n notorious. We
set aside the labyrinth of dates, which, with regard to the same
persons' lives and deaths, are inconsistent and irreconcilable; still
there remains a continuous story, not only probable as to its facts, but
confirmed by works that exist at this day; for whatever may have been
the oil-painting of an earlier age, (and it must be observed, as Lanzi
remarks, that there is no certainty that many of the works said to have
been in oil, were of that vehicle, for chemists have doubted, and some
have been of contrary opinion,) the oil-painting of that precise period
when it is said by Vasari to have been introduced into Italy, and as it
continued subsequently, is quite a different thing--and exactly agrees
with the description of it given by Vasari, and as it was practised in
his time. Vasari was but a little more than a century after the supposed
discovery of Van Eyck, and was born soon after the death of Raffaelle,
and must have known that he was speaking of a vehicle that was not oil
alone. It may be here worth while to put down what Vasari does say with
respect to Van Eyck's vehicle--that John of Bruges having cracked a
picture by exposing it to the sun to dry, being "filosofo e filologo a
sufficienza," made many experiments, and "trovo che l'olio de lino e
quello de noce erano i piu seccativi. Questi dunque bolliti con altre
sue misture gli fecero la vernice ch' egli, e tutti pittori del mondo
aveano lungamente desiderata"--"found that linseed and nut oil were the
most siccative. These, then, boiled together with his other mixtures
made the varnish, (vehicle,) which he and all the painters of the world
had long desired." Lanzi here well observes, that the expression "long
desired," shows that there must have been many attempts to make oils
properly subservient to the painter's use, and that there was none
successful until Van Eyck's "solo quella perfetta;" which, as Vasari
says, "secca non teme acqua, che accende i colori e gli fa lucidi, e gli
unisce mirabilmente"--"which when dry does not fear water, heightens the
colours and makes them lucid, and unites them in a wonderful manner." We
have a picture by this Van Eyck in our National Gallery; he must have no
eyes who will believe that it was painted with oil alone. We have the
Correggios--we say the same of them--we have the proof from the
experience of picture-cleaners, the hardness of the old paint, and the
test of spirits-of-wine, which, as Mrs Merrifield