Chapter XIII: of Charles Heath Wilson’s Life and Works of Michelangelo (5)

The difference in colour between gold and silver will naturally affect
the choice of the transparent vitreous pastes that are to cover them,
and there are also considerations of a chemical kind which prevent the
use of certain pastes on certain metal grounds. For example tin has
the property of rendering transparent enamels opaque, and transparent
pastes cannot be used over metal grounds wherein tin enters into the
composition. Cellini, who gives the same caution as Vasari, takes as
an illustration transparent ruby coloured enamel, which he says cannot
be used over silver, for a reason which has about it a reminiscence of
the ancient alchemy, namely, that it is a product of gold and must be
employed only over its kindred metal! On the other hand he forbids for
use with gold yellow, white, and turquoise blue. We are indebted for
some special information on this highly technical subject to the
kindness of Mr H. H. Cunynghame, C.B., who writes: ‘There are two
distinct reasons why different enamels are used on silver and gold
respectively. The first is an artistic reason. Transparent reds do not
show well over silver, the rays reflected from a silver surface not
being well calculated to show off the colours of the gold. In fact
silver absorbs those rays on the transmission of which the beauty of
gold-red largely depends, whence then it follows that transparent
blues and greens should be used on silver, and reds, browns, and the
brighter yellows on gold. In addition to this, silver has its surface
disturbed by the silicic acid in the enamel. The consequence is that
ordinary enamels put on a silver surface are stained. To prevent this
it is desirable to add some ingredient that dissolves and renders
colourless the stain. For this purpose therefore special fluxes or
clear enamels are made for silver. They usually contain manganese and
arsenic. The first of these has such a property of “clarifying”
enamels and glazes that it used to be called the potter’s “soap,” for
it cleaned the glazes on china. The other is also used for the same
purpose.... As silver alloy is more easy to melt than gold alloy,
fluxes, i.e. clear enamels for silver, are much more fusible than
those for gold.’

Footnote 292:

This is a practice of modern enamellers. Cellini however is against
it, as if the enamels begin again to run there is a danger of losing
the truth of the surface. He recommends polishing by hand alone
(_Trattati_, ed. Milanesi, 35).

Footnote 293:

This may have been the so-called Venetian enamel used in Vasari’s
time. This was a form of opaque painted enamel over copper, extremely
decorative, but coarse as compared with the translucent enamel over
reliefs. We owe this suggestion to Sir T. Gibson Carmichael.

Footnote 294:

The word ‘Tausia,’ and its connection with ‘Tarsia,’ the term used for
wood inlays, has given rise to some discussion. The explanation in
Bucher’s _Geschichte der Technischen Künste_, III, 14, is probably
correct, and according to this the Italian ‘Tausia’ comes from the
Spanish ‘Tauscia’ or ‘Atauscia,’ which is derived from an Arabic root
meaning ‘to decorate.’ The art of inlaying one metal in another is one
of great antiquity in the East, and was no doubt brought to Spain by
the Moors, from which country, perhaps by way of Sicily, it spread to
Italy. The word ‘Tarsia,’ applied as we have already seen to inlays in
wood, may have been derived by corruption from ‘Tausia,’ though, as
the form ‘Intarsia’ is also common, a derivation (unlikely) has been
suggested from the Latin ‘Interserere.’ The ‘in’ is probably only the
preposition, that has become incorporated with the word it preceded.

Footnote 295:

‘Cavasi il ferro in sotto squadra.’

Footnote 296:

If the sinkings be undercut the further process of roughening the sunk
surfaces is hardly necessary, but the roughening or puncturing may
suffice to hold the inlaid metal when there is no actual undercutting
of the sides of the sinkings.

Footnote 297:

The ‘filiera,’ or iron plate pierced with holes of various sizes for
drawing wires through, was known to Theophilus. See chapter 8 of Book
III of the _Schedula_, ‘_De ferris per quae fila trahuntur_.’

Footnote 298:

Vasari does not attempt to deal with the art of wood engraving in
general nor need this Note traverse the whole subject. In all these
later chapters of the ‘Introduction’ to Painting he is dealing with
forms of the decorative art in which various materials are put
together so as to produce something of the effect of a picture. Hence
all that he envisages in the department of wood engraving are what are
called chiaroscuri, or engravings meant to produce the effect of
shaded drawings by tints rather than by the lines which constitute
engravings proper. It has been noticed that some writers on engraving,
(ante, p. 20) have denied to these imitated light-and-shade drawings
the character of true engravings.

As we have seen to be the case with copper-plate engraving (ante, p.
275) priority is now claimed in these chiaroscuri for Germany over
Italy, and Ugo da Carpi, who was born about 1450, near Bologna,
becomes rather the improver of a German process than the inventor of a
new one. On July 24, 1516, when resident in Venice he petitions the
Signoria of that city for privilege for his ‘new method of printing in
light and shade, a novel thing and not done before.’ Lippmann (_The
Art of Wood Engraving in Italy in the Fifteenth Century_, trans.,
London, 1888) thinks that this claim may be true ‘in so far as he may
have introduced further developments in the practice of colour
printing with several blocks, which still survived in Venice,
especially after the production of coloured wood-cuts by Burgkmair and
Cranach in Germany had given fresh stimulus to a more artistic
cultivation of that method’ (p. 69), and that ‘he gave the art an
entirely new development based upon the principles which guided the
profession of painting’ (p. 136). This last phrase explains the
interest that Vasari here manifests in his work. In the older wood
engraving only lines had been left on the block to take the ink, the
rest of the surface being cut away, and whatever was to be shown in
the print was displayed in the lines alone. In the new method broad
surfaces of the wood were left, on which was spread a film of ink or
pigment, and these printed a corresponding tint upon the paper which
took off the film thus laid. The pigment might be of any colour
desired, or might only represent a lighter tint of the ink that had
been used all along for the lines. Hence either an effect of colour or
one merely of gradations of light and shade could equally well be
produced by the process Vasari describes. The work he contemplates is
of the latter kind, and his explanation of the process by which it was
produced is fairly clear. Plate XIV, from a print by Ugo da Carpi in
the British Museum, gives a specimen of the result.

Critics of Ugo da Carpi’s work, which is sufficiently abundant, notice
that he begins by merely adding tints of shading to outlines, which as
in the earlier productions of the Germans, like those of Cranach or
Dienecker, remained substantially responsible for the effect; but that
he gives more and more importance to the tints, the pictorial element
in the design, till the outlines end by merely reinforcing the
chiaroscuro, like the touches ‘a tempera’ that give effect and
decision to painting in fresco (Kristeller, _Kupferstich und
Holzschnitt in vier Jahrhunderten_, Berlin, 1905, p. 300).

Footnote 299:

That is, he made three blocks A, B, C, each the full size of the
design, but each containing only a part of the work. A has engraved on
it all the _lines_ of the design, and a print from it would be an
old-fashioned engraving proper. Such a print with the ink on it still
wet is pressed down on a clean block of wood, on which it leaves
indications of all these lines. The broad tints of shading, in which
gradations may be introduced, are then laid on the block by hand, the
outlines being a guide, and so is constituted block B, an impression
from which printed on a sheet already printed from block A, and made
to register accurately with this, would add shading to the outlines. C
would add by the same process a third tint, quite flat, for the
background, and this might of course be of another colour. The high
lights would be cut away in this block, C, and these parts come out
white in the print, as is seen on Plate XIV. The uniform grey shade on
the Plate is the background tint. In the actual process of printing
this block, C, is first put into the press and produces an impression
showing the tinted background but white spaces where the high lights
are to come. B, with the shadows tinted but all the rest of the wood
cut away, is printed over the impression from C, and lastly A comes to
give the decided lines and sharpen up the whole effect.

Footnote 300:

The ‘oil colour’ is the pigment which is transferred from the block to
the paper. The ‘water colour’ and the ‘white lead mixed with gum’
mentioned above are only put on by the artist to guide the wood-cutter
in his work of cutting the block.

Footnote 301:

The text, in both the original editions, runs as follows: ‘E la terza
che è la prima a formarsi, è quella dove il profilato del tutto è
incavato per tutto, salvo che dove e’ non ha i profili tocchi dal nero
della penna,’ and the negative is puzzling, for obviously the wood
must be cut away everywhere but in those places where the outlines do
come.

Footnote 302:

But Theophilus says practically nothing about design, and yet the
mediaeval epoch was for the decorative arts one of the most glorious
the world has ever seen. See on this subject the last part of the
Introductory Essay, ante, p. 20 f.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES

1. Typos fixed; non-standard spelling and dialect retained. 2. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_. 3. Enclosed bold or blackletter font in =equals=. 4. Used a caret (^) to indicate superscripts, including single characters like 2^d or entire phrases like 1^{st}.