The colour of the pannel, or canvas, upon which the subject has to be painted is of much importance; for it is almost impossible to paint a richly coloured picture, or a portrait, with any thing of life or warmth of it, upon a leaden coloured or green ground; and the same observation holds good in regard to landscape painting: nor can too much care be given to the choise of the ground, which, whatever hue it may have, should be of a warm and light colour, if any other than white should be thought necessary; thus among the white, cream-coloured, light reds, yellow, pale orange, or tan-coloured grounds, a choise can be made without the risk of falling into the sombre or death-like tints, so generally resulting from the use of the colder colours for the ground of the picture; and the same care must be used in avoiding all the cold hues in the outset of the picture, for the power of reducing a warm tint to a colder one is much greater than the converse; a fact of which every artist is made painfully sensible, when he has to restore the brightness and cheerful colours of nature, or the glowing tints of health, to a picture in which all these essentials have been entirely lost or too much neglected.,