Historical Painting Techniques, Materials, and Studio Practice

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Reynolds was known to experiment with paint media, and he might be

supposed to have tried out new pigments too. Five of his works have been

examined, including three at the Tate. Not surprisingly, all five include tra­

ditional pigments such as lead white, ivory black, asphaltum, vermilion, and

Naples yellow, while one or more included red lead, orpiment, blue verditer,

smalt, ultramarine, and green earth (14). Prussian blue, invented early in the

eighteenth century, was used frequently by Reynolds. Some of this Prussian

blue has a different microscopical appearance from the modern variety; similar

material, previously illustrated in color by Welsh (15), was identified in Tur­

ner's paintings up to about 1840, when Turner began using the "modern"

variety as well. George Jones used the modern variety in 1832. Reynolds also

used Mars red from 1755-1760, and Mars orange, red, and brown in 1781.

He used Indian yellow in a work dated to 1788, and wrote about a material

that may have been Indian yellow in 1784, two years before it has been noted

in the literature (16). Patent yellow has also been tentatively identified in a

painting of 1781. Table 1 shows that all these instances demonstrate early uses

of these pigments. Reynolds' organic pigments (red, blue, and a green made

from yellow and blue dyes) are still being investigated.

Turner's early use (1800-1850) of new pigments in oil, summarized in Table

1, has been described elsewhere (17). While it is true that more paintings by

Turner than other individual artists have been analyzed, the inference that he

was more innovative than his contemporaries is inescapable. Turner used Mars

colors frequently, as did many of his fellow British artists, including Constable

from circa 1810 (18). In contrast, Arnald, Farington, Hilton, and Callcott used

only well-established pigments such as ultramarine, Prussian blue, Naples yel­

low, and vermilion. Artists who used new pigments quite soon after their

introduction include the fo llowing: Constable-cobalt blue in 1817-1818,

chrome yellow in 1816, and opaque oxide of chromium in 1837 or earlier;

Briggs-chrome yellow and orange in 1826; and Mulready-emerald green

in 1842 (19). Barium chromate and a pigment tentatively identified as stron­

tium yellow were fo und in a Mulready of 1835. Cadmium yellow has been

fo und in a Millais of 1855, and strontium yellow in a Campbell of 1857 (20).

The latter included synthetic ultramarine, rarely used before 1850 except by

Turner, because it had a poor reputation (21). Whistler used two shades of

cadmium yellow regularly from 1864 (the earliest of his works at the Tate),

and strontium yellow in two works circa 1864-1871 and in 1872, respectively

(22). The earliest tentative identification of cobalt yellow (mixed with barium

chromate) is in one of Whistler's oils from the fo llowing year. No examples

have yet been fo und of the cobalt violet shades that were available by the

end of this period or by 1900.

White pigments and their fillers are also interesting. Artists from the time of

Reynolds and Romney tended to use lead white with pipe clay or china clay

extenders, both fo r priming and paint. Gypsum has been fo und in many paint

samples from Reynolds and Wright of Derby in the later eighteenth century

(23). Zinc white was very rarely fo und in Tu rner's oils, and not yet in his

fellow Royal Academicians works painted before 1847. But Hunt used it in

1852, with lead white fo r a local imprimatura under the sky of Strayed Sheep

(Our English Coasts) and with Prussian blue, presumably supplied as a tube of

paler "Antwerp blue." Barium, attributable to barium sulfate, has been fo und

as an extender in Turner's paintings of the 1840s, in the Hunt piece, and very

frequently in Whistler's white paint from 1864-1875, and beyond.

A discussion of pigments that fe ll out of use during this period would be out

of place here, but work is continuing in this area (24). Analyses of the paint

media used by the artists mentioned here also continue, but as yet there are

insufficient results fo r comparisons between Turner and many of his contem­

poranes.

Acknowledgments

The Turner research was funded by the Leverhulme Trust and supported by the Tate

Gallery, through Stephen Hackney. My thanks to the following people: Brian

Historical Painting Techniques, Materials, and Studio Practice