Page:A Treatise on Painting.djvu/338

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190
MISCELLANEOUS OBSERVATIONS.

The air which is between the earth and the sun when it rises or sets, will always dim the objects it surrounds, more than the air any where else, because it is whiter.

It is not necessary to mark strongly the outlines of any object which is placed upon another. It ought to detach of itself.

If the outline or extremity of a white and curved surface terminate upon another white body, it will have a shade at that extremity, darker than any part of the light; but if against a dark object, such outline, or extremity, will be lighter than any part of the light.

Those objects which are most different in colour, will appear the most detached from each other.

Those parts of objects which first disappear in the distance, are extremities similar in colour, and ending one upon the other, as the extremities of an oak tree upon another oak similar to it. The next to disappear at a greater distance are, objects of mixed colours, when they terminate one upon the other, as trees, ploughed fields, walls, heaps of rubbish, or of stones. The last extremities of bodies that vanish are those which, being light, terminate upon a dark ground; or being dark, upon a light ground.

Of objects situated above the eye, at equal heights, the farthest removed from the eye will appear the lowest; and if situated below the eye, the nearest to it will appear the lowest. The parallel lines situated sidewise will concur to one point[1].

  1. That point is always found in the horizon, and is called the point of sight, or the vanishing point.
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