in its application. The former circumstance is a reason why harmony is more difficult of attainment with many materials than with few, the latter, why chemical action and re-action may take place among the colouring substances.
914.
We may refer, besides, to some false tendencies which the artists suffer themselves to be led away with. Painters are always looking for new colouring substances, and believe when such a substance is discovered that they have made an advance in the art. They have a great curiosity to know the practical methods of the old masters, and lose much time in the search. Towards the end of the last century we were thus long tormented with wax-painting. Others turn their attention to the discovery of new methods, through which nothing new is accomplished; for, after all, it is the feeling of the artist only that informs every kind of technical process.