The Oil Painter's Bible - chapter 6
very lean paints like Flake White. The objective is to keep the underpainting leaner than the layers applied
over it. When dry, the color may then be subsequently modified with glazes, scumbles, and semiglazes, or
painted over with opaque color. These steps may be repeated as many times as necessary. The highlights
are placed last, applied wet into wet with a fully loaded brush. Impasto is often employed in the
highlights, to produce the most opaque passages possible, and to ensure that they remain opaque. Oil
paints become more transparent with age. Therefore, in order for the highlights to retain their opacity over
the centuries, they must be applied heavily. The illusion thus created is that of direct light falling on a
solid surface, ricocheting from that surface to our eyes. It is not actually an illusion, as that is exactly what
is happening. Juxtaposed with the transparent shadows, the illusion of depth is thus enhanced.
The underpainting, sometimes referred to as a grisaille if done in greys, should have its darkest
passages painted somewhat lighter than the desired final effect, or the superimposed colors will lose much
of their brightness and depth. Except for certain special effects, as in the technique of Rembrandt, the
texture of the underpainting should be as smooth as possible. Any brushstrokes not smoothed out before
the underpainting is dry, or scraped down before painting over, will produce a problem area in the next
stage. Artists who prefer visible brushstrokes should decide where to place them in the final stages of the
painting, as accents.
The Venetian Technique allows the widest range of possibilities of any oil painting method yet
developed. Its systematic use of opaque passages, glazes, scumbles and semiglazes stretches the
capabilities of oil paint to the absolute limits, and allows the artist the greatest latitude for adjusting the
picture at any stage. The employment of the optical illusions created by glazing and scumbling, combined
with the control of edges (selective focus), enables the oil painter who has mastered it to indicate three
dimensional reality more convincingly than is possible with any other technique.
Among the Old Masters who used the Venetian Technique in one variant or another were Rembrandt,
Franz Hals, Nicholas Poussin, Jacques Louis David, Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres, Jean Léon Gérôme,
and many other great Masters whose names are not well known today.
It should be stressed that the wonderful results achieved by the Old Masters and other great painters
were attributable, in great measure, to the preparations undertaken prior to their beginning work on the
final canvas or panel. The concept for the painting had first to be worked out in smaller drawings,
sketches and studies done on separate surfaces, to solve all the problems to the artist's satisfaction
beforehand. This accounts for the impression most often conveyed by their paintings, of having been
executed without the necessity of corrections. In truth, there were many corrections, but the major ones, at
least, were most often solved in the study stage before the painting itself was touched. For very large
paintings, the usual practice was for the Master to paint the painting first on a smaller scale to work out its
composition, and then turn it over to his apprentices to be transferred to the large canvas by means of a
grid. Refer to the sidebar for a more detailed description of the grid method of enlarging a design. In some
cases, the smaller painting was done without color, to be used by the apprentices as a guide in applying
the underpainting to the large canvas, which process the Master would oversee, and usually correct and
complete after the students and/or apprentices had done most of the work. Often many supplemental
studies were drawn and painted by the Master, either to aid the assistants in painting the large picture, or
to solve some of the problems for himself, in the development of the concept for the painting. This
practice is as much a factor in the excellent quality of the works these great painters produced as were the
actual painting techniques they used so well.
DIRECT PAINTING
The Direct Painting Method differs from the Venetian Technique and the Flemish Technique in that
the artist paints in full color from the very beginning, without requiring an elaborate under drawing or
underpainting, and without resorting to the use of glazes or scumbles. All paints except the deepest darks
are used as if they were opaque, and are usually applied heavily enough as to appear so. The object,
ideally, is to paint the entire picture wet into wet, from start to finish. Terms such as Alla Prima (Italian)
or Premier Coup (French) are sometimes used for this technique, indicating that the picture is to consist of
one layer of paint, applied all at once, in one sitting. In practice, this is not always possible, and great
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