Historical Painting Techniques, Materials, and Studio Practice

sudden increase in the dimensions of the palette is part of the argument put
forth here (9).
When one studies the distribution of various tints on the countless palettes
that appear in paintings, it is impossible to avoid the impression that the
painters adhered strictly to a certain set of rules. This is certainly true for the
period after about 1600. Prior to that time, the palette was ostensibly set with
relative freedom. But it is precisely in those earliest representations of palettes
that it is sometimes obvious that the palettes were set up specifically for each
passage to be painted.
Niklaus Deutsch's painting St. Luke Painting the Madonna (1515) is typical of
a group of paintings completed in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, in
which St. Luke is in the process of painting the Madonna's robe. The depicted
artists' palettes show a limited number of patches of paint, with various shades
of blue as well as black and a little white. These are exactly the colors needed
to render the modeling in the drapery of the blue robe-distributed apparently
at random over the surface of the palette (10). In paintings of the same
period in which St. Luke is painting the naked Christ Child or the face of
Maria, the palette carries the range of colors needed to mix the various tints
of the flesh: white, yellow ochre, vermilion, red lake, various browns, black,
and sometimes terre verde (11).
As explained in the following discussion, the flesh tint, like blue, had an
important status. The colors for painting the human skin were not yet systematically
arranged on the palette before 1600, but appear to be distributed
at random. For example, the position of the white paint differs from one case
to another on earlier palettes. From 1600 onward, studio scenes and self portraits
depict palettes with a row of lumps of paint spaced evenly along the
top edge. The range of colors depicted normally runs from a somewhat larger
portion of white near the thumb, to yellow ochre, vermilion, red lake, and
then through a series of progressively darker browns to black. Alternately, the
vermilion is sometimes placed between the white and the thumb. This arrangement
agrees with a passage in the Mayerne Manuscript: "It is to be
observed, moreover, that in setting the palette, the lightest tints must always,
without exception, be placed at the top and the darker tints lower down"
(12). It is striking, and very significant in the context of this article, that the
author has found no instance of the depicted standard palettes from either
before 1600 or afterward that includes any intense green, bright yellow, or
blue paint. These are what are called, in the Mayerne Manuscript of 1630,
"the strong colors" (13). The reason for the absence of these colors is clarified
by the following.
In the Volpato Manuscript, the older apprentice tells the younger that his
master merely has to indicate what passage is to be painted in order to lay
out an appropriate palette. This statement implies the existence of fixed recipes
for reproducing the various elements of nature. Around the same time,
the Dutch painter Willem Beurs wrote down such recipes for the benefit of
both "students of the Noble Painterly Art" and interested "amateurs" (14).
As an example, a recipe for painting a white horse follows (15):
One paints the illuminated side using white, light ochre and black, with
pure white for the highlights; light ochre is recommended for the intermediate
color, and it is advisable there to be rather sparing with white. For the
shadow, black and light ochre must be mixed together with a little white;
the niflection under the belly should be mostly light ochre, with sparing use
of black and white. The hooves can sometimes be painted with black, white
and light ochre, with a touch of vermilion; and sometimes with black, white,
and umber. The color of the nose is the same as that of the hoofs. But as
fo r the eyes: the pupil should be painted with bone black, and the rest with
umber, black and white.
It is clear that if an artist plans to paint a white horse, the only pigments
needed on the palette are white lead, yellow ochre, vermilion, umber, and
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