There are just a few points that I feel should be made in the interest o f clarification before the reader launches into the book proper, if I may be indulged the use of the first-person singular for just a bit. It was my initial intention to write the text of this book as clearly and descriptively as possible, so that there would be no need for a great many pictorial illustrations to put my points across, and to use examples from the greatest oil painters throughout art history, as many as my budget would allow, as illustrations for the points mentioned in the text.