“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(Rembrandt’s technique has been the subject of much speculation over the centuries. Especially when he took to piling pigment up to a thickness of a quarter of an inch in such paintings as “The Jewish Bride”—a masterwork. It is thought he used stand oil—heat-treated linseed oil—and varnish of various kinds as a medium. If he added anything else to his pigments it would be well worth learning about.)

You were also close friends. You came from a different country, where the weathering effect upon statues was different. (Denmark? I hated to interrupt with a lot of questions. I thought we could fill in details in later sessions.) This is a long subject however. There was difficulty with varnishes, sometimes drying before the color upon which they were applied. Also varnishes that did not dry evenly, but with accumulations of oils resulting. On frescos this was disastrous enough.

(All of this is very acute artistic information, and embodies the use of good technique even today. Again, I don’t believe Jane knows these things consciously. The varnish data is very good, also the fresco material. Many frescos were ruined in those days through poor techniques. Quality control was not what it is today re paints, varnishes, etc.)

There was a varnish, finally, that you mixed in with some of the pigments after they were prepared, with the dry pigments after they were prepared, that served as a binding agent that also protected each color from the other one. There was a slight lead content mixed into the varnish.

(In those days, tubes for paints did not exist—all color had to be prepared fresh each day by the artist or assistants, from dry pigment. Varnish was often used as an ingredient in mediums. There are and were, many kinds of varnish. A slight lead content in a varnish sounds quite possible.)