(_In the possession of Thomas Girtin, Esq._) “THE VALLEY OF THE AIRE.” BY THOMAS GIRTIN.] their own personal emotions; and the outcome of this process is the present school of British landscape painters in water-colours, which attempts, both in its highest and in its lowest efforts, to do full justice to the progressive demands which the educated public has thus learned to make on the artist. We turn now to the development of technique. The earliest topographers worked on white paper, on which, after the subject had been outlined in pencil--such outlines being sometimes enforced with pen and ink, the general system of light and shade was washed in monochrome; the local colours were then washed over this preparation. The method, so far as the colours were concerned, was somewhat similar to that of tinting or colouring an engraving. In drawings executed in this manner by Sandby, Rooker, and Hearne the brilliance of the colours is somewhat subdued by the grey underpainting. But this is probably due to the fact that the artists worked only with their washes of transparent colour, relying upon the white paper asserting itself through these washes. The luminous effects produced in this way--in drawings like Sandby’s _Windsor: East View from Crown Corner_ (British Museum) and Rooker’s _St. Botolph’s_ (V. and A. Museum)--have been so much admired that many living artists have deliberately gone back to this simple way of working. The effect of the grey underpainting on the finished work is, however, largely dependent on the artist’s wishes. If he chooses to sacrifice the luminosity of the white paper he can paint over his preliminary washes with colour so heavily charged that it will practically annihilate them. This is what Girtin generally did in his later works, though it must be added that he also changed the colour of his preparatory washes from grey to brown. I am inclined to think, therefore, that Redgrave has exaggerated the importance of the use or disuse of these preliminary washes. The earlier poetical painters, like Lambert, and Sandby in his larger compositions painted for exhibition purposes, worked in body-colour, i.e., opaque white was mixed with all the colours. In this way some approximation to the force of oil painting was obtained. Another way of getting a similar result was to work with the paper wet. A good example of this method is Turner’s _Warkworth Castle_. In this picture Turner tries to do in water-colour what Richard Wilson did in oils. He gets his effects of deep rich tone and force of colour by working with a heavily charged brush, sponging, and wiping out the lights with a dry brush or handkerchief or scraping them with a knife.