Americus times-recorder. [volume] (Americus, Ga.) 1891-current, 1919-04-25
ANTIQUITY OF
DECORATIVE ART
Strange Sources From Which
Pigments Used by Modern
Painters Are Derived.
PRESERVATION OF SURFACES.
Crude but Effective Proeesges Employ.
ed by the Egyptians and Greeks of
Pllny's Day-Noah PrudentIy
Waterproofed the Ark.
PRESERVATION OF SURFACES

Whether paint was invented In an
gwer to need for preservative or to
meet a desire for beauty is a question
fully as knotty as the ancient one 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 son
of beauty remains forever a disputed
question.
The first men, covering under the
fierce and glaring suns of the biblical
countries, constructed rude huts of
wood to shelter them. The perishable
nature of these structures caused rapid
decay, and 1t Is probable that the oc-
cupants, seeking some artificial means
of preservation, hit upon the pigments
of the earth in their search 1t is per-
haps natural to suppose that it was
1.-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 a desire to
initiate those wonders In their own
dwellings.
The earliest record of the applica-
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 it
backed as 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 IA
miliar kalsomining
The first Hebrew to mention paint
ing is Moses In the thirty-thrd 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 rheir pic
lures E"
AT later periods the Jews adopted
many customs of the peoples who sue
.cessively obtained power over them
and in the apocryphal book of the
Maceabees is found this allusion to
the art of decorating, "For as the mas
ter builder of a new house must care
for the whole building, but he that
undertaken to set it out and paint it,
must seek out things 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 fix its origin at
period long antecedent to the Grecian
era. The walls of Thebes were paint
ed 1900 years before the coming of
Christ and 900 years before "Omer
smote his bloomin' Tyre"
The Greeks recognized the value OF
paint as a 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
warlike people, never brought the dec
Grafton of buildings to the high plane
1t had reached with the Greeks. For
all that the ruins of Pompeii show
MANY structures whose mural decora-
lions are In fair shape today. The
colors used were glaring. 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
nosaics for churches somewhat sup
0,anted mural painting. Still, during
the reign of Justinian the Church OF
Saint Sophia was built at Constantine
nile and its walls were adorned with
paintings.
In modern times the uses of paint
have come to be as numerous as us
myriad shades and tints. Paint is
UNIQUE in that its name 1as no syno-
nym 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
wooden building now except In terms
Of paint coated. Interiors, too, from
painted walls and stained furniture
down to the lowliest kitchen 'utehSIi'
all receive their protective covering"
steel so often associated with cement
reinforcing, is painted before 1t goes
To, give solidity to the manufactured
stone The huge Orders of the sky
scrapers are daubed an ugly but ell
cient 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
ing continually. 1t is scarce possible
to think Of a single manufactured ar
t,cle which does not meet paint some