eir
improved process."

The _very_ early use of oil in painting need not here be discussed, though
it was necessary to go into much detail in forming a history of the art,
which was the object of Mr Eastlake. Perhaps, the earliest in our practice
will be found to have been in England, and may have been the legacy of art
bequeathed at the departure of the Romans. It did not commence in Italy.
"The use of resinous solutions combined in various proportions with oil,
as a medium or vehicle for the colours, was an early technical
characteristic of the northern schools, and merits attention here,
accordingly."

It is the opinion of the author of "Materials for a History," &c., that
the Van Eycks did not so much invent as improve; it was therefore most
desirable to ascertain what was previously ready to their hands to be
improved. And as to the improvement, that was perhaps really less than has
been supposed, the application being the novelty. Oleo-resinous varnishes
had before been in use, even from a very early period; but the admixture
of these with the pigments was the great step in advance, and it may be
inferred that the method of rendering these oleo-resinous vehicles
colourless, or nearly so, was the great invention of John Van Eyck.

Drying oil was well known to the ancients, that is before the Christian
era. "Dioscorides, whose works were familiar to medieval writers on
medicine, is supposed to have lived in the age of Augustus. He mentions
two drying oils; walnut-oil and poppy-oil. The principal materials
employed in modern oil painting were at least ready for the artist, and
waited only for a Van Eyck,--in the age of Ludius[11] and the painters of
Pompeii."

We will not attempt further to pursue the history of oil painting to the
time of the Van Eycks; suffice it to say, that a recipe of Theophilus, a
monk of the twelfth century, furnishes materials--an oleo-resinous vehicle
generally used after the time of Van Eyck--and that the improvement by Van
Eyck was the substituting amber for the sandarach of Theophilus. The work
of Theophilus has recently appeared, translated by Mr Hendrie from the
Latin, and forms a very valuable addition to the painter's library, as
well as to that of the curious and scientific, in general. The artist will
find in Mr Hendrie's preface, the information he will be most desirous to
possess. He strongly insists upon amber varnish as being the real vehicle
or discovery of Van Eyck, and la