can know today must be deduced from the evidence of available material--first through the careful study of the paintings themselves, then through analysis of all authentic documents to be found on different techniques and by thoroughly testing by experimentation all such formulas, materials, and even hints at technical methods, contained in these texts. Finally, there are a number of scientific methods of examining pictures which yield additional information that can serve to confirm or disprove inferences and conclusions from the other data.

    The formulas and techniques presented in this book are the result of a lifetime devoted to such research. In order that there may be no question of their authenticity or lack of authenticity, an account is given of the sources and the processes by which each conclusion has been arrived at. The further endeavor has been to show a clear distinction between deductions made from known facts and those that are hypothetical and founded on purely circumstantial evidence. It is felt that the results realized on canvas or panel, when these reconstructed formulas are put to the test, will continue to justify (as they already have in the case of several colleagues who assisted in these discoveries) the efforts that went into this long work. The formulas will enable the artist who applies them, if he will first equip himself with a thorough understanding of the principles established, to simulate, as nearly as is possible under his own particular circumstances, qualities and effects in the works of the masters covered by the present study.

    Six strongly differentiated formulas are presented, because our findings have pointed to six corresponding basic variations in technique practiced during the period (approximate- ly four hundred years) with which we are concerned. The techniques in which these formulas were used are described in the individual chapters dedicated to the artist who is either known to be the originator or to whom the innovation may reasonably be attributed on the grounds of circumstantial evidence.

     My own researches in this particular field began in 1920. At a very youthful age I had the good fortune to meet Louis
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