it, and to bid his master
reach it if he can, is the puerile play of an infantine intellect, or
very conceited mind! And so we give M. De Piles, and all his
followers, a slap in the face, and bid them go packing with Number 20.
We will not condescend to pull to pieces this fantastic scheme, which
is in its distinctions, and weighings and calculations, appreciations
and depreciations, as false as it must necessarily be, arising from a
mind capable of laying down any such scheme at all. The chapter on
prices, and the lists contained, will be consulted with advantage by
collectors. It contains valuable documents, showing the fluctuations
of public taste. There is much useful information upon cleaning
pictures, and on varnishes. Something has been recently said to bring
into practice again the varnishing with white of egg. M. de Burtin is
decidedly against the practice. "As to the varnishes of water,
isinglass, and white of egg, every prudent amateur will attack them
the instant that he discovers such dangerous enemies, and will use
every effort to free his pictures from them." We think him utterly
mistaken in the following passage. "In operating upon a work of art,
whether to clean it or to raise the varnish, it ought to be
remembered, that the colours grow hard only by the lapse of time." If
so, surely a hundred years would be time enough to harden--but the
chemical tests which touch the hard paint, if it be hard, of a century
old, will not be applicable to those of still older date, and of
better time. He had shown this unconsciously in what he had said of
spirits of wine. We have taken some pains in the pages of Maga to
disabuse the public with regard to the imaginary benefit of painting
in varnish--a most pernicious practice; and that it is so, we have
elsewhere given both proof and authorities. We are glad to find our
author on our side. "Besides, no one at the present day (1808) is
ignorant of their absurd method of painting in varnish, which corrupts
the colours, and prevents them ever attaining the requisite hardness."
There is much useful matter upon varnishing, which it will be well
that collectors and keepers of public galleries should read with
attention. We do not say follow, but read; for it is indeed a very
serious matter to recommend a varnish, seeing how many pictures are
totally ruined by bad applications. We have been told that drying oil
mixed with mastic varnish has been, though not very recently, used