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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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CHAPTER VI . VANDYKE'S PKQCESS OF PAINTING . tN cqmmon with the school of Rubens , Vandyke commenced his pictures by painting the shadows in transparent brown colour , on a ground of a whitish brown tint . The restorer has reason tonote this first transparent wash with more solicitude than 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 allotted 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 , accordingly as they were more or less in the light ; while the dark , hollow fissures , would present nothing but the transparent wash , more or legs 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 experiment , 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 but 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 . This skilful painter 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 picturing the pebbled brook ,. with its fringe of hawthorn aiid 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 surface , 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 uninitiated may pass them by , the artist cannot be too mindful of the shaded parts of his picture . The bright or light parts of natural objects uppear 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 shuded ; and that they arc of many degrees of darkness , and of various
colours ; that they are ruled by regular laws , and subject to numerous irregularities , in respect to tone arid colour , and the fluctuation of lights and changing hues reflected 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 usually displays the most attractive colours and the chief portion of the subject , not because there is most art in that part of the picturenot because the artist surmounted the greutest difficulties in the brighter half of the scene—for although less noted by ordinary observers , the shadows in high-class pictures cost the painters infinitely more pains than ;
any other portions . To the management of the shadows every form is indebted for its relief , and every colour for its variety , force , and lustre . The dark parts of a picture are not only neglected by superficial observers , they do not commonly attract the attention of the cultivated . 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 , what is worse ,
get removed , especially if they be of that transparent , luminous , spacecreating kind just now referred to , as peculiarly excellent in the works of Vandyke . 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 . When pictures are to be cleaned , which are painted in the manner of Rubens ; the pictures of Vandyke are the proper study for the cleaner . intro
Vandyke ' s pictures also contain a species of shadow which was - duced in finishing the picture , by washing transparent colours over the opaque colours , and also over the shadows , where they required more depth and richness . This mode of using transparent colours ( called glazing ) was frequently employed by Vandyke , both in the flesh and rich draperies . It will be necessary to consider these external shadows ( so called ) because they are added after the body colours are laid on , just as the first shadows were washed on the ground of the panel ; otherwise the finishing shadows are no more external than the parts of the first shadows which are seen in the completed picture . The first shadows must throughout be considered as the most delicate portion of the visible work .
After the external shadows , the 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 pointed 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 ( undev happy circumstances ) the cultivated eye detects in natural objects .
With the transition lights may be included those reflected ones , which are certain almost imperceptible illuminated parts relieving the objects from the background , as on the dark side of the face where it melts into the space beyond . Vandyke has been described as working with certainty 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 revive 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 expression suggested by after reflections ; minute purticularizations necessary to definiteness , or to break anything too marked ; in fact , critical retouchings .
In contemplating a picture by Vandyke , the spectator does not perceive ( it was not intended that he should ) a thousand nice discriminating points in every feature—in eye , nose , mouth , and chin : not only to make each perfect in itself , but chiefly to harmonize the whole . All this after ci * e was essential to satisfy the connoisseur , the physiognomist , the artist , and the anatomist , to define all difference !} of age and sex , and the various peculiarities of character , and the qualities of human nature .
The works of Rubens and Vandyke are like similar flowers of different culture . Those of Rubens growing 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 only one of development . Nothing is more obvious than the necessity of being specially mindful of the more delicate , so that in a general calculation of the nature of pictures of a particular class or school the most susceptible of injury ( as Vandyke ' s in the school of Rubens ) may be most cared for .
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CHAP T B B V I I . BEMBBANDT . It is often thought surprising that the works of the 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 rocogniaed 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 . Mi » ery , vice and crime , desolation and violence , found a ready access to the serene ! cabinets
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" Who , in contemplating one of Kaphael ' s finest pictures , fresh from the master ' s hand , ever bestowed a thought on the wretched little worm which works its destruction ?" Mxbia Edqbwoexk .
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BY HENfiY MEKBITT .
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We should do our utmost to encourage the Beautiful , for the Useful encourages its elf . —Goethe .
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BQOKS ON , OUR TABLE . Digly Grand : an Autobiography . By Q- . J . W . Melville . 2 vols . J . W . Parker and Son . Analytit qfthe History and Constitution of England . By J . M . Menzies . Longman , Brown , Green , and Co . "My Novel . " By Pisistratui Caxton , or Varieties in English Life . By Sir E . B . Lytton . 4 vols . Blackwood and Son . Tait's Edinburgh Magazine . Partridge and Oakey . Crime : its Amount , Causes , and Remedies . By F . Hill . John Murray . Putnam ' s Monthly Magazine . Sampson , Low , Son , and Co . The Peak and the Plain . By 3 . T . Hall , Houlston and Co .
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of this gay Diogenes , who has , however , we note with pleasure , none of the cynicism or dirt of his ancient namesake . John Cassell ' s Illustrated Magazine of Art is a marvel of cheap beauty . The engravings , so profusely scattered through it , are remarkable specimens of the advance made in this branch of art .
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FspuAftV 5 , 1853 . ] THU LEADER . 141
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Feb. 5, 1853, page 141, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1972/page/21/
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