Okolona messenger. (Okolona, Miss.) 1900-current, 1919-04-17
ANTIQUITY OF
Decorative ART
Strange Sources From Which
Pigments Used by Modern
Painters Are Derived.
PRESERVATION OF SURFACES
Crude but Effective Processes Employ
ed by the Egyptians and Greeks of
PIinys Day-Noah Prudently
Waterproofed the Ark.

Whether paint was invented In an
swer to need for a preSeryative or to
meet desire for beauty is a question
fully as knotty as the ancient ore about
! the relative time Of arrival of the
chicken or the egg. 1t was invented
though, and 1t serves both purposes
equally so whether it is an offspring
of mother necessity or an adopted sOr
Of beauty remains forever a disputed
question.
The first men, covering under thu
fierce and glaring suns of the biblical
countries, constructed rude huts Of
wood to shelter them. The pershable
nature Of these structures caused rapid
decay, and it is probable that the Oc,
cupants, seeking some artificial means
of preservation, hit upon the pigments
Of the earth in their search. Ii is per,
haps natural to suppose that it was
the instinct Of preservation that led
men to the search, although the glOries
OF the sunsets and the beauties Of the
rainbow may have created desire to
initiate those wonders in their own
dwellings.
The earliest record of the appllca,
ton of preservative TO a wooden
structure dates from the ark, which
was, according to the Bible, pitched
within and without" The pitch was a
triumph of preservation whatever il
lacked as a thing of beauty.
Decoration applied to buildings first
comes to light with ancient Babylon,
whose walls were covered with repre-
sensations Of hunting scenes and of
combat. These were done in red and
the method followed was to paint the
scene on the bricks at the time OF
manufacture, assuring permanence by
baking. Strictly speaking, this was
not painting so much as it was the
earliest manifestation of our own fa,
miliar kalsomining.
The first Hebrew to mention paint,
ing is Moses. In the thirty-third chap.
ter of the book of Numbers he in.
structs the Israelites, when We have
passed over the Jordan into the land
of Canaan. then shall We drive out all
the inhabitants of the land from be,
fore you and destroy all their pic,
lures
At later periods the Jews adopted
many customs of the peoples who sue
cessivey obtained power over them
and in the apocryphal book oc lhe
Maccabees is found this allusion to
the art of decorating, For as the mas
ter builder Of new house must care
for the whole building, but he that
undertaken to set it out and paint it,
must seek cut thugs for the adjoining
thereof"
Although Homer gives credit to
Greek for the discovery Of paint, the
illusions to it in the books of Moses,
the painted mummy cases of the Egyp-
tians and the decorated walls of Baby
Ion and Thebes Ak its origin at
period long antecedent to the Grecian
era. The walls of Thebes were paint
ed 1000 years before the coming Of
Christ and 900 years before "Omer
slnutr his blOomin' Tyre"
4he Greeks recognized the value of
paint as Il preservative and made use
Of something akin to it on their ships.
Pliny writes Of the mode of boiling
wax and painting ships with it, after
which, he continues, neither the sea,
nor the wind, nor the sun can destroy
the wood thus protected"
The Romans, being essentially
warike people, never brought the dec
grafton of buildings to the high plane
it had reached with the Greeks, For
all that the ruins of POmpeii show
many structures whose mural decora-
tons are in fair shape today. The
colors used were glsring A black
background was the usual one and the
combinations worked thereon red, vel
low and blue.
In the early Christian era the use Of
mosalcs for churches somewhat sup
planted mural painting. Sill during
the reign of Justinian the Church of
Saint Sophia was built at Constantine
pie and its wallis were adorned with
paintings.
In modern times the uses Of paint
have come to be as numerous as it's
myriad shades and tints Paint is
unique in that its name las no sync-
nyIn and for 1t there is no substitute
material Bread is the staff of life, but
paint is the, life of the staff.
No one thinks of the exterior of e
wooden building now except in terms
of paint coated. Interiors; too, from
painted walls and stained furniture
down to the lOwliest kitchen utcnSii.
all receive their protective covering
Steel, so often associated with cement
reinforcing, is painted before it goes
to give solidty to the manufactured
stone. The huge girders Of the sky
scrapers are daubed an ugly but eff
cicnt red underneath the surface coat
OF black. Perhaps the best example
of the value of paint on steel is found
In The venerable Brooklyn bridge, on
which gang Of painters is kept go