nd to its purposes instead of wearying
itself about means. The whole mystery of manipulation and manufacture
should be familiar to the painter from a child. He should know the
chemistry of all colors and materials whatsoever, and should prepare all
his colors himself, in a little laboratory of his own. Limiting his
chemistry to this one object, the amount of practical science necessary
for it, and such accidental discoveries as might fall in his way in the
course of his work, of better colors or better methods of preparing
them, would be an infinite refreshment to his mind; a minor subject of
interest to which it might turn when jaded with comfortless labor, or
exhausted with feverish invention, and yet which would never interfere
with its higher functions, when it chose to address itself to them. Even
a considerable amount of manual labor, sturdy color-grinding and
canvas-stretching, would be advantageous; though this kind of work ought
to be in great part done by pupils. For it is one of the conditions of
perfect knowledge in these matters, that every great master should have
a certain number of pupils, to whom he is to impart all the knowledge of
materials and means which he himself possesses, as soon as possible; so
that, at any rate, by the time they are fifteen years old, they may know
all that he knows himself in this kind; that is to say, all that the
world of artists know, and his own discoveries besides, and so never be
troubled about methods any more. Not that the knowledge even of his own
particular methods is to be of purpose confined to himself and his
pupils, but that necessarily it must be so in some degree; for only
those who see him at work daily can understand his small and
multitudinous ways of practice. These cannot verbally be explained to
everybody, nor is it needful that they should, only let them be
concealed from nobody who cares to see them; in which case, of course,
his attendant scholars will know them best. But all that can be made
public in matters of this kind should be so with all speed, every artist
throwing his discovery into the common stock, and the whole body of
artists taking such pains in this department of science as that there
shall be no unsettled questions about any known material or method: that
it shall be an entirely ascertained and indisputable matter which is the
best white, and which the best brown; which the strongest canvas, and
safest varnish; and which the shortest and