THE EOLE OF CHEMISTRY IN PAINTINGS. 457 



Van Eyck and Ghirlandajo. It was also of Raphael and his pupils; 

 his Sistine Madonna, at Dresden, bears the date 1515, and is without 

 any cracking. In the same good condition is the portrait of Charles 

 I, and especially the Portrait of an Uiihnoicn Man, by Vandyke, 

 which are in the Louvre. The state of preservation of some of 

 Rubens paintings in the Louvre is almost as perfect. 



In a great number of these paintings the layer of paint is so thin 

 that one can almost always see the texture of the canvas imder the 

 color. 



Our modern painters are much less careful than the old masters, 

 and may be said to destroy their OAvn works. If it is consoling to 

 think that all that Ave see at each ncAV salon will not pass on to pos- 

 terity, it is none the less regrettable to count Ingres among those 

 whose work must disappear. His Triomphe de Cheruhini, in the 

 Louvre, which is dated 1842, is in a lamentable state, in spite of the 

 very skillful restorations that have been made on it. Although a 

 great admirer of Raphael, Ingres did not imitate his technique, and 

 he has left us only one picture painted well and having some chance 

 of living; happily it is la ^Source. 



It is easier to give oneself up to inspiration and to work feverishly, 

 as one actually does, than to paint finely, as was formerly done; but 

 in jjainting, as in sculpture, or in engraving, the artist ought to be a 

 master of his tools and in full possession of all his powers at every 

 moment ; in a word, he should he a man of his trade. 



There is, however, a process that is not disposed to cracking; it is 

 that of pastel. Here the color is alread}" divided into granulations 

 and does not form an uninterrupted layer when it is laid on. LTnfor- 

 tunately, the pastel, although well established to-day, does not lend 

 itself to the same effects as painting in oil. The painter Raphael 

 sought to unite the advantages of the two processes some years ago 

 by inventing oil colors solidified in sticks, which could be employed 

 as pastel. These colors were taken from the scrapings or essence, 

 and the paintings had to be varnished as ordinarily. It does not 

 seem to have had great success, and this is very probably because it 

 is suited to only one style — the style of Raphael. 



There remains a last solution — that of a rigid support ; but is there 

 such a thing? No support is perfect, but hard wood, well seasoned, 

 gives much better results than canvas. It has, however, the incon- 

 venience of limited dimensions and is expensive. A support which 

 has perhaps not been sufficiently considered is sheet metal. It is 

 difficult to judge by experience of the quality of such a support for 

 no very old paintings exist on metal; metal was formerly a very 

 costly i^roduct, for the reason that, used as a supjDort, it would have 

 to be very homogeneous and of sufficiently great dimensions. It may 



