The Golden State: Where & How to Live, Secure, Visit, Enjoy and Thrive in California

House Painting

Casein and lime cement has long been known; it has been used as a cement for crockery and the like. The directions formerly given (before the modern methods for making casein were invented) were to knead and wash cheese with water until all the fat was removed and the residue was white and crumbly; mix this with cream of lime (lime slaked and mixed with enough water to be of the consistence of cream) enough to make a paste; apply at once. This makes a very strong and water-proof cement. The casein now made is prepared in a very different way, and is chemically a somewhat different substance; but it makes a cement with lime, and resists water well. The paint thus made is practically incombustible; casein may be destroyed by fire, but it is, when dry, a substance much like glue, and can hardly be regarded as combustible; and the lime and pigment are not at all so. It offers a sensible resistance to fire. It is not washed off by rain, and is in that sense weather-proof; but it is of an open and porous structure, and does not prevent moisture from reaching the surface to which it is applied. As it contains free lime, like white- wash, it is impracticable to get such a variety of colors, or such brilliant or delicate ones, as with kalsomine; moreover, it is of a coarse texture, as compared with the latter, and is not as suitable for interior work. It is liable to mold and to decomposition if used in very damp places, as in cellars and the like.

Some three and a half centuries ago, Vasari, a celebrated writer and fresco painter, in his "Lives of the Painters" told the story of a painter named Paolo Ucelli, who was employed to decorate with mural paintings the walls and ceilings of some public rooms in a monastery. In addition to certain small daily wages he was provided with board and lodging; but the thrifty monks, though they themselves had an ample diet, kept him for the most part on soup and bread and cheese. He was practically a prisoner; but one day he ran away, and for a long time eluded the pursuit of the monks, who, being fat and well-fed, were easily out-run by the thin and long-legged artist. But they hit on the device of sending in pursuit some of the young men who had recently come to the monastery to prepare for admission, and they at length captured him and brought him back. When reproached with his breach of contract heexplained that as he was working with lime-washes and paints and living on cheese, he feared and indeed believed that he had symptoms that he was turning into cement. So to get the pictures done they had to give him a more varied supply of food.