Table VII

Pigments more or less transparent, and generally fit to be employed as glazing and finishing colours, if not disqualified according to Tables I., II., and III.: -

Remarks. - This Table comprehends most of the best water-colours; and their most powerful effects in oil-painting are attainable by employing them with resinous varnishes. Pigments not inserted in this Table may of course be considered of an opposite class, or opaque colours; with which, nevertheless, transparent effects in painting are produced by the skill of the artist in breaking and mingling without mixing them, etc.

The great importance of transparent pigments is to unite, and give tone and atmosphere generally, with beauty and life, to solid or opaque colours of their own hues; to convert primary into secondary, and secondary into tertiary colours with brilliancy; to deepen and enrich dark colours and shadows, and to give force and tone to black itself. Designs neutrally and faintly painted, being brought up to the full force of colouring by transparent pigments, have a unity, tone, and harmony that savour much of the effect of music, when they depart not from the gravity and sentiment of the design; and it is in this way that nature produces her most beautiful colouring.

Table VIII

Pigments, the colours of which are little or not at all affected by heat or fire: -

Remarks. - Many of the pigments of this Table are available in enamel painting, and most of them are durable in the other modes.

Table IX

Pigments which are little or not at all affected by lime, and in various degrees eligible for fresco, distemper, and crayon painting: -

Remarks. - This Table shews the multitude of pigments from which the painters in fresco, distemper, and crayons, may select their colours; in doing which, however, it will be necessary they should consult the previous Tables respecting other qualities of pigments essential to their peculiar modes of painting; and as these modes are exciting renewed interest in the world of art, tending to their extension in practice, particularly the latter of them, we will subjoin a few remarks thereon.