Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 6.djvu/589

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.
CRA—CRA
555

tntered the studio of a firm of monumental sculptors in liis native city ; and at the age of twenty he went to Koine and became a pupil of Thonvaldsen. The first work which made him generally known as a man of genius was his group of Orpheus entering Hades in (Search of Euryclice, executed in 1839. This was followed by other poetical sculptures, among which were the Babes in the Wood, Flora, Hebe and Ganymede, Sappho, Vesta, the Dancers, and the Hunter. Among his statues and busts are especially noteworthy the bust of Josiah Quincy, executed for Harvard University (now in the Boston Athenaeum), the equestrian statue of Washington at Richmond, Virginia, the statue of Beethoven in the Boston music hall, statues of Channing and Henry Clay, and the colossal figure of Armed Liberty for the Capitol at Washington. For this building he executed also the figures for the pediment and the bronze doors. The groups of the pediment symbolize the progress of civilization in America. Crawford s works include a large number of bas-reliefs of Scriptural subjects taken from both the Old and the New Testaments. He made Borne his home, but he visited several times his native land, first in 1844, in which year he married, next in 1849, and lastly in 1856. His studio at Rome was very attractive to visitors, and for some time he ranked as sculptor next after Gibson. His works always bore the stamp of original invention and freshness of thought, although in execution they were open to criticism. During his last years he suffered from a tumour on the brain, which deprived him of sight ; and he was compelled to leave many works unfinished. He sought relief at Paris and in London, but in vain, and died in London on the 10th of

October 1857.

CRAWFURD, John (1783-1868), a Scottish author, was born in the island of Islay, Scotland. After studying at Edinburgh hs became surgeon in the East India Company s service. He afterwards resided for some time at Penang, and he was from 1811 to 1817 British representative at Java. In 1821 he served as envoy to Siam and Cochiu- China, and in 1823 became governor of Singapore. In 1861 he was elected president of the Ethnological Society.


He wrote a History of the Indian Archipelago (1820), Descriptive Dictionary of the Indian Islands and Adjacent Countries (1856), Journal of an Embassy to the Court of Ava in 1827 (1829), Journal of an Embassy to the Courts of Siam and Cochin-China, exhibiting a view of the actual Slate of these Kingdoms (1830), Inquiry into the System of Taxation in India, Letters on the Interior of India, an attack on the newspaper stamp-tax and the duty on paper entitled Taxes on Knowledge, (1836), and a valuable Malay grammar and dictionary (1852).

CRAYER, Gaspard de (1582-1669), was born at Antwerp, and learnt the art of painting from Raphael Coxcie. He matriculated in the guild of St Luke at Brussels in 1607, resided in the capital of Brabant till after 1660, and finally settled at Ghent. Amongst the numerous pictures which he painted in the last of these cities, one in the town museum represents the Martyrdom of St Blaise, and bears the inscription A 1668 set. 86. Crayer, one of the most productive yet one of the most conscientious artists of the later Flemish school, was second to Rubens in vigour and below Vandyck in refinement ; but he very nearly equalled both in most of the essentials of painting ; and it is probably true, as stated by modern critics, that his fame was unfairly overshadowed by that of two great con temporaries with whom he was on terms of intimacy. He was well known and always well treated by Albert and Isabella, governors of the Netherlands. The Cardinal- Infant Ferdinand made him a court-painter. His pictures abound in the churches and museums of Brussels and Ghent ; and there is scarcely a country chapel in Flanders or Brabant that cannot boast of one or more of his canvases. But he was equally respected beyond his native and some important pictures of his composition are to be found as far south as Aix in Provence, and as far east as Amberg in the Upper Palatinate. His skill as a decorative artist is shown in the panels executed for a triumphal arch at the entry of Cardinal Ferdinand into the Flemish capital, some of which are publicly exhibited in the museum of Ghent. Crayer died at Ghent. His best works are the Miraculous Draught of Fishes in the Gallery of Brussels, the Judgment of Solomon in the Gallery of Ghent, and Madonnas with Saints in the Louvre, the Munich Pinakothek, and the Belvedere at Vienna. His portrait by Vaudyck was engraved by P. Pontius.

CRAYON, a coloured material for drawing, employed generally in the form of pencils, but sometimes also as a powder, and consisting of native earthy and stony friable substances, or of artificially prepared mixtures of a base of pipe or China clay with Prussian blue, orpimeut vermilion, umber, and other pigments. Calcined gypsum, talc, and compounds of magnesium, bismuth, and lead are occasionally used as bases. The required shades of tints are obtained by adding varying amounts of colouring matter to equal quan tities of the base. The ingredients of crayons or pastils are made into a paste with gum, turpentine, or alcoholic solution of shellac, and pulverized as finely as possible in a mill, which subjects them repeatedly to the action of a revolving cast-iron grinder. The paste is introduced into a copper cylinder, closed at one end by a plate pierced with holes of the diameter of the crayons to be made. Through these it is forced by means of a piston, and the vermicular pieces obtained are then cut into the required lengths, and dried in a furnace at a gentle heat. Black crayons may be manufactured from a mixture of one part of lamp-black with about two-thirds of its bulk of clay ; red crayons from powdered and elutriated hematite worked up into a paste with gum arabic and a little soap. White crayons are commonly formed by sawing chalk of good quality into convenient shapes. Mixtures of soap, wax, and lamp black are employed for lithographic crayons or chalks. The late well-known zoological lithographer, George Ford, employed chalks made after the following receipt:—


Yellow wax, . . . . 32 oz. Curd soap, . . . . 24 ,, Mutton tallow, . . . 4 , , Washing soda (dissolved in 7 oz. water), 1 ,, Taris black (sifted), . . . 7


The wax is gradually incorporated with the melted soap by heating, and as the resultant mass begins to burn, the soda is added ; afterwards the black is by degrees stirred in. The melted tallow may be added at any stage in the operation.

Crayons are valuable to the artist in enabling him to

make groupings of colours and to secure landscape and other effects with ease and rapidity. The outline as well as the rest of the picture is drawn in crayon. The colours are softened ofi and blended by the finger, with the assistance of a stump of leather or paper ; and shading is produced by cross-hatching and stippling. The paper employed is of loose but not soft or spongy texture, and is of various tints, warm grey or yellowish being generally preferred. For portraits pumice-paper and red or brown crayons are con sidered most suitable. The colours are fixed by the pro cess known as transudation. The drawing is supported face downwards by its edges or corners, and a solution of isinglass is applied to the back with a brush in quantity sufficient to penetrate to the coloured surface of the paper, which may then be turned upwards to dry. The fixing solution is prepared as follows : three -quarters of an ounce of isinglass is infused for a day in 2/ ounce of pure vinegar ; a pint of hot water is added, and the solution of

s is filtered and mixed with an equal volume of