DEVELOPMENT OF WATER-COLOUR PAINTING The use of water colour has been an all important factor in the development of the technique of oil painting. That heavy medium, slow and cumbersome as it is, required an experimental compan ion, so water colour has its being in the fact that studies and colour schemes can be made in it with great ease and rapidity. Oil painting owes much of its life and vitality to the example of this so called lighter medium. Water colour is by far the older. It was used both in clear wash and in tempera form centuries before oil painting was discovered. The decorations in the caves of Atlamira and Perigord date perhaps 20,000 years ago, a form of fresco done on a lime surface. Egyptian wall paintings were all executed in some form of tempera, as far as can be judged from fragments of coloured plasters. Analysis shows some form of gum or glue, proving a water colour medium. Pliny says that fresco was known to the Greeks. The paintings in the porch and corri dor of the Minoan Palace of Cnossus were executed in true fresco, twenty-five centuries ago. The illuminated manuscripts of the Middle Ages were all executed in water colour, tempera and opaque, or body colour, the pigment being ground in gum or glue and dissolved in water. Nearly all of the illustrations and decora tions of manuscripts were done on parchment, which was used instead of the. rice and silk papers employed by the Chinese, thus bringing about a change from the earlier method of clear water colour to the late development of opaque or semi-transparent colours.
Water colour for centuries has been the universal medium of expression both in wall decorations and in miniature. The fact that this form of transcription gave a quick and brilliant result and enabled the artist to place his impressions permanently on paper or parchment in a fresh and glowing manner endeared the medium to every true artist and formed the basis of the monu mental work in oil which was done during the Middle Ages and in our time. Water-colour drawing and painting show the true
ability and genius of each generation.
The medium may be divided into a number of classes :—clear water colour (done directly on paper or silk), encaustic, fresco, true fresco and tempera. Gum arabic, glue, wax, the white or yolk of eggs are the usual binders that are mixed and ground with dry colour and dissolved in water to produce the various mediums used in water-colour painting. Sometimes water colour is covered or sealed with wax or shellac.
Water colour is the basic or fundamental medium of expression which has served to preserve the great advance of the art as developed during the past ages.
Renaissance of Water Colour Painting.—Water colour painting was a forgotten art until about the year 170o, when English artists began using this medium. Previous to this period, water colour was used only to tint pen and pencil sketches. Pen and ink, both black and brown, with superimposed tints of sepia and blue were first used. These tints of colour suggested the warm and cool masses. Monochrome also came into general use at this period. Monochrome lacked range and sequence and was soon superseded by the above-mentioned addition of colour. During those early years three forms of water colour painting came into use in England: First, colour and water were mixed and used on white paper, often with the addition of fine pen lines to strengthen the drawing.
Rubbing or scrubbing the colour after it had been laid on the paper darkened and dimmed the lustre just as it does in the modern day method of painting in water colour.
Second, the employment of opaque, gouache, or body colour. This form comprised opaque colour mixed with solid opaque white.
This method is rather harsh and raw. The mixture often would clot up and become unmanageable, creating ridges of colour. It was used mostly on soft gray or tinted papers. Interesting textures were obtained with this form.