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went an appreciable change of value, even of hue, when
they dried. For example, a blue that would be at the moment
of application became a light blue upon drying, and the
white- being a calcium of lime--would turn from a greenish
beige when it was wet to a pure white when dry. The painter
was thus obliged to have long experience with these transformations
he could foresee how his work would finally look.
Another difficulty was the lack of flexibility in modeling which made it necessary for the painter to set off his figures by means of brush strokes--by light and dark cross hatchings, on a flat tone. This convention which looks intentional dominates his technique. In many instances the result is very effective but the fact is the artist had no choice, the medium permitted no other method. From the very beginning, in his preliminary drawing, it was this linear stroke that was used to, circumscribe the areas to be filled with one color or another; and at the end, it was still the thin rigid stroke of the brush that had to be used to give visibility and unity to the objects portrayed. These clear-cut lines, while they gave the picture a certain schematic decorative charm revealed, at the same time, all the defects in the artist's own technique. On account of the impossibility of the fusion of colors, the tones had to be applied in superimposed layers--the middle tones being laid in first, in almost pure color, and the lights set off with white on top of this dried middle tone. The shadows would be treated with proper colors in the some manner. If the artist was skillful enough, he could go over his dry painting with another tone close to the original but made transparent by the addition of a lot of water. This made sort of glaze over which he could work again as before, repeating the glaze and the whole process as often as he needed to approach some degree of truthful expression. One result of this method was to, give the picture the effect of many juxtaposed pieces, sharply separated and not unlike the effect of stained glass. There could be no question of aerial perspective--the perspective of atmospheric effects--with such a technique. Since true shadows could not be represented, the figures could |