ndulating line
or two; and exemplifying the most scientific manoeuvres in the
management of breadth, and in diversity of colour, on which the eye
loves to dwell, and repose from the fatigue occasioned by a repetition
of forms.

A dark object, placed against the most retiring or lightest part of the
picture, while it acquires all the startling effect to be derived from
great force, and is a resource so much adopted by the greatest
landscape-painters, often, in my opinion, destroys the whole keeping of
the work. Bringing such strong objects up against the sun, was the great
vice of Claude; Cuyp and Both managed it better, but certainly not
always with success.

KEEPING is a term in art which implies that every object and colour
should be in its place;--the object, its exact space to stand on, and
the colours in strict harmony and accordance; each possessing the exact
_strength_ which belongs to its situation in the picture.

RELIEF, and occasionally CHIARO-SCURO, which, by its arrangement of
light and shade, describes the necessary forms that are to be revealed:
this may likewise be effected by light and dark _colours_ alone, or by
opposition of colours and sharp contrasts.

The highest point or mass of the light, from which the gradations
radiate, should be kept very pure, allowing as little of the shade tint
to insinuate itself as possible.

If the lights of a picture are _few_, it will mainly contribute to its
breadth and repose:--if _many_, or _scattered_, the result will be
confusion. I say, to keep the leading mass of light pure and _clean_,
should employ our deepest attention.

When the attention is to be fixed to a particular object, the degree of
power given to the accessories will alone establish its degree of
consequence: but it must not be wholly insulated; those accessories,
being the medium of its own importance, must contribute all to assist it
to its place, without weakening its force or imparing its character; as
the middle tints find their value and clearness only by the strength of
the lights, and the depths of the darks.

Pictures, painted in a 'light key,' possess many advantages:--

Great breadth of Effect is produced by placing the principal mass of
shadow on, or rather immediately under, the horizon; graduating upwards
into the clouds, and downwards, in a long angle, to a broad light on the
base line; on which a figure or any other object, however small, but
darker than the rest, being pl