The Painter in oil

Why Paint Well. - You see I am assuming that you wish to be a good painter. There is
no reason why you should be a bad painter if you are not a professional one. The better
you paint the better your appreciation will be of all good work, the keener your
appreciation of what is beautiful in nature, and the greater your satisfaction and pleasure
in your own work. There are better reasons for painting than the desire to “make a
picture.” Painting implies making a picture, it is true; but it means also seeing and
representing charming things, and working out problems of beauty in the expression of
color and form: and this is something more than what is commonly meant by a picture.
The picture comes, and is the result; but the making of the picture carries with it a
pleasure and joy which are in exact proportion to the power of appreciation, perception,
and expression of the painter. This is the real reason for painting, and it makes the
desire and attempt to paint well as a matter of course.
Craftsmanship. - The mechanical side of painting naturally is an important part of
your problem. You cannot be too catholic in your opinion with regard to it. It is vital that
you not be narrowed by any prejudices as the surface effect of paint. Whether the canvas
be smooth or rough, the paint thick or thin, the details few or many, — the goodness or
badness of the picture does not depend on any of these. They are or should be the result,
the natural outcome because the natural means of expression, of the manner in which
the picture is conceived.
One picture may demand one way of painting and another demand a quite different way;
and each way be the best possible for the thing expressed. It all depends on the man; the
make-up of his mind; the way he sees things; the results he aims to attain, — all of them
controlled more or less by temperament and idiosyncrasy. What would produce a perfect
work for one man would not do at all for another. The works of the great masters offer
the most marked contrast of ideal and of treatment, and painters have varied greatly in
their manner of some painting at different periods in their lives. Rembrandt, for
instance, painted very thinly in his early years, with transparent shadows and carefully
modeled, solidly loaded lights. Later in life he painted most roughly; and “The Syndics”
was so heavily and roughly loaded that even now, after two hundred years, the paint
stands out in lumps - and this is one of his masterpieces. So again, if you will compare
the manipulation in the work of Rafael with that of Tintoretto, that of Rubens with that
of Velasquez, or most markedly, the work of Frans Hals with that of Gerard Dou, you
will see that the greatest extremes of handling are consistent with equal greatest of
result.
Finish. - From this you may conclude that what is generally understood by the word
“finish” is not necessarily a thing to be sought for. The tendency of great painters is
rather away from excessive smoothness and detail than towards it. While a picture may
be a good one and be very minute and smooth, it by no means follows that a picture is
bad because it is rough. This truth is that the test of a picture does not lie in the
character of the pigment surface in itself at all, nor and whether it be full of detail or the
reverse, but in the conception and in the harmonious relation of the technique to the
manner which the whole is conceived. The true “finish” is whatever surface the picture
happens to have when the idea which is the purpose of the picture is fully expressed,
with nothing lacking to make that expression more complete, nor with anything present