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37

75  "Torturing" the Colours. 
It is a maxim of the Books on painting to lay on your tints pure without much mixing with the brush, and not to "torture the colours." Bouvier & other Authors recommend to mix every tint with the Palette-Knife - at first many tints - afterwards but few; which implies that experience will teach in what manner numerous grades of tints, scarcely to be distinguished by the [[strikethrough]] inexperienced [[/strikethrough]] untutored eye, can be produced by the skilful intermingling of them with the brush. Now this skilful & refined imitation of flesh, by the interlacing of hues which characterizes the skin, under every modification of light, shade & colour; Veins, down, &c. should not be called torturing the the tints; for it was thus that Titian, Guido, Greuze & Reynolds, tortured their Colours into the semblance of Nature. Lawrence in recommending the Artist not to Compound his flesh tints with the Knife, but to trust to the impressions of the moment for better mixtures with the brush, had no idea that it was an instrument of torture. If there is any merit in the Maxim we have quoted, it should be understood to guard the Young Student from so elaborately blending all his tints as to neutralize them, & rather to represent the inspired polish of Marble or Ivory, without the variety that flesh exhibits. This was the fault of Vanderwert. On the contrary one of the most extraordinary Portraits I have seen, (to illustrate the interlacing of tints), is in the Gallery at Naples: It is a head of Rembrandt painted by himself, executed entirely with pure tints of a great variety of Colours put on, (perhaps only in the finishing), by fine pencils in short, straight applications of the paint, resembling a work executed with bits of coloured threads on straws, laid obliquely across each other. At a distance the Colours seem blended, & the effect is uncommonly powerful & Natural. This singular picture must have been executed as a boast of the painter's skill, & to show the power of this interlacing of tints, even without mingling and mellowing with the Mass beneath [[strikethrough]] it [[/strikethrough]] them; or it may possibly have been painted with Colours tempered with [[strikethrough]] Copal [[/strikethrough]] Varnish, which did not permit the operation of blending. The last manner of Greuze is more conformable to Nature & the beauty of Art; the interlacing being effected by a Variety of tints slightly intermingled by the brush, in the important effort to make out the Character, as well as the effects of Colour light & shade. The finest Pictures by Titian exhibit this life-like texture of the skin, calculated to be seen as well near as at a distance. 

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