The Materials of the Painter's Craft, in Europe and Egypt from Earliest Times to the end of the Seventeenth Century, with Some Account of their Preparation and Use

Abstract

THE author of this interesting book, which belongs to a series treating of “The Arts and Crafts of the Nations,” has gathered within its covers an immense amount of information concerning the materials and methods of painting in early times. Dr. Laurie has been, and is, an indefatigable investigator, especially in connection with ancient processes of mural painting and with the vehicles of mediæval and later days. His chief conclusions, some of which have been published before, as in the little volume on “Greek and Roman Methods of Painting,” lately reviewed in these columns, are now made accessible to everyone interested in the subject. One has no longer to search through the back numbers of a journal for scattered papers and lectures, but can find in the volume before us a résumé of his inquiries, with some additional information, as well as a list of works, old and new, which deal with some or other of the topics discussed in Dr. Laurie's pages. This list occupies nearly fifty pages, and is comprehensive if not precisely exhaustive.

The Materials of the Painter's Craft, in Europe and Egypt from Earliest Times to the end of the Seventeenth Century, with Some Account of their Preparation and Use.

By Dr. A. P. Laurie. Pp. xv+444. (London and Edinburgh: J. H. Foulis, 1910.) Price 5s. net.