The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1919-05-16
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 PrudentIy
Waterproofed the Ark.

Whether paint was invented in an
swer to a need for a preservative or to
meet 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 it serves both purposes:
equally; so whether 1t is an offspring.
Of mother necessity or an adopted son,
Of beauty remains forever disputed
question.
The first men, covering under the
fierce and glazing 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. It Is per-
haps natural to suppose that 1t 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 applica-
ton Of a preservative to wooden
structure dates from the ark, which
was, according to the Bible, pitched
within and without" The pitch was
.,;,,,,,.h 80 pracaryof;ap ,uhofoyor it
lacked 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
he 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
milar kalsomining.
The first Hebrew to mention paint
ing is Moses. In the thirty-third chap
ter of the book OF Numbers he in
;tructs the Israelites, "When We have
passed over the Jordan into the land
Canaan. then shall We drive out all
lie inhabitants of the land from be-
fore you and destroy all their pic
ureS. =.
AT later periods the Jews adopted
nany customs of the peoples who sue
cessively obtained power over them
md in the apocryphal book of the
Maccabees is found this allusion to
the art of decorating, "F'or as the mas
ter builder of new house must care
for the whole building, but he that
undertaketh 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 it In the books of Moses,
the painted mummy cases of the Egyp-
tians 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 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 1t on their ships.
Pllny 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 q
warlike people, never brought the dec
grafton Of buildings to the high plane
It had reached with the Greeks. For