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From the PREFACE.IN the course of my acquaintance with artistic painters, I was astonished to find the enormous amount of ignorance that exists among them as to the composition of the materials which they use and the science of painting. Almost every painter of note will tell you what a great pity it is that the science of making colors is lost, and that the ancient painters and great masters were so successful primarily because their pigments and materials were far superior to those which we can obtain to-day. This statement is so diametrically opposed to the facts that I have been prompted to make a study of paint pigments in order to throw some light on this subject, and demonstrate to the painter that the colors of to-day are far superior to the colors used by the ancients, and show that the principal fault lies with the manufacturer, who makes fugitive colors, for the use of which there is no scientific nor commercial reason. Almost any large dealer in artists' colors has upwards of 200 pigments on sale. In the first place, no palette could hold any such quantity, and in the second place, there are possibly only 10 or 15 sufficiently permanent pigments to warrant their use.The correct, complete and most edifying book on this subject has never been written, nor is my effort of much value, excepting perhaps from the standpoint of the chemist. Some day there will be born a man, who will be both a color chemist and a painter, and that man will write the ideal book on the subject. The popular impression is that all chemists must have a comprehensive knowledge of the chemistry of pigments, but this is not true, as there are very few chemists who know anything about the technology of paints, because it is a specialty which very few have worked up, and no matter how proficient a chemist may be, if he is not an artistic painter, he cannot advise how a sky should be painted, or what particular greens to use for foliage and shadows. The technique of the fine arts is a subject by itself, and while I may be supposed to have some knowledge on this subject, I frankly admit my inability to paint, but inasmuch as I feel very certain of one part of my subject, that is the physical and chemical properties of the pigments, I do not hesitate to recommend in plain language exactly what the painter shall do with reference to his colors, and the materials upon which he paints.Furthermore, I was very much astonished to find that in the art schools of the various countries no attention whatever is paid to the chemistry of colors. A painter should be aware that certain pigments are affected by the fumes arising from vegetables in a dining room, and that these fumes form chemical compounds with certain pigments, and a painter should likewise know that the atmosphere of large cities is contaminated with acid gases which are absent in smaller places, and which did not exist before the age of the burning of coal as fuel....

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