Page:Landscape Painting by Birge Harrison.djvu/148

LANDSCAPE PAINTING its usefulness is limited to comparatively light effects, and to pictures of moderate size, as it lacks the necessary depth and power for low-toned pictures or for canvases of large dimensions. As the lead factor is not present in water-color work, almost the whole scale of pigments may be used with impunity and with reasonable certainty of permanence. But of all the methods of painting yet discovered, painting in oil is unquestionably the most valuable and the most satisfactory in its general results. The range of its power is only limited to the power of the pigments at our command; and its permanence depends only on our care in the selection of these pigments. In this respect, however, it must be admitted that our palette is still far from ideal. That in this age of chemical conquest [110]