PAINTING IN DISTEMPER.
This mode of coloring, which, when applied to fine art purposes, is termed tempera painting, is undoubtedly the most ancient, and derives its name from the fact that colors are mixed or tempered with some liquid or medium to bind their separate particles to each other, and to the surface on which the paint is applied.
The Italian noun tempera admits of the widest application, and would include any medium, even oil; but, in its restricted and proper acceptation, it means a vehicle in which the yolk of egg, beaten sometimes with the white, is the chief ingredient, diluted as required with the milky juices expressed from the shoots of the fig-tree. This is the painting strictly termed a nuovo by the Italians. Vinegar probably replaced the fig-tree juice among the northern artists, from the difficulty of obtaining the latter, and in modern use vinegar is substituted. Vinegar should be used to prevent the putrefaction of the yolk of egg, but the early Italian painters preferred the egg vehicle when it had been suffered to stand until it had become decomposed, hence the phrase "a putrido."
The artist is often compelled to have recourse to very offensive media to make known his most refined revelations. On walls, and for coarser work, such as painting on linen, warm size was occasionally used, but the egg vehicle, undiluted, was generally preferred for altar-pieces on wood. For various purposes, and at different periods, however, milk, beer, wine and media composed of water, and more or less glutinous ingredients, soluble at first in water, such as gums, have also been used. Such are the media or vehicles described by the chief Italian writers, as used in the days of Cimabue, Giotto and Fra Angelico, and by the
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