Page:Life of William Blake, Gilchrist.djvu/490

 and so have a few even on cloth. They come nearer to tempera in process than to anything else, inasmuch as white was laid on and mixed with the colours which were tempered with common carpenter's glue.' Nollekens Smith also tells us that Blake 'would, in the course of painting a picture, pass a very thin transparent wash of glue-water over the whole of the parts he had worked upon, and then, proceed with his finishing.' Those who may be curious to have a minute description of how to manipulate these materials may find one in an Italian treatise entitled ''Di Cennino Cennini, Trattato della Pittura messo in luce la prima volta con annotazioni dal Cavaliere Giuseppe Tambroni. Roma; Coi Torchj di Paolo Sabrincci'', 1822; of which chap. xix. headed Colla di Spichi, is specially devoted to the subject. 'I believe,' writes Mr. Linnell, 'that the first copy of Cennino Cennini's book seen in England was the one I obtained from Italy, and gave to Blake, who soon made it out, and was gratified to find that he had been using the same materials and methods in painting as Cennini describes, particularly the carpenter's glue.'

Blake was a severe designer,—says another friend, on the same topic,—and the richness of oils did not please him, nor comport with his style; nay, so vehement an antagonist was he to oils (see Descriptive Catalogue), that he used to assert that all really great works were in water-colour; and, regarding the plaster ground and the absence of an oily vehicle as the important and distinguishing characteristic of fresco, and the peculiarity from which it takes its name,—that of being executed on a wet surface,—as a comparatively trivial one he, naturally enough, took pleasure in adopting that designation for his own pictures.

A few fragmentary notes concerning Blake's principles or practice, written down as they were gathered, have not yet been included here. Though slight they are not without interest, and it will be better not to omit them.

He worked at literature and art at the same time, keeping