Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 29.djvu/103

Rh is extremely dirty, then it is as if some other person had glazed unintelligently over the whole work, so that the original intentions of the artist are as much falsified in one direction by dirt as they are in another by taking the finish from his picture. The reasonable rule, then, would appear to be to clean pictures that really need it, but to avoid over cleaning with the most scrupulous care.

The removal of varnish is in some cases rendered absolutely necessary by a foolish practice that was occasionally resorted to by our fathers—the practice of tinting the varnish itself to give what they wrongly imagined to be tone. It was believed that anybody could varnish a picture; and, by one of those amazing delusions that take deep root in ignorant minds, it was thought that all the colors in a picture could be improved simultaneously by spreading one and the same transparent color over them.

The question whether it is right to paint upon pictures when repairing them may be better understood by considering one or two particular cases. I remember a house where the children were so much indulged that they were allowed to shoot with pop-guns and other engines at the family portraits, and they did this with such energy as actually to produce holes in the canvas—one large hole, for example, in the face of a lady who had been beautiful a hundred years ago. Now, if that picture came to you by inheritance in that state, the question about repainting would present itself to you in a practical form. You would have to determine whether the face was to remain in its damaged condition or to be repaired. To leave it damaged would be to destroy the effect of the picture on everybody's mind, because everybody would think of the hole, and how the accident happened, instead of thinking about the beauty or history of the lady or the merit of the painting. It seems, then, that it would be reasonable to have the picture repaired, and yet it is indisputable that to do this must be to introduce the work of another man. Everything, then, depends on the skill of the restorer. In such a case as that the restorer would begin by carefully laying together the jagged threads of the canvas, so that none should project, and he would probably put a backing to support them; then he would cover them with white-lead up to the level of the painted surface, and, when that was hard and dry, he would carefully color the white patch so as to replace what had been destroyed. Artists of considerable technical ability, but who have not the knack of producing salable pictures, sometimes attain such skill in the coloring of these patches that it becomes impossible to distinguish them after restoration, and the picture has all the appearance of an uninjured work. I remember some portraits from an old French château that were all dirt and holes; in fact, to call them dirty rags would scarcely have been an exaggeration, but the owner had a value for them, and wisely placed them in the hands of a very experienced painter. This artist knew a good cleaner, to whom he confided part of