File:A treatise on painting - In four parts The whole illustrated by examples from the Italian, Venetian, Flemish, and Dutch schools (1837) (14782030524).jpg

Identifier: treatiseonpainti00burn (find matches)
Title: A treatise on painting : In four parts ... The whole illustrated by examples from the Italian, Venetian, Flemish, and Dutch schools
Year: 1837 (1830s)
Authors: Burnet, John, 1784-1868
Subjects: Painting
Publisher: London : James Carpenter
Contributing Library: Getty Research Institute
Digitizing Sponsor: Getty Research Institute

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k. Having thus denned some of the characteristic features of shadow, theeffects of light in a great measure explain themselves, being in mostinstances of an opposite nature. Its cheerful influence operates on themind of the spectator, either when viewing the festivities of a villageholiday or when he beholds it diffused over the general face of nature:it may be termed the Allegro in Painting. Explanation of Plate I. Fig. 1. If light, collected into a focus by means of a lens, be thrown obliquelyupon a wall, it will explain to us one of its principal properties, uponwhich many Artists have founded their principles of light and shade.Where the bundles of rays are collected, the light is increased in bright-ness ; and when they become more diffused and spread out, it naturallybecomes more feeble, losing itself in half tint. In this example we havesome of the most essential qualities of light as applicable to the purposesof painting. We have a principal light, which, being produced by the
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Ziwrfon Fu/i/ir/ud July J. 7826 LIGHT AND SHADE IN PAINTING. 5 collecting of the rays, leaves that portion of the ground the darkestwhich comes in contact with it, thereby assisting its brightness. Wehave an innumerable variety of gradations, until the light is dissipatedand lost. Some Artists maintain, and justly, that every light, howeversmall, ought to have a focus, or one part brighter than another; and aswe find this to be a general law in nature, it is surely safe ground to goupon. For the same reason we ought to have one portion of a dark moredecided than the rest. If these two extremes are brought in contact,we make them assist each other, one becoming brighter, and the otherdarker, from the effect of contrast. If they are placed at the oppositesides of the picture, we have greater breadth and a more equal balance.Let us now examine how these properties have been made use of in themanagement of the light and shade of a picture. If, for example, we takea head by Rembrandt, we f

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