, 1919-07-31
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
Pliny's Day-Noah PrudentIy
Waterproofed the Ark.

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 it 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 uns of the biblical
countries, constructed rude huts of
wood to shelter them. The perishable
nature of these structures caused rapid
decay, n it is probable that the oc-
cupants, seeking some artificial mean
of preservation, hit upon the pigments
of the earth in their search. 1t is per-
haps natural to suppose that 1t was
the instinct of preservation that led
men to the search, although the glories
Of he sunsets and the beauties of the
rainbow nay have created a desire to
initiate those wonders in their own
dwellings.
The earliest record of the applica-
ton of a 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
lacked as a thing of beauty.
Decoration applied to buildings first
ome to light with ancient Babylon,
whose walls were covered with repre-
sentations of hunting scenes and of
combat. These were lone in red an6
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-
miIIur kalsomining.
III first ebrew 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 ye drive out all
tie 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
cessively obtained power over them
and in the apocryphaI book of the
Maccabees is found this allusion to
the art of decorating, For as the mas
ter builder of a lev house must care
for the whole building, but he that
undertaketh to set 1t out and paint il,
must seek out things for the adjoining
thereof"
Although Homer gives credit to a
Greek for the discovery of paint, the
illusions to 1t in the books of Moses,
the painted mummy cases of the Egyp-
fans and the decorated walls of Baby
lOn and Thebes fix its origin at a
period long antecedent to the Grecian
era. The walls of Thebes were paint
ed 1000 years before the coming of
Christ Inc 900 years before "'Omer
smote his bloomin' Tyre"
The Greeks recognized the value of
paint as IL preservative n 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 a
warlike people, never brought the dec
oration of buildings TO the high plane
it had reached with the Greeks. For
III th"t tne runs vi "i"pei SUI"
many U"
ti"is W t"n a
co'ors use" ."eiI an,N
"u.HS.". ~, tt"noan naa nn
"nnS nI'o
u - II c,n,..,.
IT., far ohnnahos sor'o,,hot smm
,o". nj naintin, S.u duntn.
p " - 80 Ir,tintnn enc rhunoh 20
- esm lille ~ can",mn,o
So .1 Zee Lii ,a,a odan,ad nnith
-.
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