Books › The varnishes of the Italian violin-makers of the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and their influence on tone;, 1904 › scan 8
Scan 8
The varnishes of the Italian violin-makers of the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and their influence on tone;, 1904
8 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1tion as to its composition; especially as he could have no reason to suspect the veracity of the dogma that it was a mere concoction.
3Direct investigation of the causes of the colour effects of sunrise, sunset, of the rainbow, &c. was equally impossible; these natural and familiar phenomena were, for a long time, interpreted in accordance with the evidence of the senses, until scientific discovery of the composition, refraction and polarization of light afforded explanations which satisfied all the conditions.
5It is not surprising that the old varnish, which could be judged only from its appearance, its softness, elasticity, and its solubility in alcohol, should have been interpreted in a similar simple fashion.
7The theory offered to explain its composition was accepted, for want of a better one; it has now been tested for at least half-a-century, varnishes have been constantly produced in accordance with it; they have not been found to satisfy all the conditions: in fact, do they satisfy one of them? The modern varnishes are not like the old ones in body (pâte), in transparency, in colour, in refraction, the instruments which they clothe are not comparable with the old ones in tone.
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