A picture must always be a little spoilt in the finishing of it. The
last touches, which are intended to draw the picture together, take off
from its freshness. To appear before the public one must cut out all
those happy accidents which are the joy of the artist. I compare these
murderous retouchings to those banal flourishes with which all airs of
music end, and to those insignificant spaces which the musician is
forced to put between the interesting parts of his work in order to lead
on from one motive to another or to give them their proper value.
Re-touching, however, is not so fatal to a picture as one might think,
when the picture has been well thought out and worked at with deep
feeling. Time, in effacing the touches, old as well as new, gives back
to the work its complete effect.
_Delacroix._