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Coloring Finishing And Painting Wood
Pliny, who lived during, the first century, A. D., in writing about Apelles (l.XXXV, C. 18), the court painter of Alexander the Great during the fourth century B. C, wrote: "... that he spread the varnish over his completed work so thin that it brought out the brilliancy of the colors by reflection and protected it from dust and dirt."
The most important and valuable of the treatises on varnish coming from the middle ages is found in the writings of Theophilus Presbyter who was a Swiss or German monk. This man was probably also the same person as Tutilo, or Tuotilo, who lived in the monastery of St. Gall. This monk tells how to make varnish out of fornis or glassa (amber) and linseed-oil by use of a heating and mixing process.2 His formula called for one part of powdered amber with two parts by weight of linseed-oil—the two substances to be properly heated together.
Varnish like the above was especially used to cover paintings. It was not spread with a brush, but was smeared over the surface of paintings with the fingers, and over boards, probably, with a spatula.
The various formulas for varnish-making used during the middle ages contained linseed-oil and a resin, such as amber or sandarac, which were mixed while hot. Some of the formulas after about 1520 suggested dilution of the varnish with naphtha, spirits of wine, or linseed oil. Burnt rock alum was often recommended for an ingredient to be mixed with the boiling linseed-oil and resin.
While some slight changes were made from century to century, it seems probable that there was little improvement in varnish-making for about 800 years—from the time of Theophilus in the tenth or eleventh century until near the end of the eighteenth century. It also seems quite probable that the oil and amber formula for varnish-making was handed down to Theophilus from the mummy-case varnishers of Egypt who knew how to make similar varnishes at least as early as 500 B. C.
174. Purpose of Varnish.—It is very evident that man must have had some very definite purpose in mind which prompted him to use varnish on precious articles in the past and to continue to use it thruout all ages since the dawn of civilization. The reasons for the use of varnish as a finishing material are many, some of which are obvious to the casual observer, while others are discoverable only thru the use of the material itself. The two chief purposes that the wood-finisher has in mind for using varnish are the preservation of the material and the unfolding or development of beauty.
