Art-Jottings In Art-Studios.

inasmuch as the pictorial art , whilst it can never exactly reproduce the Avonders of Jfature , yet attains to its greatest excellence when it presents their resemblance in the most striking and pleasing manner through the eye of man , to his brain—through his hodily sig ht to his intellectual understanding . The colours used in " distemper " are mostly of a commoner kind than those employed in the more delicate branches of art , and are applied in a moist state , being mixed with a kind of Avatery glue Avhich is

formed of size and Avhiting . The glue or size is simply a fine kind of gelatine , and is usually made from the clipp ings of hides , hoofs , and ear and tail-pieces of cattle-skins , Avhich are deprived of their hah- by the action of lime , and then boiled in water until the animal jelly has been clissoh'ed out . Wbiting is another name for cai-bonate of lime in a someivhat purified state ; to produce it chalk , i . e . carbonate of lime , is ground and Avashed free from impurities , after AA'hich the finer particles of it are collected and riin into moidds .

There remains now , as it seems to us , but one other land ot murial decoration : we do not call it a special dh'ision , because it is more properly only a Avay of using some of the other modes of applying colour to wall-surfaces , —ahvays setting aside , of course , the ordinary painter ' s tool ancl the AA'hiteAvasher ' s brush—Ave mean " stencilling . " STENCILLING would hardly deserve the name of " art , " so mechanical is it in its application , but that it is necessary for an artist to make the design that is to be produced—and reproduced , again and again—by means of the stencil-plates .

, , A design then having been prepared , a number of metal or cardboard sheets are procured equal in number to the colours or shades of AA'hich the design is composed . Every part of the design pourtrayed hi one colour or shade is cut out of one of these plates , the same process being followed until every shade has its perforated plate . These plates are then used one at a time , and , having been ' accurately adjusted so that the portion of the design perforated in it shaU come into its proper placethe

, operator rubs the particular colour belonging to it on to the Avail . When all the plates together with their respective colours have been thus employed , the figure is completed . The same process is repeated over and over again until the Avhole Avail-surface intended to be decorated is covered .

We noAv seem to hesitate as to AA'hether Ave shall include here the decoration of walls by means of paper applied to them ; but , having once got as far doAvn the artistic ladder as " stencil , " ancl having incidentally mentioned " AA'biteAvash , " there really seems no reason AA'hy Ave should not include " paperhanghig" in this paper on Mural Decoration .

WALL-PAPPUS , then , have in ordinary use completely taken the place of " stencilling , " but in these clays , AA'hen there is a rage for " the antique , " and Avhen anything , however atrociously ugly and commonplace , that can be SIIOAATI to have been in use by our ancestors—the more remote and uncultivated such ancestors having been , the better—our AA'all-papers are extensively made to represent the ruder forms of the earlier mode . Some day , perhaps , as we seem to move in cycles , we may make believe to be advancingand so get to those startling desi of our grandfathersAvhere huge posies

, gns , as bi g as caulifloAvers , and as staring as advertising posters , presented to us , too , in every colour in the rainboAV , or out of it , may again come into vogue ; and then , if we still " advance , " Ave may ¦ hope to reach once more the designs , exquisite in form and colour , design and detail , of our neighbours across the channel ; and then—Avell , — " Apres nous , le deluge . " At first the paper on which the designs are printed used to be made into lengths of twelve

yards by pasting together sheets of the size of " elephant" ( 32 by 22 inches ); but , smce the invention of the paper-machine , " Avebs " can be produced of any length . Upon the Aveb it is usual to spread very evenly a coat of " ground " colour with a perfectl y smooth surface , and on this the design is subsequently printed . (( When " papers" were first produced , these designs Avere printed by means of stencil" latesas the Avails themseh'had been preAnousldecoratedbut in

. p , es y ; a -Attle time a hint Avas taken from calico-printing , and engraved Avooden blocks took the place of the plates . This process is of course the exact reA'erse of " stencil , " just as the e » graving of the metal plate is of the block for the woodcut . 23