Page:A Treatise on Painting.djvu/276

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128
COLOURS.

turn it green; as we have said in another place[1], that a mixture of blue and yellow produces green. And if to a green colour you add some yellow, it will make it of a more beautiful green.

Chap. CCXLVI.Of the Colouring of remote Objects.

The painter, who is to represent objects at some distance from the eye, ought merely to convey the idea of general undetermined masses, making choice, for that purpose, of cloudy weather, or towards the evening, and avoiding, as was said before, to mark the lights and shadows too strong on the extremities; because they would in that case appear like spots of difficult execution, and without grace. He ought to remember, that the shadows are never to be of such a quality, as to obliterate the proper colour, in which they originated; if the situation of the coloured body be not in total darkness. He ought to mark no outline, not to make the hair stringy, and not to touch with pure white, any but those things which in themselves are white; in short, the lightest touch upon any particular object ought to denote the beauty of its proper and natural colour.

Chap. CCXLVII.The Surface of all opake Bodies participates of the Colour of the surrounding Objects.

The painter ought to know, that if any white object is placed between two walls, one of which is

  1. See chap. ccxlviii.
also