Terre De Cassel Or Corruptly Castle Earth Is Specially An Oil
:
ON THE SEMI-NEUTRAL, BROWN.
pigment, similar to burnt umber but of a more russet hue. It is an earth
containing bitumen, a substance which, with pit-coal, lignite or brown
coal, jet, petroleum or rock oil, naphtha, &c., is looked upon as a
product of the decomposition of organic matter, beneath the surface of
the earth, in situations where the conditions of contact with water, and
almost total exclusion of atmospheric air, are fulfilled. Deposited at
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the bottom of seas, lakes, or rivers, and subsequently covered up by
accumulations of clay and sand, the organic tissue undergoes a kind of
fermentation by which the bodies in question are slowly produced. The
true bitumens appear to have arisen from coal or lignite by the action
of subterranean heat; and very closely resemble some of the products
yielded by the destructive distillation of those bodies.
Rich as is the tone of colour of Cassel earth, it is apt to lose this in
some measure on exposure to light. Merimee remembers to have seen a
head, the brown hair of which had been painted partly with the earth
alone, and partly with a mixture of the earth and white; yet the hair
where the white was employed was darker than that painted solely with
the brown, the white having fixed the colour. To compensate for its
thus fading, it should be mixed with pigments that are permanent, such
as umber and lamp black. Like all bituminous earths, it needs the
strongest drying oil. By calcination, a greater degree of intensity may
be imparted to the colour, and perhaps a little more solidity. In
landscapes it is of much service for the most vigorous portions of
foregrounds and the trunks of trees, as well as for painting cavernous
rocks or deep recesses in architecture. Compounded with burnt lake and a
little Prussian blue, it gives a black the most profound.
TTITLE CHALON'S BROWN
is a water-colour pigment, transparent and inclining to red; deep, full,
and very rich. On exposure to light it becomes less russet, but is
otherwise strictly stable.
TTITLE COLOGNE EARTH,