Page:The chemistry of paints and painting.djvu/17

 its pages for the revelation of all the secrets of colour-manufacturers it may prove in some measure disappointing; yet I trust that, in the way of information and suggestion, the study of this volume will not be unattended with advantage. It must be remembered that it is confessedly an elementary manual only, written with a definite aim, but covering a very wide area of inquiry. And if chemists should conclude that it contains too little chemistry, artists may perhaps think that it contains too much.

There are repetitions in the following pages, for the topics discussed in some of the chapters overlap one another. I am perfectly aware of having made the same statement, given the same figure, and expressed the same opinion in more than one place. The scheme of the work required such repetitions. I felt sure that many an artist or student would turn to one section or other of the book without caring to read the whole. One inquirer would like to ascertain at once what pigments were safe, what dubious, what fugitive, by a reference to the tables in Chapters XXI. and XXII.; while another, anxious to learn something of the evidence on which the several verdicts of approval or condemnation were based, would expect to find his requirements met in the pages devoted to trials of pigments. Again, under the names of the individual pigments, discussed in Chapters XIII. to XIX., some of the changes described in the last part of the work are quoted. Thus it happens that there are some materials common to all of those sections of the book just named.