Sir Charles Eastlake, a former president of the British Royal Academy and director of the National Gallery, was one of the world's foremost experts on the techniques of painting. A painter of considerable renown himself, he devoted years to traveling throughout England and Europe, where he searched through museums, monasteries, universities, and libraries, gradually amassing a collection of rare manuscripts from which he was able to reconstruct the technical secrets of the great painters of the past.
In this comprehensive treasury, Eastlake presents the results of his researches. He offers detailed discussions of Greek and Roman art methods, medieval techniques, tempera painting, the revolutionary use of oil paints by Hubert van Eyck, Flemish methods of preparing colours, and the methods of Reynolds and other 18th-century British masters.