564.

A most important part of painting consists in the backgrounds of the objects represented; against these backgrounds the outlines of those natural objects which are convex are always visible, and also the forms of these bodies against the background, even though the colours of the bodies should be the same as that of the background.  This is caused by the convex edges of the objects not being illuminated in the same way as, by the same light, the background is illuminated, since these edges will often be lighter or darker than the background.  But if the edge is of the same colour as the background, beyond a doubt it will in that part of the picture interfere with your perception of the outline, and such a choice in a picture ought to be rejected by the judgment of good painters, inasmuch as the purpose of the painter is to make his figures appear detached from the background; while in the case here described the contrary occurs, not only in the picture, but in the objects themselves.

565.

That you ought, when representing objects above the eye and on one side—­if you wish them to look detached from the wall—­to show, between the shadow on the object and the shadow it casts a middle light, so that the body will appear to stand away from the wall.

On the lighting of white objects.

566.

HOW WHITE BODIES SHOULD BE REPRESENTED.

If you are representing a white body let it be surrounded by ample space, because as white has no colour of its own, it is tinged and altered in some degree by the colour of the objects surrounding it.  If you see a woman dressed in white in the midst of a landscape, that side which is towards the sun is bright in colour, so much so that in some portions it will dazzle the eyes like the sun itself; and the side which is towards the atmosphere,—­luminous through being interwoven with the sun’s rays and penetrated by them—­since the atmosphere itself is blue, that side of the woman’s figure will appear steeped in blue.  If the surface of the ground about her be meadows and if she be standing between a field lighted up by the sun and the sun itself, you will see every portion of those folds which are towards the meadow tinged by the reflected rays with the colour of that meadow.  Thus the white is transmuted into the colours of the luminous and of the non-luminous objects near it.

The methods of aerial (567—­570).

567.

WHY FACES [SEEN] AT A DISTANCE LOOK DARK.

We see quite plainly that all the images of visible objects that lie before us, whether large or small, reach our sense by the minute aperture of the eye; and if, through so small a passage the image can pass of the vast extent of sky and earth, the face of a man—­being by comparison with such large images almost nothing by reason of the distance which diminishes it,—­fills up so little of the eye that it is indistinguishable.  Having, also,