The Painter in oil

With the invention of this medium new possibilities came into the world, and a
continual succession of painters have been inventing ways of putting on paint, the result
being the stock of methods and processes of handling which are the groundwork of the
art of painting to-day.
From time to time there have been groups of artists who have used common methods,
and who have developed expression through those methods which became characteristic
of their epoch; and because the resulting pictures were of a high degree of perfection,
their methods of handling acquired an authority which had a very determining effect on
different periods of painting.
In this way have come those ideas as to what kind of painting or what ways of putting
paint on canvas should be accepted as “legitimate.” And the methods accepted as
legitimate or condemned as illegitimate have been varied with time the time - those
condemned by one period being advocated by another; and the processes themselves
have been almost as varied as the periods of groups of men using them.
In the long run, methods and processes have received such authoritative sanction from
having been each and all used by undoubted masters, that they have become the
traditional property of all art, which any one is free to use as he finds need of them. They
have become the stock in trade of the craft.
The artist may use them as he will, provided only he will take the trouble to
understand them. He must understand them, because the manipulations which make up
these different processes accomplish different effects and different qualities; and as the
painter aims at results, if he does not understand the result of a process when he uses it,
he will get a different one from that which he intended.
The painter should not be hampered by process; he should not be controlled in the
expression of himself by tradition. He should feel free to use any or all means to bring
about the result he aims at, and he should allow no tradition or point of view to prevent
him from selecting whichever means will most surely or satisfactorily bring about his
true purpose.
Of course there are many ways of using paint which are unsafe. Some pigments are
unsafe to use because the either do not hold their own color, or tend to destroy the color
of others. You should always bear this in mind; and if you care for the permanence of
your work, you should not use such materials or such processes as work against it. But
beyond this, the whole range of the experience and experiment of the workers who have
gone before you are at your command, to help you to express yourself most perfectly or
completely; to represent whatever of visible beauty you may conceive or perceive.
And this is the whole game of the painter; to stand for this is the whole purpose of the
picture.