How To Make a Bad Painting Part 1.

Summary: How To Make a Bad Painting Using Mediums That Contain Lead, Varnish and Wax. Making artwork is a combination of multiple skills. Experience and practice in rendering subject matter, determining a suitable composition, interpreting the subject stylistically and finally, transferring the ideas into the medium of your choice.  This essay will focus on the use of oil paint to render a work of art and how lead, resin additives can adversely impact painting longevity.

An image of Joshua Reynolds with 3 painting additives superimposed on the image of Reynolds.

Three mindsets appear to exist when selecting materials and employing techniques to make paintings rendered in oil.  One group expresses the idea that “I’m not sure what I am doing, but I will gravitate toward whatever information I get from fellow artists who post their methodology on social media.”  Another group states that “This is the way I was taught to make artwork, and little can be said to change my ways.”

The third mindset ignores social media and seeks advice from reliable sources that base information on science and an understanding of the properties of materials. These artists are told early on to steer clear of the allure of the many “snake oil” types of materials that are repeatedly shared within the art community. Relatedly, these people may also have a basic knowledge of chemistry and know something about the properties of toxic materials.

In an age where we should know better, some of the same materials used in the 18^th century are still touted as being the secret to creating a successful painting.  In some cases, modern synthetic materials are substituted for the ancient formulations and in other cases, the same 18^th century chemicals are employed.

We should learn from our mistakes, or at least I hope so.  Shoe stores don’t have x-ray shoe fitting fluoroscopes any longer. We don’t dust crops with DDT.  We don’t use “bumpers” in cribs anymore. But somehow, the use of questionable and outright bad materials still makes its way into an artist’s mindset and lands in paintbox through chatter on the Internet and recipes found in old art manuals.

While contemporary conservators know firsthand, the perils of a variety of mediums as they delicately treat old works of art, some art instructors during the 18^th century warned artists about the dangers of using certain media. Putting aside the era when fugitive pigments infiltrated the paint market, the use of painting mediums has woven its way through literature about painting techniques.

In Charles Eastlake’s book, “Materials for a History of Oil Painting, 1847, Eastlake devotes a section of his book describing the techniques of Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723-1792). Reynolds is the “poster boy” for what not to do when making a painting. Eastlake states that Reynolds experimented with methods derived from the “Flemish practice” in painting along with the use of wax, inspired by a fellow artist who selected the medium to restore an ancient encaustic painting. “The original purpose failed, (the encaustic restoration project) but the chief material which has been the object of experiment in the attempted revival was adopted, with no very good results, by the oil painters, and especially by Reynolds.”  Eastlake, page 538.

So, while Reynolds was using questionable mediums for some time during his career, the restoration of an ancient encaustic painting prompted him to add wax to his repertoire. The original medium Reynolds used was bad enough. Adding wax to the concoction just made matters worse. Reynolds sealed his place in the history of bad techniques by writing down his materials and methods. Eastlake viewed documents written in Reynolds’ own hand so the history of his painting processes was not in dispute.  

Eastlake describes that Reynolds finished a painting with a varnish composed of “gum mastic dissolved in oil with sal Saturni and rock alum. Sal Saturi was the alchemical term used for lead acetate, also referred to as sugar of lead. Another painting Eastlake discussed using a mixture of Italian and English terms, the description states that varnish made of wax was mixed with pigments ground in oil.  Eastlake states that the varnish was a combination of wax dissolved in Venice Turpentine. The resin Venice Turpentine is derived from the European Larch tree. It is easy to surmise that Reynolds needing to fulfill commission and exhibition deadlines would have applied varnish long before a painting was dry enough to accept a surface coating without problems.  The lead acetate in the varnish was sure to speed the drying time of the varnish, but not before it wrinkled the semi-dry paint layers underneath.  

It is almost always the same cast of unsavory, questionable chemical compounds, interchanged and reformulated to create a disastrous painting medium or surface coating.  Nothing good comes from mixing lead, turpentine, tree resin, wax and mastic or dammar into a painting medium. These mixtures have been proven to fail and have been documented by numerous authors.

Reynolds own paintings telegraph the folly of his experiments.  See for yourself. Examine one of them by looking at it closely as well as at an angle in raking light. You will discover a multitude of wrinkled, pock-marked, uneven passages that have likely been tenderly restored in modern times to keep the painting integrated so that it can be displayed in a museum.

In Part 2, the role of saturation, refractive indices of media and long-term outcomes will be discussed. 

The Syntax of Color

Keywords: How To Make a Bad Painting Using Mediums That Contain Lead, Varnish and Wax