ghter than the surrounding objects which occasion its
shadows.

If water is muddy or thick, the shadows of a bridge or boat would be
projected _on_ it, as it would be on the ground. But if, on the
contrary, the water is clear and transparent, all reflections are formed
in it, as they would be in a looking-glass, and no lateral shadows
occur.

How much _bluer_ the sea appears from on board ship than it does from
the shore; because, _at sea_, the blue of the waves is reflected on the
eye.

All objects in the distance, which are near a river or water, will
appear less distinct than those that are remote from it.

All distances should have their outlines confused and unfinished, while
foreground objects should be bold and determined.

Objects appear most remote that are divested of their outline, as in
Turner's pictures--giving the idea of space and largeness.

Of the beauty of reflexes, Da Vinci says: 'If you mean the proximity of
one colour should give beauty to another that terminates near it,
observe the rays of the sun in the composition of the rainbow, the
colours of which are generated by the falling rain, when each drop in
its descent takes every colour of the bow.'

Displaying the various colours that compose either the light or the
shade, or lights and darks, that are to stand as such, into _large_ and
subtly interwoven portions,--the blending and the opposition of hot and
cold colours, and of light with dark, together with strict attention to
their strength and relations (for the most discordant and opposite
properties will produce harmony, under certain circumstances and
arrangement), so that the _masses_ of light and shade, and the _breadth_
of the whole, are not disturbed,--are the leading circumstances that
should engage the anxious attention.

HARMONY AND CONTRAST.

HARMONY, as in Nature, is the agreeable _accordance_ of the various
colours that form the _parts_ of a scene into a _whole_; divested, in
their dispersion, of their harshness by the everywhere surrounding
atmosphere: this may be tested by holding a piece of silk, the _exact
colour_ of the grass at our feet, up against a field, when the field
will become _grey_ in comparison.

The exact degree of strength, or of tone, greatly tend to reconcile the
harmony of a picture.

Harmony consists more in the power of bringing colours together, than in
the mere arrangement of the colours themselves.

Burnet, in his excellent Treatise,