The evening leader. (Tarpon Springs, Fla.) 191?-19??, 1919-03-28
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
PIiny's Day-Noah Prudently
Waterproofed the Ark.

swer to a need for preservative or to
meet a desire for beauty is 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 Ratural 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 a desire to
initiate those wonders in their own
dwellings.
The earliest record Of the applica-
tiOn Of a preservative to q wooden
structure dates from the ark, which
was, according to the Bible, pitched
within and without" The pitch was
triumph of preservation whatever it
lacked as a thing of hearty
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 kalSOmning.
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. 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
| MacCaheeS 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 out things for the adjoining
! thereof"
Although Homer gives credit to a
Greek for the discovery of paint, the
! illusions to ii in the books of Moses
| 'he painted mummy cases of the Egyp-
| iians and the decorated walls of Eaby-
! Ion and TheheS fix its origin at q
| period long antecedent to the Greciun
era. The walls of Thehes were paint
ed 1000 years before the coming of
| Christ and 900 years before "Omer
Smote his hlOOmin' Tyre"
The Greeks recognized the value of
| paint as Il preServative and made use
If something akin to it on their ships.
lliny 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
he wood thus protected"
The Romans, being essentially
| warlike people, never brought the dec
'ratiou of buildings to the high plane
had reached with. the Greeks. For
all that the ruins of Pompeii show
amy structures whose mural deeora-
cons are In fair shape today. The
| .'"lors used were glaring. A black
background was the usual one and the
combinations worked thereon red, vel
oW and blue.
In the early Christian era the use of
'oSaics for churches somewhat sup
'anted mural painting. Still, during
he reign of .Tustinian the Church of
aint Sophia was built at Constantine
lie and it's walls were adorned with
raintings.
In modern times the uses of paint
nave come TO be as numerous as its
myriad shades and tints. Paint is
unique in that its name has no syno-
nym and for it 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 utensil.
all receive their protective covering.
Steel, so often associated with cement
reinforcing, is painted before it goes
to give solidity to the manufactured
stone. The huge Orders. of the sky
Scrapers are daubed an ugly but eff
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 a gang of painters is kept 60
ing continually. 1t is scarce possible
10 think of a single manufactured ar
ticle which does not meet paint some
where in tbs course of its construc-