it would perhaps be better for him if he did enter a
little into their chemical properties. Cennino mentions twenty-four
pigments; but the best he considers to be but twelve. It is curious that
among them are no browns. We have always been of the opinion that the
old masters, for the most part, made their browns with blacks and reds
and yellows, and gave them depth by glazing over with the same; and we
are pretty much of Wilson's mind, who, when told of a new brown, said "I
am sorry for it." Very many of our modern pictures are ruined by the
violent contrasts of the asphaltum and similar browns with less
obtrusive pigments. The very transparency is, in our eyes, an objection.
Asphaltum, for instance, besides that it is a changeable and never
thoroughly drying pigment, _is too transparent_ for depth. It was a
mistake of Gainsborough when he said that with asphaltum he would make a
Tartarus; the depth would be but a little way from the surface; depth is
not always intensity of darkness, and never of colour. There is a style
of flashy painting which entirely depends on these transparent browns;
but it is nevertheless not a good style; it is flimsy, and the _depth_
aimed at is missed. The more simple the palette, the better will be the
picture. We are taught by the practice as well as words of Titian, who
said that "whoever would be a painter, should be well acquainted with
three colours, and have a perfect command over them." There are some
excellent observations on this subject in the translator's preface, who
quotes from Sir Humphrey Davy on colours. "If red and yellow ochres,
blacks and whites, were the colours most employed by Protogenes and
Apelles, so are they likewise the colours most employed by Raffaelle and
Titian in their best style. The St John and Venus in the tribune of the
gallery at Florence offer striking examples of pictures, in which all
the deeper tints are evidently produced by red and yellow ochres, and
carbonaceous substances." Cennino's argument for the use of fine gold
and good colours, will be read with more attention by the modern
Germans, who have, it is said, for the purposes of their art joined the
Catholic Church, than by our English artists, with whom it will but
raise a smile, that the artist should be liberal in both, for that if
his patron pays him not, our Lady will reward him for it in soul and
body. If the practice of poor Cennino was in accordance with this
recommendation, he must have