PREFACE
THE observant visitor to the great art galleries is astonished and pained to see the large number of pictures of the highest artistic excellence gradually being ruined on account of decomposition as shown by fading, darkening, cracking and peeling of the paint films. This is all the more deplorable because the cause of the deterioration is well known and pigments, vehicles, canvas, in fact all the materials needed by the painter to make absolutely permanent paintings are equally well known and require only intelligent choice and use by the artist.
The author has attempted to give this information in this volume which is intended to be a popular common sense treatise for all artistic painters who desire to produce permanent pictures which might otherwise in a few short years show most glaring defects.
The author believes that manufacturers of artists’ material should be compelled by law to label every tube of paint as to its permanence and chemical composition so that artists could be assured that they were getting what the label indicated.
I acknowledge with great gratitude the valuable assistance of Prof. Carel F. L. DeWild in reviewing this manuscript, and for the excellent suggestions he has given me.