in consequence of which blemish the 
 whole statue was affected, and its influence half des- 
 troyed — what objection would there be, could some 
 modeller replace the absent member so cleverly that all 
 traces of the in jury should disappear, and the figure again 
 possess its full and complete effect ? Surely no one 
 could object to such a course being taken ? But because 
 the eye could be replaced (the other remaining to test 
 its accuracy), it by no means follows that if the nose 
 were lost that feature could be replaced with equal feli- 
 city, for, although men of taste might venture a shrewd 
 guess as to the kind of nose the face once possessed, 
 and sculptors might realise their conception, yet for all 
 that there would be wanting the proof by comparison 
 present in the case of the eye ; and where doubt com- 
 mences interference with the original work should 
 cease, in deference to the original artist. However 
 well founded a conjecture might seem, it were far 
 better to rest with the mutilated form than to risk an 
 absolutely suppositious addition to the fragment. As 
 a matter of speculation, the restoration of a broken 
 figure may be accomplished without risk to the original 
 remnant simply by making a mould of it, and adding 
 the missing portions to the cast. Here lies the diffe- 
 rence betwixt pictures and statues in respect to their 
 restoration. 
 
 We now take an example of the picture art. We 
 have before us an elaborate specimen by Roger of 
 Bruges, representing a Christian knight at his devo- 
 tions. Those who have seen the best pictures by this 
 c 
 
18 
 
 master must have been struck by their singular lustre. 
 The present work has all the luminous appearance of 
 ancient glass windows found in Gothic churches. 
 These beautiful qualities in our example are disfigured 
 by certain absolute blemishes, the most prominent of 
 which arise from four squares of the tesselated pave- 
 ment, on which the knight is standing, having fallen 
 out, leaving the oak panel visible in the place ; another 
 portion of the work has likewise disappeared, sepa- 
 rating the long handle of the spear. The moment the 
 eye is directed to the picture, the whole attention is 
 riveted on these two blemishes. It is in vain that 
 you attempt to realise the picture as a whole, such as 
 it appeared in its perfect state. The first thing that 
 enters the mind of the spectator is how may those 
 blemishes be remedied ? The answer is ready, for the 
 remedy is simple. Some able artist must restore the 
 lost portions of the tesselated floor and the spear. 
 This is not a difficult task, while it is a perfectly safe 
 operation, not involving a particle of the original 
 remains. The restorer has the same aids as the 
 modeller in remodelling the eye in the Venus. He 
 proceeds by filling with cement the large holes whence 
 the pieces have dropped ; after this, the cement is 
 scraped level with the surface of the picture ; and then 
 the artist proceeds to sketch and colour the parts to 
 match those adjoining in form and colour, accomplish- 
 ing this so accurately in tint and texture that the 
 keenest eye may never after discover where the inju- 
 ries have been. No one will deny the practicability of 
 making restorations of this nature, and surely they are 
 such as not even the original painter would be dis- 
 posed to reject. 
 
 . Having shown how large repairs may be accom- 
 
19 
 
 plished without perverting the intention of the master, 
 we will see what can be done for the removal of 
 numerous lesser defects. Suppose the picture chosen 
 for illustration to be differently disfigured. A small 
 worm (common to old timber) has hollowed out the 
 panel, and perforated the picture. Thus in the scarlet 
 robe of the knight there are not less than twenty small 
 round holes, six in the face, and many more in the 
 various parts of the representation, making in all about 
 a hundred. If it were practicable to fill up a cavity 
 of the size of four squares of the tesselated floor, it 
 might seem an easy matter to fill up tiny holes no 
 larger in circumference than small shot. Insignificant 
 as these small worm holes may appear singly, a hun- 
 dred of them dispersed over a surface of twenty-four 
 inches by sixteen are sufficient to have a very damag- 
 ing influence. Yet these holes may be filled and 
 tinted by the fine point of a sable pencil, so as to 
 mingle the specks with the neighbouring colours, thus 
 restoring the painting to its original completeness. It 
 will be borne in mind that the whole of the processes 
 described and recommended are performed, not on the 
 work of the master, but over cavities. What has been 
 advanced respecting these small openings made by 
 worms, and their repair, holds good also of other 
 injuries to which pictures are liable. Cracks, rents, 
 and fissures may all be remedied by the same process. 
 There are scarcely any old paintings which have not 
 received from time to time attentions of this kind. 
 One would think that such services rendered to art 
 would need no justification. Nor indeed would any 
 defence have been necessary, had it not happened that 
 unskilful and impatient hands have often been em- 
 ployed to make these essential reparations — who, 
 c 2 
 
20 
 
 instead of confining themselves within bounds to the 
 particles of damage, to save time, or to hide their 
 inability to match the colours, have painted over whole 
 works. Proceedings of this unscrupulous nature have 
 been frequent, and have come to throw discredit on the 
 art of restoration ; and the able, conscientious restorer 
 suffers in the general censure. 
 
 Mr. Lance, the eminent fruit painter, was ‘ instructed 
 by the Keeper of the National Gallery to restore the 
 “ Boar Hunt” by Velasquez/ Mr. Lance (before a 
 Committee of the House of Commons) thus described 
 the injuries in the picture of the ‘ Boar Hunt’ which 
 he was commissioned to repair : — ‘ One portion on the 
 right hand — as large as a sheet of foolscap — of the 
 picture was entirely bare. In fact, more than half the 
 picture had to be restored.’ Witness ‘ had not seen 
 the picture before it was damaged,’ nor had he had 
 ‘ any plate to aid him in his restoration.’ 
 
 It is an unaccountable error to set aside as worthless 
 the fragment of a noble picture like the ‘ Boar Hunt ;’ 
 and surely repainting such a work is scarcely more to 
 be preferred than its destruction. We justly attach 
 great importance to mutilated statues — we do not dis- 
 card an imperfect frieze ; and there is no reason why 
 fragmentary examples of the pencil should not be 
 valued in a corresponding degree. It must be evident 
 that the attempt to restore a picture half effaced ought 
 never to have been made. Picture restoration has its 
 limits. Mr. Lance had no engraving to aid him in 
 his restoration of the said picture ; nor, indeed, had he 
 more than the merest conjecture of the appearance of 
 the picture before it had become injured. Hence, in 
 restoring more than half, he overstepped the defensible 
 limits of restoration, and chance usurped the place of 
 
21 
 
 law. In such extreme cases of injury the safe rule is, 
 not to exceed such mechanical appliances as refer 
 simply to the preservation of the fragment, as a frag- 
 ment. The restorer might venture to tint in the da- 
 maged portions matching the original ground colour ; 
 thus leaving blanks, comparatively inoffensive, as if 
 the master had desisted from his work, deferring certain 
 portions to be completed on a future occasion.* 
 
 Not a few instances are recorded of eminent painters 
 who have attempted to immortalise themselves by 
 painting on the canvases of the old masters. It was 
 with the deepest indignation that Barry beheld an 
 Italian repainting — the famous wreck at Milan — of 
 the ‘Last Supper/ by Leonardo Da Vinci. Carlo 
 Marratti took upon himself to insert three Cupids in 
 an ancient picture of Venus found in the gardens of 
 Sallust. West did more than was necessary to the 
 ‘ Raising of Lazarus/ by Sebastiano del Piombo. 
 Sometimes whole collections undergo a sort of repaint- 
 ing. Shelley records an instance. Travelling in Italy, 
 he arrived at a convent just as the village plumber, 
 glazier, and painter, was withdrawing his workmen 
 from their task of touching up the old masters, which 
 operation had been included in the contract for reno- 
 vating the paint and whitewash of the holy edifice. 
 Instances like this last are but too common in secluded 
 parts of Catholic countries, where poverty and igno- 
 rance accompany the possession of the rarest treasures 
 of art. The difficulty is to understand how a modern 
 painter of any reflection can commit the blunder of 
 supposing that an old picture is worth anything after 
 having been daubed over by a foreign hand. 
 
 * Author’s letter in the Athenaeum . 
 
22 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 PICTURE CLEANING. 
 
 C LEANING pictures is a complicated and serious 
 matter. It is a subject to be approached with caution. 
 The operations necessary cannot be so well defined as 
 can those relating to artistic repairs. However, a distin- 
 guished senator, Mr. Drummond, in a speech delivered 
 in the House of Commons, July 1, 1854, thus defines 
 what he considered to be the popular method of clean- 
 ing the works of the old masters : — ‘ They (the go- 
 vernment) bought pictures, and with a pound or two 
 of pumice stone, set themselves to rub them all out. 7 
 This summary mode of treating the question of pic- 
 ture cleaning is open to the same objections as the 
 process it condemns. 
 
 Is it possible to clean old dirty pictures with bene- 
 ficial results, and without injury to the original tints 
 and touches? ‘No,’ exclaims ‘A Tory in Art,’ in 
 the Times ; ‘ it is as idle to talk of restoring a picture 
 to what it was, as to try and push back the iron hand 
 of time. W e must make up our minds to put up with 
 a certain amount of dirt, and study the works of de- 
 parted genius through the warm haze of time.’ Much 
 may we profit by the contemplation of delicate beauties 
 — as they appear through a dark crust of dirt! We 
 may venture the assertion that the old masters would 
 be the first to object to the present dingy condition of 
 their productions. The questions here to be asked 
 are, ‘ Did the old painters calculate that their pictures 
 would come to need cleaning ?’ and ‘ Did they make 
 
23 
 
 any provision to that end?’ Certainly they did. 
 When oil painting first came into use, one of its useful 
 virtues, as noted by the painters of the time, was, that 
 it would wash. Long before Italian pictures were re- 
 markable for correct drawing or harmonious colouring, 
 painters had manifested anxiety for the future preser- 
 vation of their works. Antonio da Messina, about 
 the year 1494, seeing an oil picture of John Van 
 Eyck’s at Naples, and perceiving that ‘ it might be 
 washed with water without suffering any injury,’ 
 was so satisfied of the advantages of oil paint- 
 ing over the old method of colouring in distemper, 
 that he immediately set out for Bruges, and there, by 
 presents and services, succeeded in prevailing on John 
 Van Eyck to divulge his precious secret. It is re- 
 corded that the art of painting in oil thus found its way 
 into Italy. Any how, there is no want of evidence that 
 the early Italian painters were desirous that their pic- 
 tures should be so painted that they might afterwards 
 be kept clean and sightly. We find the venerable 
 Leonardo da Vinci speculating on a method of paint- 
 ing a picture 1 that will last for ever.’ This durability 
 was to be ensured by a layer of glass placed over the 
 picture, so as to preserve it from the action of the air. 
 We find varnishes of some sort in repute as far back 
 as the year 1410, after which time they came into 
 general use, and have continued so to the present day. 
 
 When we wish to preserve a print with its white 
 margin from dust, we place a glass over it, and there 
 is no doubt that painters, ever since the invention of 
 oil painting, have been accustomed to varnish their 
 pictures with a view to the preservation of the colours. 
 There can be no question of the long and general use 
 of varnishes, or of the one sole reason for their use. 
 
24 
 
 Had varnishes always kept as hard, clear, and dur- 
 able as glass, the preservation of the works of the 
 old painters had been an easy matter; but, unfortu- 
 nately, the colours of many of the finest pictures are 
 rendered almost invisible by the discolouration and 
 cracking of the varnishes themselves. The simple 
 removal of these injurious incrustations is the work of 
 the modern picture cleaner. 
 
25 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE VARNISH GLAZE THEORY. 
 
 T HE chief and most plausible of the numerous objec- 
 tions which have been urged against the practicability 
 of cleaning pictures, turns upon the possibility of in- 
 juring a ylaze alleged to have been commonly employed 
 by the old painters. In the Times controversy on this 
 subject in 1852, ‘ An Artist’ made the following remark : 
 — ‘ The process of painting a picture which is the most 
 difficult is the final glazing. Indeed, it is the only 
 part which absolutely requires the hand and eye of the 
 master.’ Thus, ‘ An Artist ’ would have us believe 
 that Raphael is famous more by virtue of his colouring 
 and chiaro-oscuro than his drawing. We apprehend 
 that pictures of the Roman master challenge our ad- 
 miration by virtue of very different qualities than 
 mere tone, or richness, or even harmony of colouring. 
 Rather might it not be said that Raphael’s pictures 
 will still command their high place when the tints and 
 glazing are faded away, and only the ‘ dim, dream- 
 like forms ’ remain ? 
 
 1 An Artist’ may have been thinking of the Flemish 
 school. If so, who for a moment imagines that 
 Rubens’ masterpiece, the ‘ Descent from the Cross,’ in 
 the cathedral of Antwerp, owes its influence to a 
 1 glaze ?’ The master speaks in every touch of the 
 pencil, and the timid hand of the pupil is nowhere to 
 be seen. Even the pictures by Vandyke which hang 
 around it dwindle into shadows by comparison. It 
 may, indeed, be doubted if the i Descent from the 
 
26 
 
 Cross’ was ever glazed in the manner described. To 
 those who have inspected the picture, the various 
 colours appear to have been laid on with a bold, light, 
 fearless, flowing hand — each touch in the right place, 
 with little after toning, softening, or blending. We 
 have, in some sort, the authority of Rubens himself 
 for asserting that the ‘ glaze ’ (which ‘ An Artist ’ thinks 
 the only part of the process of painting a picture ‘ re- 
 quiring the hand and eye of the master’) was by 
 Rubens seldom employed. Rubens, in the process he 
 has so elaborately described, makes no mention of a 
 final ‘ glaze.’ He speaks of ‘ decided touches ’ as the 
 final ‘ distinguishing marks of a great master,’ by which 
 he cannot possibly mean the kind of toning or colour- 
 ing in varnish which ‘An Artist’ describes. If a 
 painter requires rich, transparent crimson, he produces 
 it by washing transparent lake over a light tint, pre- 
 viously prepared and become dry. This, properly 
 speaking, is ‘ glazing,’ and is certainly not usually re- 
 garded as the last and final process. The greater pro- 
 portion of the colours in a picture of the school of 
 Rubens, would prove to be thus obtained. This 
 process of producing luminous effects of light, shade, 
 and colour, constitutes the entire process of painting 
 a fine picture in oil, and requires ‘ the hand and eye of 
 the master,’ from first to last, to weigh well the nature 
 of the ground tints over which transparent colours are 
 intended to be passed. 
 
 The more skilful the artist the less need is there for 
 scumbling, toning, or any final operation to unite the 
 component parts into a ‘ whole.’ The skilful artist 
 conceives and executes each part of his design, so that 
 consistency shall be the result, without the necessity of 
 toning down one colour and heightening another, or of 
 
27 
 
 painting out portions and supplying others, practices 
 which, when common, mark the indecision, or caprice, 
 or inability, of the amateur, rather than the progres- 
 sive process of the master. 
 
 The amateur stands in frequent need of erasing false 
 lines and ill-matched tints ; wanting foresight, he is 
 necessitated to resort to all kinds of trickery to har- 
 monise the bits and patches of his compositions. 
 Compositions which present the finest effects of colour 
 are usually those in which the tints (as in the ( Descent 
 from the Cross ’ at Antwerp) are left undisturbed in 
 virgin purity, bespeaking spontaniety of thought and 
 action, the hand having obeyed the warm impulse of the 
 imagination. Where the work of an incompetent jour- 
 neyman is to be foisted on a patron for the master’s 
 production, it becomes necessary for the master to do 
 something to ensure the success of the imposition. 
 Hence, the main body of paint being laid on by the 
 underling, the more dexterous hand is called into re- 
 quisition to correct and patch, to erase and blot, to 
 darken and lighten, as may be needed — in fact, to 
 tinker a bad picture, so that it will at least pass muster 
 with over-partial and credulous collectors. From this 
 miserable fashion (sometimes resorted to) of supplying 
 the market with the works (?) of popular painters has 
 sprung the belief entertained by ‘ An Artist/ that 
 masters of renown always leave the work to their 
 pupils, and take the credit to themselves. 
 
 The Times’ correspondent not only infers that all the 
 old masters used a glaze in the completion of their 
 pictures; he also determines the composition of the 
 said glaze, as we learn from the following extract. 
 Speaking of the process of picture cleaning, he says : — 
 ‘ It does not consist in merely removing the dust and 
 
28 
 
 dirt that may have accumulated on the surface of a 
 picture, but is the taking off a coat of chille4 or dis- 
 coloured varnish and he adds — 6 But what will take 
 off one coat of varnish will take off another coat of 
 varnish immediately underneath the first , into which 
 a little transparent colour has been added [infused]/ 
 Allowing for a moment that this glazing was always 
 resorted to, the theory of glazing oil pictures with 
 varnish colour is not likely to have been much prac- 
 tised, as the joint use of oil colour and varnish colour, 
 the one immediately upon the other, necessarily results 
 in disunion and cracking of the surface. It is com- 
 monly asserted that Francis Mieris and Gaspard 
 Netscher finished their pictures in a varnished me- 
 dium, and the singular transparency and smoothness of 
 their productions would seem to bear out the assertion.* 
 De’ Piles (the chief authority in the matter) thus de- 
 scribes the Netscher practice : — ‘ When he (Netscher) 
 intended to give the last hand to his piece, he rubbed 
 it over with varnish which did not dry in two or three 
 days ; and during that time he had leisure to manage 
 his colours over and over to his liking ; those especially 
 that, being neither too hard nor too liquid, were the 
 more easily united to those which he added anew.’ 
 Now, it is a characteristic of s/ow-drying varnishes that 
 they dry exceedingly hard, and that, once dry , they are 
 altogether as difficult to dissolve. Properly speaking, 
 the N etscher varnish was not varnish at all. Any how, 
 a coat of brittle mastic, or common dirt, might be re- 
 moved from pictures so painted without risk. De’ 
 Piles is borne out by a practical view of the case. It 
 would have been simply impossible for Netscher to 
 have handled an almost inconceivably fine pencil if he 
 had employed a stubborn, quick-drying liquid to moisten 
 
29 
 
 his colours. Thus the danger in cleaning a picture which 
 * An Artist ’ fears is only contingent on certain condi- 
 tions. If a picture is varnished with the same varnish 
 as that used to complete the picture, then cleaning 
 would be dangerous indeed. Such instances would 
 form the rare exceptions, rather than the general rule. 
 Why are pictures almost always varnished with mastic ? 
 Not only to brighten the tints, and to preserve them 
 from dirt and atmospheric changes, but chiefly, as 
 every artist is aware, on account of the practicaiblity of 
 removing mastic from oil colours without their being 
 injured by the operation of the removal. The only 
 condition being that the oil colours shall have become 
 thoroughly hardened before the varnish is applied, in 
 order to prevent its too close incorporation with the 
 colours. 
 
 This varnish glaze theory was selected as the most 
 critical point for testing the possibility of picture clean- 
 ing ; and it can be confidently asserted that the diffi- 
 culty and risk said to attend the removal of varnish 
 from the surfaces of pictures do not present themselves 
 in those very pictures where risk is most to be expected 
 — to wit, in those of the Netscher class. 
 
 Few restorers will attempt to clean pictures not 
 originally intended to bear the necessary process. 
 Painters, with few exceptions, qualify their pictures for 
 such contingencies. There are some who have slighted 
 precautions of this kind ; but it has always been a 
 source of regret when fine pictures have been found 
 disqualified to undergo what must ever be considered 
 an essential operation — if the eye has to be gratified 
 and the understanding satisfied.* 
 
 * Author’s letter, Athenaeum , No. 1374. 
 
30 
 
 ‘ An Artist’ cites the current practice of the continent 
 in support of his varnish and colour ‘ glazing theory.’ 
 Thus, he says — ( It is well known that many pictures, 
 attributed, and justly too, to certain artists, were painted, 
 except this last glaze, by their pupils. This practice 
 prevails on the continent to the present day.’ ‘ An 
 Artist ’ further informs us that the performance of this 
 last glaze 1 Rubens or Delacroix would not think of 
 entrusting to his favourite eleve.’ One would certainly 
 conclude that the pupil who had accomplished all but 
 the final ‘ glaze ’ of a picture, and was then en- 
 trusted to add that, might justly lay claim to the entire 
 production. Is it reasonable to suppose that a master, 
 however expert, could take up the crude performance 
 of a pupil, and metamorphose it into a masterpiece by 
 the aid of varnish, into which ‘ a little transparent 
 colour has been infused?’ The fact is, the class of 
 goods referred to, being the joint work of master and 
 man, are commonly very well known, and very little 
 valued, by distinguished judges. As in Rembrandt’s 
 case, they are detected and condemned. Rubens was 
 not the artist to deprive a pupil of his rights. Animals, 
 landscapes, and still-life inserted in his pictures by con- 
 temporary painters, were always publicly ascribed to 
 those painters. So with Raphael. He alloted certain 
 compartments of work to pupils of suitable talent. 
 Thus in the Vatican, Polidoro had the friezes to exe- 
 cute. It is easy to charge great men with unjust prac- 
 tices. But the old masters are not likely to have much 
 followed a rule which could only have been unjust alike 
 to their patrons, their pupils, and to themselves. To 
 talk of the practice of ‘ the continent,’ is taking a wide 
 latitude, and seems to imply the possession of vast 
 information. This uniformity of practice in conti- 
 
nental studios we take to be of a piece with the country 
 bookbinder’s notion of uniformity, who, being re- 
 quested by a gentleman to bind a large number of 
 books in a uniform style, replied — ‘ Leave them to me, 
 sir ; and depend upon it there shall not be two alike.’ 
 
32 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 STANDARD, PICTURES. 
 
 fjpHE number, variety, and condition of pictures by 
 1 the old masters, would seem to leave no hope 
 ^ of accomplishing their classification ; but, in other 
 subjects of scientific inquiry, much greater difficulties 
 have been surmounted, and distinct departments pre- 
 scribed. What is wanted is an analysis and classifica- 
 tion of pictures for the use of the restorer, to the end 
 that he may proceed with his work with precision. 
 Hitherto, in the absence of such a guide, his opera- 
 tions have been too much at the mercy of chance. It 
 is quite possible to determine the peculiarities of certain 
 pictures which constitute them the representatives of a 
 class for the special purpose of the cleaner. As an il- 
 lustration we will take Backhuysen, who, as a painter 
 of sea pieces, ranks with Vandevelde. The difference 
 in quality of execution between these two painters is 
 not great, but they exhibit marked dissimilarity of 
 style. Both present the same subject effectively, but 
 by a different process, as respects the manner of laying 
 on the colours, and in the retention or rejection of 
 minutiae. Vandevelde delights in details, and prides 
 himself on his seamanship with all a sailor’s coquetry ; 
 he individualises the perfect model of a ship, defining 
 and elaborating, from his familiar recollections, more 
 than even a sailor’s eye can seize at a glance : he sup- 
 plies what distance would obscure, or storm and battle 
 confound and obliterate. Backhuysen, on the con- 
 trary, while he betrays no ignorance of a ship’s physi- 
 
33 
 
 ognomy, is content to realise the somewhat broader and 
 more prominent features of his subject. Backhuysen’s 
 ships roll heavily, and pitch deeply, and founder fear- 
 fully, in the gale or in battle. His pictures look 
 real, and full of motion. For richness of invention, 
 fulness, and completeness of effects, he rivals Vande- 
 velde. Yet, perfect as is the touch of Backhuysen, 
 and complete as are his effects ; in minute mechanical 
 dexterity of execution, and in delicacy of tint, he is 
 altogether exceeded by Vandevelde, who, as a portrait 
 painter of ocean life, has no rival. Vandevelde’s sea 
 pictures are, in a manner, so comprehensively expres- 
 sive, that they may be said to include all other pictures 
 of the kind. 
 
 The lesson to be derived from this comparison is, 
 that in cleaning pictures by these two masters, the dis- 
 tinctive method of working employed by Vandevelde 
 should be specially understood, for the reason that the 
 means and method which would safely clean a picture 
 by Backhuysen, would destroy a work by Vandevelde, 
 because of its greater delicacy and excessive minute- 
 ness. The process which would remove dirt from the 
 more delicate picture, would perhaps answer in all 
 respects for the bolder or coarser. It must be evident 
 that a general rule can be drawn for the practice of 
 restoration. In the instance of marine pictures, those 
 examples which contain the greatest amount of refine- 
 ment of execution in drawing, light, shade, and colour, 
 must be taken as the basis of study. A knowledge of 
 every picture to be operated upon is indispensable, and 
 this would be soonest attainable by the restorer making 
 himself thoroughly acquainted with the distinctive cha- 
 racter of the most intricate and perfect works of each 
 class. A knowledge of the works of Vandevelde 
 
 D 
 
34 
 
 would not suffice, perhaps, to qualify a restorer to 
 handle all other sea pictures ; but if choice were made 
 of one master’s works to serve as the groundwork of 
 investigation, perhaps no artist’s are better than Van- 
 develde’s for this purpose. 
 
 Take another example, of a somewhat opposite kind, 
 in the pictures of Rubens and Vandyke. It will be 
 inferred that the pictures of Vandyke should serve as 
 a study for a class of pictures painted on principles 
 taught by Rubens. Rubens describes the process of 
 laying on colours which he himself practised, thus : — 
 1 Begin by painting in your shadows lightly, taking par- 
 ticular care that no white is suffered to glide into them : 
 white is the poison of a picture, except in the lights ; 
 if once your shadows are corrupted by the introduction 
 of this baneful colour, your tones will no longer be 
 warm and transparent. It is not the same in the lights, 
 they may be loaded as much as you think proper; 
 provided the tones are kept pure, you are sure to suc- 
 ceed in placing each tint in its proper place, and after- 
 wards by a light blending of brush or pencil melting 
 them into each other, without tormenting them ; and on 
 this preparation may be given those decided touches 
 which are the distinguishing marks of a great master.’ 
 
 The effects of these instructions may be traced in the 
 works of Rubens’ best pupil, Vandyke. The master 
 furnished the style, the pupil perfected it ; the master 
 drew the fearless and flowing outline, the pupil, in his 
 works, corrected it of some of its extravagances. A 
 similar distinction may be seen in the colouring of the 
 two painters ; Vandyke (for his great works) spread 
 his palette with the same colours as Rubens, laid on 
 the tints by the same process, but more sparingly, 
 using a smaller pencil, giving them the same pure, un- 
 
35 
 
 sullied look, never ‘ breaking ’ nor 1 torturing ’ them ; 
 every touch right to its purpose. The rule to be drawn 
 from a knowledge of these two painters is the same as 
 that drawn from Backhuysen and Vandevelde — i. e. y 
 the necessity of an acquaintance with the most intri- 
 cate and delicate pictures of each class. The process 
 that would clean a picture by Rubens might ruin a 
 picture by Vandyke, but the hand that has touched 
 Vandyke without injury, will ‘ restore ’ Rubens without 
 danger. 
 
 Admitted the restorer should be guided in his ope- 
 rations by the study of set standards from each class of 
 pictures, selected on the principle described, the diffi- 
 culty of deciding on the proper picture would be very 
 trifling. A little reflection would convince us that 
 Adrian Ostade would include a host of Dutch painters 
 of his class, from Isaac Ostade downwards. Even 
 Teniers might be included in this class, for the simple , 
 reason that Teniers had a firmer, broader, and more 
 durable touch than Adrian Ostade; in other words, 
 that one touch of the pencil by Teniers towards de- 
 scribing a boor’s face, would do the work of a score of 
 small touches by Adrian Ostade. Now, though the 
 effective single touch of the one might be worth the 
 other’s score, it would be twenty times more critical a 
 task (in the process of cleaning) to ensure the safety of 
 the more minute and intricate treatment. For the 
 restorer to reckon a score of minute touches by Ostade 
 to one dash of Teniers’ brush would save from harm 
 the works of the one and doubly preserve those of the 
 other. It would be better to reckon four score touches 
 to Ostade than to under estimate the number. It is the 
 more necessary to do this, as the finer the touch the 
 more likely it is to be disturbed, not only from its 
 d 2 
 
36 
 
 smallness, but also because the colour is laid on thinner 
 for fine articulations than for more decisive penciling. 
 
 No matter what the class of pictures under treatment 
 by the restorer, their safety can only be ensured by a 
 full apprehension of the painter’s peculiar genius and 
 distinctive manipulation. If this be admitted of the 
 sort of pictures referred to, which appeal for the most 
 part to the senses only, how much more emphatically 
 true is it of those works which appeal to the under- 
 standing ? If there be danger, from ignorance, in the 
 treatment of the works we have cited, how much 
 greater must the danger be when the works of a 
 Raphael are at stake? Those who have only tried 
 their hands in the restoration of a Rubens, Vandyke, 
 Teniers, or Ostade, would be very little in the secret of 
 the rare qualities which raise the Italian so far above 
 the Flemish and Dutch painters as to reduce them, by 
 comparison, to mere caricaturists. 
 
37 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Vandyke’s process of working. 
 
 j|N common with the school of Rubens, Vandyke 
 w commenced his pictures by painting in the shadows 
 ® of a transparent brown colour, on a ground of a 
 whitish brown tint. The restorer has reason to note 
 this first transparent wash with as much solicitude as 
 any other part of the process by which the picture was 
 completed. Vandyke’s most valued works are those 
 which are most transparent in the shadows; and he 
 commanded this excellent quality by working up the 
 dark parts of the picture before he supplied the lighter. 
 He never confounded them ; each had its alloted 
 place, subject to distinct and separate treatment. When 
 the picture was completed, the first shadowings were to 
 be seen in every part of the representation. Thus, for 
 instance, in the trunk of a hollow tree, the moss, or 
 loose pieces of bark, would be loaded with full layers 
 of body colour, according as they were more or less 
 in the light; while the dark, hollow fissures would 
 present nothing but the transparent wash, more or less 
 visible as the nature of the subject required. 
 
 Why Vandyke’s shadows require so much attention, 
 is owing to their being composed of a thin dark colour, 
 on a light ground, which is easily rubbed off. The 
 fear is, that while cleaning the face, the shadows of 
 the hair, eyes, nose, lips, chin, and ears, may be rubbed 
 and impoverished. This invariably happens when the 
 inexperienced attempt to clean pictures of this class. 
 If they try a portion of a picture by way of experi- 
 
38 
 
 ment, it is usually some light part ; successful there, 
 they conclude all is right, proceed indiscriminately 
 with the rest ; and so the shadows, which are the chief 
 cause of the brilliancy of the colours, vanish in an 
 instant. In lieu of the intelligent -life-like face, nothing 
 remains hut an empty and meaningless mask, the mere 
 ghost of the departed picture. 
 
 It is the peculiar transparency in Vandyke’s shadows 
 that prevents his best works from being successfully 
 copied. Copies may be known by the absence of this 
 quality. Vandyke calculated the process of the picture 
 from first to last, and estimated the effect of every 
 touch. The power to do this seldom or never belongs 
 to the copyist. 
 
 The English landscape painter who delights in pic- 
 turing the pebbled brook, with its fringe of hawthorn 
 and willow, with its sunlit, chequered surface teeming 
 with flowers, very soon learns by experience that he 
 cannot produce on canvas the effects which he sees, 
 but by securing transparent shadows. The lily, that 
 glows and appears so pure while resting on the bosom 
 of the water, if plucked and laid upon an opaque sur- 
 face, loses its pure and glowing tenderness. So it is 
 with the light opaque tints of a picture ; unless they 
 have a foil in shadows of an opposite quality, they 
 never appear fresh and beautiful. However the unini- 
 tiated may pass them by, the artist cannot be too mind- 
 ful of the shaded parts of his picture. The bright or 
 light parts of natural objects appear to fix the whole 
 attention of the uncultivated, who give to the quiet 
 portions, or the shadows, little consideration. Careless 
 observers do not note that, in fine pictures, shadows 
 are of several kinds, transparent or not, according to 
 the nature of the object shaded ; and that they are of 
 
39 
 
 many degrees of darkness, and of various colours; 
 that they are ruled by regular laws, and subject to nu- 
 merous irregularities, in respect to tone and colour, 
 and the fluctuation of lights and changing hues re- 
 flected from surrounding objects. To the uninitiated, 
 there is a dark side of the picture and a light side of 
 the picture, simply. From such, the light side attracts 
 the greatest share of attention, merely because it usu- 
 ally displays the most attractive colours and the chief 
 portion of the subject, not because there is most art in 
 that part of the picture — not because the artist sur- 
 mounted the greatest difficulties in the brighter half of 
 the scene; for, although less noted by ordinary ob- 
 servers, the shadows in high-class pictures are the result 
 of infinite pains. To the management of the shadows 
 every form is indebted for its relief, and every colour 
 for its variety, force, and lustre. The shadows of a 
 picture by Correggio might become many degrees 
 darker, the fainter ones be altogether obliterated, and 
 few would detect the absence and loss of them ; but if 
 a decided defect, a blot or a stain, however small, 
 existed in any of the light parts, a child would almost 
 discover it. If a person, indifferently conversant with 
 art, wishes to trace the merits of a picture, he fixes his 
 attention on the lights, and never considers the shadows. 
 If an uninformed person attempt to clean a picture, the 
 dark parts are probably either deemed inconsiderable, 
 and escape unmolested, or get removed, especially if 
 they be of that transparent, luminous, space-creating 
 kind just now referred to, as peculiarly excellent in the 
 works of Vandyke. 
 
 Rich stuffs, which make up the draperies in some of 
 this master's compositions, owe their intense beauty, 
 variety of colour, and reflections, to washings of trans- 
 
40 
 
 parent colour, the one over the other, repeated until the 
 depth and various degrees of richness were obtained. 
 These washes of transparent colour sometimes extended 
 even to the flesh. It is necessary to consider these 
 glazings attentively, for they are not less susceptible of 
 injury than the shadows first laid on, being produced 
 by an exactly similar process. 
 
 The next portions of the picture to be considered 
 are the greys, or the transition lights of the flesh. In 
 a portrait of Charles the First, Vandyke furnished a 
 very perfect example of the management of these 
 lights. In this instance, beside breaking the sharp- 
 edged angle, and blending the forehead into the half 
 shadows of the temple, the grey lights also serve by 
 contrast to give an additional beauty to the flesh tints. 
 
 These grey lights are given in Vandyke’s works 
 with great precision, and form a distinct and peculiar 
 feature in the school of Rubens. In Vandyke they 
 are most delicate, and are very evident upon close 
 inspection, but soften to the eye when the picture is 
 seen from a proper distance, whence they have all the 
 appearance of real lights, such as (under happy cir- 
 cumstances) the cultivated eye detects in natural ob- 
 jects. 
 
 With the transition lights may be included those 
 reflected ones, which are certain almost imperceptible 
 illuminated parts relieving the objects from the back- 
 ground, as on the dark side of the face where it melts 
 into the space beyond. 
 
 We have asserted that Vandyke’s execution, in large 
 works, resembled his master’s. The pupil, how- 
 ever, not unfrequently relied on the use of the 
 ‘ softener.’ He knew how to blend or caress his tints 
 into harmony, without hazarding their purity. Fu- 
 
41 
 
 selli, speaking of the management of the palette, says 
 — ‘ Two colours make a tint; three, mud/ Vandyke 
 knew this, and avoided the evil. It was only in the 
 portraits of fair women that he seems to have thought 
 a soft texture an indispensable refinement. In thus 
 much, then, he differs from Rubens, whom he excels 
 in a certain melting tenderness imparted to his colours. 
 
 The works of Rubens and Vandyke are like similar 
 flowers of different culture. Those of Rubens grow- 
 ing in the open air and sunlight, bold, masculine, and 
 strong ; those of Vandyke forced beneath glass by 
 artificial heat, fragile, slender, and graceful. The 
 same structure is in both — the difference is only one of 
 development. Nothing is more obvious than the ne- 
 cessity of being specially mindful of the more delicate, 
 so that in a general calculation those pictures most 
 susceptible of injury (as Vandyke’s in the school of 
 Rubens) may be most cared for. 
 
 Vandyke has been described as working with cer- 
 tainty and niceness of calculation, with a consciousness 
 of certain results from a consistent process ; yet even 
 he, on the completion of a picture, found it necessary 
 to revise and retouch minute particulars omitted in the 
 regular process. The restorer should always assume 
 the existence of these small concluding touches. They 
 are small but important corrections, niceties of expres- 
 sion suggested by after reflections, minute particulari- 
 sations necessary to definiteness or to break anything 
 too marked — in fact, critical retouchings. In contem- 
 plating a picture by Vandyke, the spectator does not 
 perceive (it was not intended that he should) a thou- 
 sand nice discriminating points in every feature — in 
 ey e, nose, mouth, and chin ; not only to make each 
 perfect in itself, but chiefly to harmonise the whole. 
 
42 
 
 All this after care was essential to satisfy the connois- 
 seur, the physiognomist, the artist, and the anatomist — 
 to define all differences of age and sex, and the various 
 peculiarities of character, and the qualities of human 
 nature. 
 
 Some would suggest that it were better to make 
 Rembrandt, as the greatest artist of shadow painting, 
 the master whose works should form the basis of these 
 remarks ; but it has been thought necessary to ask for 
 that painter a separate place in the consideration of the 
 restorer. The works of Rembrandt demand to be 
 objects of special contemplation, and to be studied one 
 by one, apart. Each is a distinct drama, self-con- 
 tained. 
 
43 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 SPECIAL CASES FROM REMBRANDT. 
 
 jjT is often thought surprising that the works of the 
 H barbarous Fleming should rank in the connoisseur’s 
 * estimation almost as high as the works of the learned 
 and graceful Raphael; yet we are much deceived if 
 any painter has done more for the triumph of his art 
 than this grand and solitary miller’s son. His pencil 
 recognised the meanest things, and glorified the rags 
 and tatters of the vilest outcast. The vulgar, the 
 hideous, and the repulsive, touched by his pencil, 
 became eloquent and impressive. Misery, vice and 
 crime, desolation and violence, found a ready access to 
 the serene cabinets of the wealthy and refined. The 
 dens of infamy, the haunts of squalor, nay, the horrors 
 of the tomb, even the putrefying corpse, tortured and 
 warped by disease, endowed with a new life and light 
 by the genius of Rembrandt, came to be the delight of 
 palaces, and to exact the homage of Europe. 
 
 A heap of stones and a solitary, limping mendicant, 
 painted on a few square inches of wood, will be an 
 object of competition ; collectors swarm around, covet 
 it, and become as children in their unaffected admira- 
 tion. No word escapes them touching the choice of 
 subject, no one regrets its meanness, no one believes it 
 mean. , Such vagabonds as Rembrandt paints, the 
 critics shun in the streets. Every sense is offended by 
 the reality, and yet every beholder is charmed by the 
 transcript. Wherein, then, is this magic which enables 
 the painter so to win the homage of the fastidious ? 
 
44 
 
 Rembrandt’s beggars, culprits, and executioners, have 
 the lineaments of the unmitigated realities they picture. 
 Guilt, cunning, avarice, and infamy, are stereotyped 
 in every line of the face. Were they alive, we should 
 turn aside, nor suffer them to start up in our paths, 
 infest our streets, and prowl about our homes. Living, 
 they baffle the intelligent, and overawe the proud ; but 
 in the pictures of Rembrandt they captivate and charm. 
 What transformation have these objects undergone at 
 the painter’s hands that they appeal to sight with all 
 this fascination ? The choice of subject certainly cost 
 the painter no effort, but his whole art was exhausted 
 in the setting, in making it effective, in rendering it 
 dramatic in the fullest sense of that term. 
 
 The art of Rembrandt, considered in respect to 
 design, consists in giving to each character of his 
 selection the lineaments that truly belong to it. His 
 lines go home to the truth ; they express all, and no 
 more ; they never exaggerate. If they are forcible, it 
 is because they are accurate. If the forms they deli- 
 neate are hideous, it is because the models were 
 deformed ; if they lack beauty and gracefulness, it is 
 because the sitters whom the artist affectioned, excelled 
 in ugliness. It is the same with his colours. They 
 are all truth, uncompromising truth. The flesh looks 
 like flesh, and nothing else beside. You need no 
 simile to explain what his colouring is like. Fix upon 
 the local colours of any object, take into consideration 
 the sort of light in which they are seen, and they are 
 truthful to a shade. They are always vivid, never 
 staring. He knew the precise degree in which the 
 contrast of opposing tints was to be risked, when it 
 produced variety and force, and when its results were 
 confusion and vulgarity. He could give tangible 
 
45 
 
 existence to the fleeting hues and transient effects of 
 light and darkness, with as much ease as ordinary 
 Dutch painters transcribed the appearance of fixed 
 objects. He revelled like an adept in the shadows of 
 the night, peered wistfully into the solemn darkness, 
 and drew order and system out of the portentous chaos. 
 By the blaze of torch, or the wavering embers, he saw 
 in the profound gloom immensity of space. And 
 whatever of interest or of wonder the eye compre- 
 hended, the hand as readily expressed. 
 
 The chief works of the Roman school may be com- 
 pared to the rare books which occasionally issue from 
 our universities. It is the good fortune of the few to 
 appreciate the refinement of essays, uniting at once 
 genius and fine scholarship. The best models in 
 ancient literature are digested by the classic author of 
 to-day in precisely the same spirit in which Raphael 
 might have contemplated the choice statues and medal- 
 lions of antiquity. To these Raphael owed the majesty 
 and gracefulness of his designs. Whoever would fully 
 realise the wonderful efforts of his pencil must, to 
 some extent, qualify himself by an appropriate course 
 of study. The same models which adorned the studio 
 of the painter, and the same books which suggested 
 the subjects of his noble compositions, now exist within 
 the reach of all. Hence it would be nothing extra- 
 ordinary if the prince of painters came to be more and 
 more appreciated and reverenced as the multitude shall 
 become better informed on the principles of ancient 
 art. But what shall we say of Rembrandt, whose 
 works are not referable, in the same way, to widely 
 accepted standards ? We do not hesitate to assert that 
 the time will come when his genius will be recognised 
 
46 
 
 as legitimate, just as the once erratic comet has become 
 recognised amid the orderly phenomena of the celestial 
 system. There are a class of painters whose works, 
 while not remarkable for very great defects, are neither 
 possessed of very striking excellencies. These will 
 pass away, while Rembrandt, with all his faults and 
 disregard of ‘ proprieties,’ will live by virtue of his 
 incomparable and inherent beauties. 
 
 Look at that small, and, at first glance, insignificant, 
 picture entitled ‘ J acob’s Dream.’ From the rude heap 
 on which the travel-worn son of Isaac sleeps, up through 
 the opening in the amber clouds, seems to reach away 
 into illimitable distance, a road from earth to heaven, 
 paved with glowing gems. The sleeper is utterly 
 wanting in dignity, a mere pedlar in hob-nailed boots ; 
 the angels are faintly sketched in, with ragged wings, 
 mere specks, only distinguishable from the varied 
 shapes of the clouds, which form the interminable 
 archway through the sky. A tranquil light shuts out 
 the gloom, and breathes warmth upon the brief space 
 around the wanderer’s pillow, making that dreary wil- 
 derness a smiling nook of rest. 
 
 Nor was Rembrandt less potent when, at his spell, 
 the calm, sunless daylight flooded his canvas with 
 tranquility. Witness that master work of his at the 
 Hague. The livid-pale corpse and passionless coun- 
 tenances of the physicians, once beheld in their awful 
 solemnity, are never more forgotten. The blank stone 
 slabs, dark with the presence of the living, seem like 
 the tomb and shadowy pall of the departed. And 
 those doctors ! Life-blood sparkles in their veins ; 
 their eyes are deep and full of thought, and lustrous as 
 the diamond’s blaze. The clay-cold dead is as a tablet. 
 
47 
 
 on which may be read the sufferings of the living man. 
 Every vein and artery, in dismal hieroglyphics, pro- 
 claims a history of sorrow and of anguish. 
 
 Turning to a more homely scene. Here, on the 
 banks of the Skeldt, a solitary hut is reared, protected 
 by a few stunted, weather-beaten trees. Daylight yet 
 lingers on the quaint and friendless home, mingling 
 with the glowin'g warmth which issues from the half- 
 open door, and glistens on the clean threshold and on 
 the porch. A venerable dame, with wrinkled face, is 
 there. You almost hear her footfall as she moves 
 over the crisp, dry sand. Drearily and forebodingly 
 she comes to steal a last furtive glance over the scene, 
 prior to shutting out the night. As the eye tracks its 
 way along the cheerless shore, broad, massive clouds 
 of luminous, pitchy blackness are visible, gathering all 
 around, and one long streak of lightning rends the 
 gloom, which shrouds the murky sky, and quivers on 
 the sullen waters, unbroken by dot, or speck, or sign of 
 living thing. 
 
 Sometimes he reminds us of the sombre and tragic 
 genius of Christopher Marlowe. The light from the 
 horizon is withdrawn ; the robbers, equipped and 
 abroad, are ready for their prey. The flicker of the 
 traveller’s torch, an unconscious traitor, betrays its 
 bearer to the eye of the chief, who awaits, in gloomy 
 patience, his victim’s approach. This is the moment 
 the painter has seized. The scowling crew, in all the 
 mummery of antique garb, savage gesture, and imple- 
 ments of death, stand out in terrible relief. The tall 
 chief, with grizzly beard, keenly parted lips, and lour- 
 ing eye, overshadowed by ample brim and dusky 
 plume, plants his gaunt figure in the front ; the rest, 
 in straggling groups, fall into the background, and 
 
48 
 
 gather into dark and threatening clusters — the more 
 remote like jagged rocks which the imagination shapes 
 into demons. A lurid vapour closes in the spot, half 
 revealing a narrow gorge the eye seeks to penetrate in 
 vain. There seems no limit to the scene, which, like 
 the Valley of the Shadow of Death, is full of horrors. 
 
49 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 AN IDEAL PROCESS OF PAINTING. 
 
 S UPPOSE for a moment we have the privilege of 
 observing a' superior artist at his work. A vase of 
 flowers just brought in from the garden, with all the 
 freshness of the morning on the buds, leaves, and blos- 
 soms — roses, white and red ; hyacinths, white, purple, 
 and pink ; soft, rich, deep-tinted African marigolds ; 
 and tall tulips, pure white, and striped with crimson 
 and scarlet, and petals dusted with gold. Children 
 sporting with a goat are delicately sculptured on the 
 vase. The painter has completed his outline. The 
 lines are faintly indicated, so as to be just perceptible ; 
 being first drawn on a sheet of thin paper, and traced 
 through with a needle on to a panel as smooth and 
 white as the paper itself. 
 
 Spreading his palette with pure white and lamp 
 black, finely ground, and selecting a few good sable 
 pencils, the painter proceeds to relieve by shadows the 
 vase, slab, and flowers, from the flat surface. He 
 accomplishes this with great nicety by the admixture 
 of black and white ; realising in form and texture 
 every fine distinction of character which the various 
 subjects present, and doing this so effectively that even 
 the practised eye could scarcely detect an oversight or 
 inaccuracy in the transcript. If it were possible to 
 metamorphose the realities of the variegated flowers, 
 marble slab, and antique vase into forms of driven 
 snow, then would the representation bear strict resem- 
 blance to the original objects ; soft, delicate shadows, 
 
 E 
 
50 
 
 and every graceful and various quality having been 
 rendered in perfect unison. Satisfied with his work 
 thus far, the artist next arranges his light from the 
 window of the studio, so as to let a sunbeam fall upon 
 the prominent objects of the group. The change in 
 the light makes it necessary to pass a tender shadow 
 across the picture, so as to leave those parts on which 
 the sunbeam falls, the lighter by comparison. This 
 management of the shadows is a refinement which may 
 be pursued to a very intricate degree, but in this in- 
 stance the track of sunlight would produce an effect 
 simple to imagine. We observe some flowers in 
 splendour, and others quiet, cool, and retired. The 
 vase of flowers is placed just within the opening of a 
 second chamber, which has only so much cool light 
 diffused over it as serves to make the darkness visible, 
 and this space forms a very effective and soft back- 
 ground, an even contrast, neither too abrupt nor too 
 dark. By this arrangement the whole group is re- 
 lieved with great force and distinctness. The warm 
 light searches the inmost depths of the open flowers, 
 and peers through every little crevice, filling some 
 with radiance, and fringing others with gold. Swarms 
 of insects are seen sporting about, with fiery coats and 
 wings of various hues, from the fierce and gorgeous 
 dragon-fly to the minute ant ; and fresh, pearly drops 
 of dew, fresh as if just fallen from the sky to disappear 
 with the opening day, hang here and there, nestle in 
 the bosom of the rose, glide down the satin surface of 
 the tulip, and drop on the cool, polished marble below, 
 mingling with the mingled colours reflected from 
 above. Each water drop is a little mirror, imaging 
 in little something that is near it; each flower, borrow- 
 ing a tint from its neighbour, yields its own tint in 
 
51 
 
 return ; the white rose looks more tender and more in- 
 tense beside the hyacinth’s deep blue, and the rich rose 
 reflects its crimson blushes all around. 
 
 The painter has succeeded in denoting the various 
 forms composing his subject, in black and white. As 
 at the commencement of the work he devoted his 
 attention to the distinguishing characteristics of each 
 particular form, so now, in the same methodical 
 manner, he proceeds to particularise each colour and 
 its variations. Thus the rose has three or six shades 
 of colour in its blossoms, from the whitish divisions of 
 the young buds to the deep clefts of the mature flowers. 
 The same transparent lake or carmine serves for all ; 
 for he commences with the faintest blush, and then 
 deepens each tint in succession down to the darkest 
 crimson. This process is repeated for every flower 
 and object in the picture. The most subtle tint is thus 
 obtained, whether of blue, yellow, green, or red, includ- 
 ing the reflected hues. The treatment which serves 
 for the rose, serves also for the hyacinth, marigold, tulip, 
 and even the smallest leaf or stalk. Thus the utmost 
 purity, freshness, richness, depth, brightness, transpa- 
 rency, and truth are ensured. The painter, having 
 first secured the true colour of each object — that is, its 
 colour before receiving reflections — reserves the re- 
 flected hues for after consideration. The purple which 
 the rose attracts from the hyacinth at its side, is 
 obtained by a faint wash of blue, thus changing the 
 tint, with every hue throughout. When the local 
 colours and accidental tints are completed, the point- 
 ing is proceeded with. The borders of the flowers and 
 edges of the leaves are tipped with sunlight, which 
 also sparkles on the insects, and gives a central light 
 to the smooth stalks. Those parts which are of a heavy 
 e 2 
 
$2 
 
 dead texture, not reflecting light, require retouching 
 with opaque colour to distinguish them from the trans- 
 parent. 
 
 All these beautiful and various effects John Van 
 Huysum could imitate so closely that the imitation 
 seemed to have ‘ motion and life, and almost an odour/ 
 Whoever feels a pleasure (and who does not?) in 
 gazing at nature’s loveliest and most innocent creations 
 - — ‘ a group of beautiful flowers — will readily allow 
 that to look on a picture by John Van Huysum is 
 the next best thing.’ There is a feeling so happy in 
 his conceptions of flowers, selected and disposed with 
 the nicest susceptibility to their gentlest influences! 
 He gives to each particular flower, bud, and plant its 
 peculiar character, unruffled by accident. With pro- 
 fusion there is no repletion ; grace and simplicity are 
 everywhere. 
 
 It may be said that the process of painting a picture 
 after the method particularised has never been pursued 
 — that neither Van Huysum, Mignon, De Heem, nor 
 Baptiste, in fact, pursued such a process ; nay, that 
 these painters worked to perfection by means quite 
 different — that their works are more natural, solid, and 
 durable than they would have been if so painted. The 
 writer has seen a picture by Yan Huysum in a half- 
 effaced condition, painted on a white ground, in which 
 the tulips and roses were first perfectly formed in 
 white and black. The more elaborate works of Yan 
 Huysum were thus worked up. Pictures painted in 
 this manner are very susceptible of injury, owing to 
 the extreme delicacy and thinness of the finishing 
 transparent colours. For this reason it has been 
 thought that a thorough acquaintance with the nature 
 of a picture so hazardous to treat, would be the best 
 
53 
 
 standard to fix in the mind. There would be risk of des- 
 troying every beauty in a picture by Van Huysum by use 
 of solvents which might be safely employed in restoring 
 a picture by Baptiste. In a flower-piece by Van Huy- 
 sum, the faint and scarcely-perceptible blush on the 
 rose is almost as transient as a reflected hue. It is the 
 sensitive eye alone that would be conscious of its pre- 
 sence, and only the delicatest handling that could 
 venture on its surface. In a similar subject by Bap- 
 tiste, the corresponding tints would not, as in Yan 
 Huysum, be produced by a transparent wash, but by 
 opaque colour, which the ordinary eye could not resist, 
 nor the ordinary handling endanger. 
 
54 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 IDIOSYNCRACIES OF PICTURE PROPRIETORS. 
 
 P ICTURE criticisms, by so many deemed matters 
 of capricious taste, might become instructive, if 
 definite rules once aided the judgment ; for art is 
 no exception to the law, that interest, appreciation, and 
 refinement, come *vith the understanding. Compare 
 the remarks of three or four bystanders on any given 
 picture. If the observers are ignorant of the theory 
 and practice of painting, they will exhibit great and 
 perplexing contradictions of opinion ; but, in propor- 
 tion as they happen to be informed of the means and 
 method by which the picture was produced, and of the 
 peculiarities of the master’s school, the darkness clears 
 up, principles begin to appear, criticism grows intelli- 
 gent, and common agreements are manifested. Thus 
 it is with all ordinary questions of science and art, and 
 thus it will be with the art of painting, when the value 
 of right rules and principles shall be properly regarded. 
 
 The lines of Pope are specially applicable to those 
 who judge lightly of the character and works of an 
 old painter : — 
 
 ‘ Religion, country, genius of his age — 
 
 Without all these at once before your eyes, 
 
 Cavil you may, but never criticise. , 
 
 The pedantic condemn pictures for such anachron- 
 isms as that of the painter having put fire-arms into 
 the hands of historical personages who lived a few 
 centuries before the invention of gunpowder — a kind 
 of fault frequently found in the best executed pictures. 
 
55 
 
 Anatomists set aside those productions of the pencil 
 which, in the markings of the muscles, would ill serve 
 the purposes of the medical student. Picture posses- 
 sors, sensitive with respect to colours, pronounce one 
 picture too blue, another too yellow, a third too red ; 
 others have a difficulty in seeing anything distinctly, 
 and, consequently, condemn three pictures out of four 
 as too black, and admire the worst performances solely 
 for their glaring intelligibility. Some, who happen 
 to be near-sighted, prefer small cabinet pieces on ac- 
 count of their minuteness. Others favour only broad 
 generalities, and care for nothing in particular. Some 
 note each separate flower in the hedge-row, and stoop 
 to take the number of blades of grass. Others take 
 things in the mass, and see and feel but the presence of 
 mountain, flood, and valley. There are some who see 
 vulgarity in bright colours, and others give the prefer- 
 ence to brown, quiet pictures. Others revel in sunshine, 
 purple, and gold, and turn from sombre objects with in- 
 stinctive dislike. There is every conceivable difference 
 in the liking and disliking of subjects. Some have 
 all their sympathies with animals, others (at various 
 periods) with still life, fish, flesh, fowl, or fruit, flowers, 
 insects, and shells. Some delight in marine pictures, 
 others in the march of armies. Some are disposed to 
 reflect on religious pictures, and others rejoice in festive 
 scenes. Here one consults the canvas for historic 
 truths, and values the common-place and the actual ; 
 there one ponders over the mysterious allegory, which 
 delights him the more because it is obscure. Another 
 cause of dislike, or indifference, to some pictures, is the 
 disposition on the part of many collectors to determine 
 upon ideals of face and form: making no allowance 
 for the national, religious, or moral bias of the painter, 
 
56 
 
 they find fault with all works which do not answer to 
 their preconceived notions. Thus the glowing groups 
 of Venetian masters yield infinitely more satisfaction 
 to some than the simple and graceful beings of Raphael, 
 or the severe and energetic forms of Angelo. In these 
 latter times, there is a great demand for mere pretti- 
 ness. This is carried so far, that the lines of divine 
 intelligence in woman’s countenance (so foppery wills 
 it) challenge disrespect rather than admiration, so 
 that the Sybils themselves scarcely escape contempt. 
 Whereas there are a select few whose predilections 
 favour the ugly and monstrous ; and with them every 
 conceivable abortion comes, very consistently, under 
 the head of the graphic or picturesque. Pursuing 
 this theory, it has even been urged in print that faces 
 on which the small-pox has left its indelible marks, are 
 more delightful than those which rival in texture the 
 smoothest alabaster. Then there is that feeling of vir- 
 tuous indignation levelled against pictures conceived to 
 have an immoral tendency. These find no sympathy 
 with those who renounce the flesh in the thorough- 
 going fashion. Cumberland relates how famous pic- 
 tures of this order have been prized or condemned by 
 turns, as the fit was on, in the Spanish dominions. A 
 pious princess once caused several pictures of this class 
 to be cut in pieces. Heine relates that a Quaker, hav- 
 ing taken fright at a work by Giulio Romano, spent a 
 fortune in its purchase, in order to have the pleasure 
 of burning it. This fanaticism exists to a dangerous 
 extent. Yet even in this delicate department of con- 
 noisseurship, we meet with a discriminating liberality 
 which tolerates the class of pictures referred to, and 
 admires the artist when it cannot justify the man. 
 
 There exist a class of people to whom the old 
 
57 
 
 masters of painting are as nought — for whom the walls 
 of the Vatican have no sort of interest — for whom the 
 gorgeous views of Venice offer no allurements — those 
 who can regard, unmoved, the women and children of 
 Murillo — to whom the courtly women of Vandyke 
 appear cold and meaningless. Vandyke (writes a 
 famous American authoress) * awakens no emotion 
 and of the great Flemish artist, Rubens, the same 
 amiable lady exclaims, ‘ his pictures I detest with all 
 the energy of my soul.’ 
 
 Whole galleries of fine pictures have perished of 
 neglect, arising from an utter indifference to their 
 beauties and ignorance of their worth. It is easier to 
 understand such a state of things in private families, 
 than in public bodies. Pictures bought by and for the 
 public for daily contemplation, ought to be made an 
 example of precaution, which private owners and col- 
 lectors might follow. For it is too true that here and 
 there the sense of responsibility is dead as regards the 
 preservation of the works of genius, which are in their 
 royal nature a legacy to the nation in which they exist, 
 and to the inhabitants of successive ages. 
 
 All these differences of judgment and feeling, with 
 respect to pictures, exist, and owners of pictures so 
 variously disposed may be commonly met with. The 
 fact is, people come to possess pictures through acci- 
 dental circumstances ; and it is an equally contingent 
 circumstance if they happen to understand them, care 
 for them, or know how to treat them. These eccen- 
 tricities and intolerances will always militate against 
 art until a catholic spirit, the true sentiment of art, 
 becomes universal. 
 
58 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 PROFESSIONAL ADVISERS. 
 
 T HE connoisseur should never be compelled to 
 follow, unconditionally, the dictum of others re- 
 specting the requirements of his pictures. If he 
 consult a number of eminent painters, as to the condi- 
 tion of his pictures, they will probably indulge in vague 
 generalities about art, with very insufficient reference 
 to the peculiarities of the pictures in question. Painters, 
 for the most part, are too much taken up with their 
 own productions, to enter into a minute particularisa- 
 tion of the works of others. Indeed, it could be 
 shown, by a general reference to the best pictures of 
 the English school, that even the ablest of its masters 
 have paid little or no attention to pictures with respect 
 to their preservation and durability. All lovers of art 
 regret the present condition of the chief works of Sir 
 Joshua Reynolds, to which may be added many of 
 Romney’s, nearly the whole of Hopner’s, and even 
 some of the best portraits by Sir Thomas Lawrence. 
 The contempt of chemical laws in the founders of the 
 English school is much to be wondered at; but the 
 continued neglect by most living artists of a study so 
 eminently called for, is without excuse. Painters of 
 the present day seem to vie with each other in a reck- 
 less use of materials, which cannot be expected to last 
 more than a few years. Moreover, painters strictly 
 confine themselves to favourite styles. Paletteknife, 
 for instance, plasters on the colour in heaps. He has 
 an extraordinary liking for the picturesque — such as 
 
59 
 
 dark lanes, ruined edifices, and wild, barren, deserted 
 places. He has no rival in the art of rendering ragged 
 and jagged appearances of nature. He most delights 
 in the disordered and unaccountable ; and the choice of 
 subject seems to have dictated to him the choice of 
 style, and to have made it necessary for him to employ 
 a trowel, where artists of the old schools used pencils. 
 Paletteknife’s peculiar taste, moreover, induces him to 
 look with contempt on the works of those old painters 
 who delighted in rendering common objects in a 
 common-place manner. He thinks those four pictures 
 by Greemer representing the ‘ Seasons/ very absurd 
 productions. The churches, cottages, and trees, in 
 which you may count every brick, stone, tile, and leaf, 
 together with the crowds of people, dressed as they 
 were in Greemer’ s time, and occupied, according to 
 their respective stations in life, and in such matters as 
 the particular season or time of day would seem to 
 call for, he gazes at as minor details, insignificant facts, 
 unworthy the notice of an artist and a poet. Then 
 what interest can there possibly be found in those stark- 
 stiff’ saints, by Albert Hurer ? On the other hand (to 
 show that there is not always unanimity of feeling in 
 artists), Camelhair is in downright ecstacies with pains- 
 taking, plodding Greemer, and begs of the fortunate 
 owner the liberty to make a copy of the German 
 master-piece, vowing he never contemplated so rare a 
 specimen before. Paletteknife can only attribute the 
 choice of pictures made by his friend to sheer affecta- 
 tion. Camelhair, in return, bestows a look of despair 
 on his reckless brother, who, despising the examples of 
 the early masters of painting, has struck out an entirely 
 new walk of art, expressly for himself. 
 
 Surely the connoisseur, consulting two painters of 
 
60 
 
 such opposite tendencies, with the desire of obtaining 
 information upon the condition of a mixed collection 
 of pictures, would be disappointed. One produces a 
 score of sheep with as many evolutions of the elbow, 
 and trusts to accidental splashes of colour for the rest; the 
 other bestows a month in the elaboration of a wisp of 
 hay, and thinks Gerard Dow must have laboured under 
 excitement when he painted the handle of a besom in 
 four days. Therefore it is that they never agree about 
 anything in connection with art, though in most other 
 matters they seldom differ. Then there is our famous 
 colourist, who, on being consulted about anything con- 
 nected with old paintings, immediately commences a 
 rhapsody about those famous masters, Giorgione and 
 Titian, interspersed with praises of the great Fleming. 
 Colour, especially Venetian colour, is our modern Tin- 
 toretto’s forte ; he has a passion for colour ; hig hap- 
 piest thoughts are all in Venice, whose painters are the 
 sources of his inspiration. All other cities, and all 
 other painters (excepting the great Fleming), are to 
 him of no consideration. Even when his favourite 
 masters are at stake, he is somewhat too vague, and 
 his observations seldom have that closeness necessary 
 for practical purposes. Should the lover of the old 
 masters consult the great modern landscape painter, the 
 ‘ prophet of Nature/ as he has been termed, one can 
 hardly conceive it possible that he would condescend to 
 answer trifling questions about damaged pictures of low 
 Dutch, German, Flemish, and Italian schools. Nor is it 
 too much to say that the old schools of painting are in- 
 significant facts to which he rarely descends. The con- 
 dition-of-pictures question hardly ever once entered his 
 mind. His own pictures decay almost as soon as they 
 are painted, and he never takes cognisance of the fact : 
 
(31 
 
 intent upon immortality, the contingent decay, even in 
 his own pictures, strangely enough, is a matter of in- 
 difference. 
 
 Long after this passage was written, the writer met, 
 in a number of the Art Journal for 1853, with the 
 following statement relative to the condition of some 
 pictures bequeathed by J. M. W. Turner to the Na- 
 tional Gallery : — ‘ It is tolerably well known to those 
 who, of late years, have had access to Turner’s dwell- 
 ing-house, that the pictures he has bequeathed to the 
 country are in such a state as to require the immediate 
 attention of the “ restorer and if something be not 
 soon done, they will, in a very short time, be compara- 
 tively worthless as works of art. We believe that 
 Turner, during his lifetime, applied to Mr. John Seguier 
 to undertake the task, but was alarmed at the price 
 named by the latter.’ 
 
 It may indeed be questioned whether the painter is 
 ever the fit person to restore his own pictures. If 
 Guido had been asked (an instance is on record) to 
 revive one of the faded works of his own hand, he in 
 all probability would have preferred repainting to the 
 tedious process of cleaning and repairing. What 
 could Reynolds have done with the countless cracks 
 and faded tints which characterised the chief of his 
 portraits not many years after they were painted? 
 Would he have possessed the patience to stipple, like a 
 small miniature, the various disfigurements presented ? 
 Doubtless he would have taken the liberty to repaint, 
 and then what would have become of the resemblances ? 
 It was easy to perceive that a portrait by Etty, in the 
 Society of Arts’ exhibition, had been in part repainted 
 by its author. The beautiful production had become 
 much cracked, and the impetuous artist had repainted 
 
62 
 
 portions, instead of following the course of each parti- 
 cular crack. The effect was incongruous enough, com- 
 bining in one frame the early, modest, quiet style, 
 with the florid and extravagant manner of the painter’s 
 latter years. 
 
 Turner was wise, who, on discovering some of his 
 best works were decaying, sent for a professed restorer. 
 He would not risk his own capricious pencil in the 
 matter-of-fact task of reparation, though the injuries 
 were in his own favourite pictures. 
 
 The most famous of collectors of the w r orks of the 
 old masters, have not attended academies for the infor- 
 mation to guide them ; and, indeed, would not find it 
 there if they did. The spirit breathed within the walls 
 of academies, devoted to particular ends, if not defi- 
 cient in liberality, usually w r ants the comprehensive- 
 ness of the accomplished connoisseur. Students in 
 painting are mostly uneducated, and professors of 
 painting have mostly strong prejudices. A reference 
 to the biographies of a large number of painters will 
 leave no question that they are, as a class, remarkable 
 for extreme notions, contrarieties, and eccentricities. 
 Level, solid judgment, based upon careful education, 
 ought to constitute the liberal judge of art. Pre- 
 judice and true connoisseurship can scarcely well exist 
 together. That distinct individualism which lends 
 variety and interest to the painters, must ever seem 
 like illiberality in the connoisseur, blinding him to the 
 just claims of all those artists whose modes of thinking 
 and working differ from a peculiar choice. It might 
 be right, and necessary, for a painter to devote his life 
 to particular ends ; but he is just the reverse of a com- 
 prehensive lover of the arts, who is exclusive in his 
 admiration of particular artists, leaving unnoticed 
 
63 
 
 others equally meritorious. It is not to the taste, the 
 desire, nor the interest, of rising painters, bent upon 
 securing an immortal reputation for themselves, to 
 trouble overmuch about works of others. Your Law- 
 rences are as much opposed to your Holbeins, and 
 your Turners to your Claudes, as night to day. A 
 gentleman may interest himself in pictures, whose bad 
 drawing, or inharmonious colouring, might have a 
 pernicious influence on the practitioner, who would 
 run the risk of imbibing a hard, crude, outline from 
 one, and, it might be, 1 a dirty tint ’ from another. 
 What is food for the connoisseur may be poison to the 
 painter. The collector consults illustrious artists in 
 vain ; and he is eventually convinced (to use the words 
 of Daniel Webb) ‘ that nothing is a greater hindrance 
 to his acquiring an intimate acquaintance with the old 
 masters than entertaining too high an opinion of the 
 judgment of professors in painting.’ He, with some 
 exceptions, 1 finds each artist an implicit admirer of 
 some particular school, or a slave to some particular 
 manner.’ And seldom indeed does it occur to the suc- 
 cessful painter that the works of the old masters re- 
 quire his friendly aid. Neglect scatters her dust like 
 a dark veil over all, the excellent and the worthless \ 
 but the too self-conscious genius of to-day, blinded by 
 the splendour of his own course, heeds not the far off 
 dying lamps which flicker in the past, and one by one 
 go out. 
 
64 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 PICTURE DESTROYERS. 
 
 (QICTURE- FRAME makers, house painters and 
 decorators, are seldom deterred by any scruples 
 ^ from writing themselves up proficients in the art 
 of restoring the pictures of the old masters. One 
 possesses a famous compound, a newly-invented pre- 
 paration ; another, an extraordinary elixir, concocted 
 from a very old recipe, which never fails to renew the 
 colours of old paintings, however faded they may have 
 become through lapse of centuries or modern ill-usage ; 
 a third, is possessed of a secret for making a varnish, 
 which beats glass out of the market for clearness and 
 durability — it is warranted ‘ neither to discolour, bloom, 
 nor crack/ so that those pictures which are so fortunate 
 as to get a few coatings of the said varnish will be 
 astonishingly improved in all respects, and in all pro- 
 bability last for ever. 
 
 The well-informed, however, are seldom induced by 
 pretensions of this order, to intrust their pictures to 
 hands guiltless of art-principles, and to operators who 
 have no explanation to give of the special treatment 
 each particular picture, or class of pictures, seems to 
 require. The judicious collector rather dreads the 
 cleverness of quacks, who would make one common 
 recipe suffice for all the productions of genius, so 
 manifold and infinitely various in their nature as works 
 of genius ever are. The professors of picture-restora- 
 tion are very numerous in London, familiarly known 
 by the sign hung out at their doors ; generally, an old 
 
65 
 
 portrait, one half clean, the other half dirty, as a spe- 
 cimen to convince the unwary connoisseur that the 
 proprietor of the shop can restore pictures. The mere 
 fact of hanging out a specimen of picture-cleaning to 
 attract the attention of passers-by, is perhaps not ne- 
 cessarily a proof of the shopkeeper’s inability to equal 
 his professions ; but there is a something in this fashion 
 of advertising which makes the prudent connoisseur 
 question the spirit and artistic faculty of the proprietor; 
 and reflection usually leads to the conclusion, that the 
 show-picture is a sign of the shopkeeper’s incapacity. 
 Many who have had the guardianship of pictures, 
 have preferred to leave them to the ordinary decay 
 arising from neglect, to risking their utter destruction 
 by what seemed to them the uncertain process of clean- 
 ing. Instances, on the other hand, are not wanting of 
 those who, with unpardonable haste, have called in the 
 common enemy, in the person of one of these picture- 
 owners, whose operations (saving a miracle) were con- 
 ducted at the expense of the picture itself ; not inten- 
 tionally nor malignantly, no doubt, for where there is 
 neither the faculty to distinguish, nor the taste to 
 appreciate, there can be no accountability for injury, 
 and the excuse is ignorance. 
 
 Let it not be thought, however, that all the fine 
 pictures injured by cleaning suffer exclusively at the 
 hands of the class of persons referred to. Gentlemen 
 picture cleaners abound who will destroy more on a 
 fine morning before breakfast, than one of your adver- 
 tisers in a whole year. As parents are supposed best 
 to understand the necessities of their own children, so 
 many collectors assume to know best how to treat the 
 requirements of their pictures. De Burtin, writing on 
 picture cleaning, uses some plausible reasons to induce 
 
 F 
 
66 
 
 owners of pictures to dabble in solvents. Extreme 
 love for the gem he thinks the best guarantee for its 
 safety when under the operation of cleaning. De 
 Burtin also thinks that reading De Burtin on ‘ Pic- 
 ture Cleaning 9 (that is, his own book), with a little 
 practice, all that are required to make a man of fortune 
 a successful operator. If gentlemen collectors were 
 disposed to devote their time and fortunes to that one 
 sole object, advantage to art might possibly, in some 
 instances, be the result. A little leisure and a little 
 practice, with no matter how much affection, will fail 
 to produce a competent professor of picture restoration, 
 whatever De Burtin has said to the contrary. 
 
 
67 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 THE RESTORER. 
 
 j|N contemplating a face, or number of faces, success- 
 11 fully exhibiting delicate sentiments and deep pas- 
 sions, we are struck with the story they tell, or the 
 moral they combine to represent, and we marvel at the 
 skill of the artist who could, so to speak, create anew 
 the life, by the aid of simple lines and colours. We 
 should marvel more did our reflections lead us to con- 
 sider each particular part of the process by which the 
 life-like forms came fashioned from the painter’s hand. 
 It were instructive to contemplate the process, from 
 the laying of the first broad general grounds of colour, 
 to the critical and final retouchings, by which the 
 niceties of expression were arrived at, and which were 
 the finish of the work and the evidence of mastery. 
 It is these finishing touches, the ‘ glazings,’ ‘ scum- 
 blings,’ ‘ blendings,’ and ‘ pointings,’ whether consi- 
 dered as mere texture, or as intellectual refinements, 
 which tax the restorer’s art and claim his vigilance. 
 The sculptor wastes away the rude block till he has 
 accomplished the desired form. Not so the painter. 
 He builds up his forms from a blank surface, and 
 hides, as he progresses, all the preliminary layers 
 upon which the external colours depend for durability 
 and lustre. And hence, not only the meaning and 
 spirit of the work must be understood; the restorer 
 must also be familiar with the nature of the materials 
 and the manner of their employment. 
 
 The restorer should also be deeply read in those es- 
 f 2 
 
68 
 
 tablished principles which test the truth and goodness 
 of pictorial representations. He should understand 
 linear perspective, that he may know where its laws 
 have been adhered to, and where ignored. He should 
 be acquainted with aerial perspective, that he may in 
 certain works appreciate its many and various beauties. 
 He should be master of anatomy, that he may be care- 
 ful not to injure the works of those artists which ex- 
 hibit an accurate acquaintance of the human figure. 
 He should understand the principles of colouring, so 
 far as they have been ascertained, that he may be free 
 from the danger of injuring beauties founded on prin- 
 ciples, and, at the same time, be in a position to un- 
 derstand, and respect, if not to admire, works painted 
 without any definite knowledge of colours. The prac- 
 tical restorer should study to the end, that his mind 
 may become, as it were, an index of the various styles 
 of painting practised by the masters whose works are 
 his care. Be the style of a painter simple or complex, 
 graceful or ungraceful, it should be registered in its 
 place. The restorer, like the physician, should have no 
 bias. It is for him to trace with untiring industry, 
 and unerring precision, the many fine distinctions in 
 each particular work he may have to treat. He ought 
 to comprehend, not only the meaning and spirit of each 
 work, but be able to trace, bit by bit, with microscopic 
 exactness, the means and the method which the artist 
 employed to accomplish it. It is not enough for the 
 restorer to know the results, he must also penetrate 
 their causes — that the effects may not suffer. It would 
 seem that nothing less than a master mind could achieve 
 the successful treatment of a master work, but it comes 
 out in the end, that a restorer of inferior power, profiting 
 by the creations of the artist, may be able to appreciate 
 
69 
 
 their excellencies though unable to produce them : just 
 as the critic discovers in another the qualities he could 
 never have invented himself. In a word, the restorer 
 has wholly to devote himself to the study of pictures, 
 until he has made himself as familiar with the produc- 
 tions of many pencils as the ambitious painter does 
 with a few select examples. 
 
 It is quite possible to conceive an accomplished re- 
 storer, fulfilling the high functions of conserver to the 
 arts, content in that capacity, and devoting all his ener- 
 gies, with frank good will and hearty self-respect, to 
 the preservation of the works of others — willing to 
 forego any reputation he might himself achieve as a 
 painter for the general good of art — content to be the 
 servant and the friend of painters, not their rival. He 
 should be favourable to the growth and exchange of 
 congenial sympathies, and he might well become an 
 adviser to them in some minor practical difficulties 
 often experienced by creative genius. The painter not 
 unfrequently works in ignorance of the mechanical de- 
 partment of his art. Through the neglect of what he 
 is too apt to think unworthy of his attention, the ra- 
 tionale of his materials and their uses, he often labours 
 in vain, and grasps at last but that transient reputation 
 which only lives, like the actor’s and the musician’s, 
 in the breath of memory, and by the tongue of report. 
 
70 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 DEVOTION OF THE RESTORER. 
 
 I ET it not be thought that the man who earnestly 
 devotes his life to the service of art in the capacity 
 of restorer, is necessarily destitute of the mature 
 aspirations of the painter. It is possible to be as mind- 
 ful, and to display as much care for the preservation of 
 an author’s productions, as the author himself could de- 
 sire. True, a sincere love and appreciation are essential ; 
 and who doubts the existence of profound interest and 
 affection for the works of great poets and painters ? 
 Critics may be found devoting their best energies in the 
 purification of a poet’s text ; and why may not others 
 display equal zeal over the lines and colours of the artist? 
 We can realise the annotator, by long study, acquiring 
 something of the dramatist’s way of thinking, and the 
 poAver to re-state passages accidentally become obscure, 
 and to re-render vague conjunctions of words into de- 
 licate expressions of sentiment and animated descrip- 
 tions. So with injured or obscured works of the old 
 painters — similar intelligence and devotion will enable 
 the restorer to perform like services to the picture art. 
 
 Often do we see men unceasing in their application 
 after less important concerns. An entomologist will 
 beat the dark copse through the long night, in order 
 that he may add one more variegated moth to his case ; 
 he will traverse the swamp, that an insignificant gnat 
 may be represented in his collection, and watch a whole 
 season to capture a rare butterfly. So with the botanist 
 and his plants, the conchologist with his shells, and the 
 
71 
 
 antiquarian with his relics. No trouble is too great 
 for these faithful students. The restorer, too, who 
 is duly impressed with the importance of his object, 
 with the same disregard of exertion, collects every- 
 thing relating to his craft in the form of drawing, 
 print, or etching, bearing the stamp of the master’s 
 hand. He seeks after the obsolete, pores over old 
 books, gleaning here and there particular facts. 
 In ancient mansion, gallery, or cathedral, wherever 
 the old painters have left the impress of genius on 
 the walls — in dim ancestral portraits or nobler visions 
 of creative thought — there the restorer makes his study 
 and his home. His well-taught eye detects the slow 
 decay which lurks beneath the surface of resplendent 
 colours. An atom of dust betrays to him the presence 
 of the insidious worm; he watches the subtle film, 
 left by the moist air, and baked by the sun or fire, as 
 day by day its presence obscures each tender tint and 
 softened hue. Whatever tends to injure the objects of 
 his care arrests his attention, and ordinary decay, the 
 consequence of neglect, or the effects of malice, he 
 labours to repair. Bending before the sacred ruin, he 
 regards it with no less awe than if he were conscious 
 that the author of the work still lingered near. Har- 
 bouring no mercenary thoughts, he rises to his task 
 with just and conscious pride, feeling that the last will 
 and testament of a great artist is in his hands, himself 
 the chosen minister to carry out the last behest. Thus 
 cheerfully, with light and gentle touch, he day by day 
 reveals some portion of the buried treasure — some 
 gleaming fragment of poetic thought. As old mo- 
 nastic sculptors, by faith and genius inspired, laboured 
 until the quarry of shapeless stones became impressed 
 with the light fantastic form and character of the wood- 
 
72 
 
 land bower, so in patience and endurance the work of 
 the restorer proceeds, until at last, the dark, unmeaning 
 space presents a paradise of splendour peopled with 
 groups of life-like, breathing forms. Immured in the 
 solitude of the vaulted church, he engages in the long 
 and gracious task of restoring these relics of bygone 
 ages, in the generous love of art itself, and with the 
 hope of perpetuating the great creations of the past. 
 He pictures to himself the authors of those faded 
 images toiling for long years with the zeal of martyrs, 
 philosophic patience, and godlike power of hand, to 
 win for themselves immortal crowns. But as no miracle 
 happened to aid them in their work, either in the draw- 
 ing of lines or mixing of tints, so no miracle saved 
 these from the ordinary casualties of — decay. The 
 fissure in the wall, the gap in the high roof, damp mists 
 from open doors and casements, and the smoke of 
 censer, taper, and lamp, are active agents of destruc- 
 tion — to say nothing of the bigot’s fury and the sol- 
 dier’s rage. And looking back through the long, 
 dreary, troubled night of disrespect and cold indiffe- 
 rence, shrouding like a dim pall the works of the great 
 painters, far from wondering that their glory has some- 
 what diminished, we might oftimes well regard it as 
 miraculous indeed that a vestige remains, to tell where 
 beauty and gracefulness once mutely reigned and won 
 their silent victory over the proud heart. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 Holyoake & Co., Printers, 147, Fieet Street. 
 
* *