Bright transparent colors (at the time regarded as garish) were applied in thin

glazes onto a smooth, white ground, most often canvas. Using a white ground, rat
her than a colored one, gives luminosity to a painting. Building up color throug
h glazes, imitates the effect of light falling on a subject and gives a depth th
at cannot be obtained by using colors mixed on a palette.
Hunt wrote: "For the sake of avoiding the contamination of hue resulting from th
e use of palettes only partially cleaned from earlier work, we used white porcel
ain tablets which would betray any remains of dried paint that would otherwise i
nfallibly work up into tints that would need to be of pristine purity. We knew h
ow impossible it was to give the purity and variety of nature's hues if we allow
ed our pigments to get sullied."
Millais and Hunt reversed the establishment's order of painting, creating backgr
ounds first, plein air, then putting in the figures in their studios. Compositio
ns were generally worked out directly on the canvas, drawn with graphite pencil.
Form was built up meticulously using small brushes. Hunt said: "I tried to put
aside the loose irresponsible handling to which I had been trained."
The final touch was a high-gloss varnish, which emphasized the fact that the pai
nting was done in oils, the most valued of mediums, and helped protect the surfa
ce.
To recreate a typical Pre-Raphaelite palette, use the following colours: cobalt
blue, ultramarine (substitute French ultramarine for natural ultramarine), emera
ld green, madder (natural madder fades in sunlight; substitute a modern alternat
ive such as alizarin crimson), earth colors (ochres, siennas, umbers), plus the
characteristic Pre-Raphaelite purple made from mixing cobalt blue with madder.
Alizarin crimson
Vermilion
Cadmium red
Scarlet lake
Ultramarine blue
Colbolt blue
Emerald green
Colbolt green
Lemon yellow
Cadmium yellow( madder)
(also the ochers, siennas, and umbers)
In the early days of Pre-Raphaelitism, the technique they used was to apply a we
t white background to the gesso-prepared canvas or panel, but only to the area t
hey were working on that day. Then they would apply pure oil colours (ground fro
m solid blocks of colour and mixed with linseed oil & turpentine), and paint ver
y thinly with small brushes (sometimes only a few hairs) on top of this backgrou
nd while it was still wet. Then they would repeat the process on the next sectio
n of the canvas or panel.
This procedure was very labour-intensive and time-consuming, but it allowed the
pure white background to heighten the colours and give a stained-glass effect (a
s if sunlight was shining through the colours). The technique was similar to the
one used by the Quattrocento artists who flourished before Raphael; hence the n
ame "Pre-Raphaelite."
The Pre-Raphaelites favoured a return to pictorial detail and intense, bright co
lours of the early Renaissance masters such as Mantegna. To achieve this intensi
ty of colour, the Pre-Raphaelites painted on opaque grounds prepared with zinc w
hite. They copied Venetian masters such as Titian, laying colours on in thin gla
zes, barely mixing the paint, making for maximum luminosity.

In particular, the group objected to the influence of Sir Joshua Reynolds, foun
der of the English Royal Academy of Arts, whom they called "Sir Sloshua". To the
Pre-Raphaelites, according to William Michael Rossetti, "sloshy" meant "anythin
g lax or scamped in the process of painting ... and hence ... any thing or perso
n of a commonplace or conventional kind".
The 19th century - essentially the beginning of modern art - was a period of hug
e change for both oil painters and watercolourists. New colours and enhanced ver
sions of established pigments seemed to pop up with bewildering regularity, ever
y few years. Cobalt Blue emerged in 1802, Chromium Green Oxide was introduced in
1809. Indian Yellow also arrived around this time. Cadmium Yellow appeared in 1
817, Cerulean Blue in 1821, to be followed by a cheap synthetic Ultramarine, Zin
c White, Rose Madder, Aureolin, Viridian, and Cobalt Violet. Problems remained o
f course, notably in pigment toxicity. Emerald Green, for instance, the favourit
e green hue of the unstable Post-Impressionist genius Vincent Van Gogh, was so p
oisonous it was marketed as Paris Green and employed to kill rats in the Parisia
n sewers!