Historical Painting Techniques, Materials, and Studio Practice

In spite of the laments of certain people who complain if the taste of the
century fo r dictionaries, this predilection is increasing, a proof if the benifrt
the public is receiving. We are inundated, and if this torrent is not stopped,
we will be learning only from dictionaries . ... We want to know everything-or
rather speak if every thing and pretend to be ignorant if nothing.
We must submit, therifore, to this "gout du siecle. JJ
Encaustic painting
The history of oil painting was an eighteenth-century fascination. In the mideighteenth
century Diderot still believed, as De La Fontaine previously asserted
in his seventeenth-century treatise, that the art of painting was reborn
when "Jean de Bruges" Gan van Eyck) discovered the "secret" of oil painting.
It was generally accepted that the Ancient painters possessed superior techniques,
and that it should be possible to "rediscover" their methods. By the
eighteenth century there was also concern about the state of seventeenthcentury
paintings, which no longer retained the freshness of those more recently
painted (23).
MEMOIRE
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