WATER-COLOR PAINTING, in contra distinction to oil painting, the use of water gen erally interfused with gum arabic as a vehicle for applying colors, very often transparently, to a white surface. Anciently, there were three distinct methods of water-color painting, and these were known as tempera, encaustic and fresco. Tempera, or as it was sometimes called, distemper pamting. was common in early Ital ian art. (See Paitenstc). The colors were ground and mixed with the beaten-up white and yolk of an egg, or with the white juice of the fig tree, and sometimes with ox-gall. Encaustic painting was a process in which the colors were mixed with wax and laid in a thin coating, then fixed by the application of hot irons The early Flemish and Dutch painters attained considerable success by the use of aster colors in the medium of tempera, long previous to the invention of oil painting by the 'an Eyck brothers. The Italian frescoes are painted in water color, on damp plaster and have retained their colors scarcely impaired for centuries See Earsco PAI ICTI NC.
But when we speak of water-color painting in a modern sense we refer to the aquarelle The ancient Egyptians used water-color to decorate their papyrus rolls, and the monks of the Middle Ages employed it to adorn vellum manuscripts; but this was all impasto, not the transparent washes, as in modern English work. This process and manipulation was the outgrowth of the methods worked out by Paid Sandhy (1725-19091 and advanced by Alexan der Cozens, creating an entirely new type of fine art productions known as ago:trent.. The former treatment of the water-color work on white paper was really a species of sketching in outline certain scenes then filling In the spaces with water-color (color printing), In the aquarelles the brush supersedes the pen (or pencil). Thomas Girtin (1775-1802) perfected the method and produced pictures disclosing consummate genius, and the novel charm of light and shade in nature as a fine art with transparent washes was revealed to admiring connoisseurs. These were the precursors of a talented English school. In the English school there has been no exclusive use made of what is known as body color. The lightness and
darkness of each tint have generally been de termined by the degree of their dilution with pure water, not by their modification through an admixture of Chinese white.
In early painting the pigments employed were generally mineral earths or juices pressed from plants. The colors found in antique fres coes were few but permanent in value. In the Middle Ages chemistry came to the aid of the fresco painter and supplied him with many brilliant and permanent tints, which is some in stances vied with the lustre with which the church window maker stained his glass. The modern water-color painter has gained innu merable additions to the color range of his palette, and the freshness, crispness and uner ring certainty of his touch have been largely due to the beauty, clearness and permanency of the colors in which he has worked. Manufacturers have, indeed, vied with each other in providing him with pigments which shall flow smoothly from his brush and stand projected with na ture's beauty upon his paper. While the mod ern water-color painter aims at producing his effects by means of transparent washes, artists have not always considered it illegitimate to re sort to the use of body color in their efforts to impart to their work the depth and solidity of oil painting.
Technique.— The necessary apparatus of • water-color artist's studio is simple and con sists of paper, drawing-hoard and drawing pins (push pins). palette, pigments and brushes. Many use an easel, hut a number rest the draw ing-board on their knees or on an adjacent piece of furniture (table, etc 1. To avoid the paper from crinkling or cockling when the water washes are applied it is necessary to stretch the paper, by wetting it with water and fastening it firmly to the board by pins or mu cilage around the border %%bile there are dif ferences of opinion as to what paper to select, there is a limit to the number of makes accept able to any artist. All used surfaces, grains. textures. etc , are comprised in the following list • Whitman. Allcnje, Michallet, David Cox, C•eswick, Valley. cartridge, Van Gelder, white Canson and Burlington.