use, though perhaps Landseer
sees dogs of the color which I should call blue, yet the color he puts
on the canvas, being in the same way blue to him, will still be brown or
dog-color to me; and so we may argue on points of color just as if all
men saw alike, as indeed in all probability they do; but I merely
mention this uncertainty to show farther the vagueness and unimportance
of color as a characteristic of bodies.

Sec. 7. Form considered as an element of landscape, includes light and
shade.

Sec. 8. Importance of light and shade in expressing the character of bodies
and unimportance of color.

Before going farther, however, I must explain the sense in which I have
used the word "form," because painters have a most inaccurate and
careless habit of confining the term to the _outline_ of bodies, whereas
it necessarily implies light and shade. It is true that the outline and
the chiaroscuro must be separate subjects of investigation with the
student; but no form whatsoever can be known to the eye in the slightest
degree without its chiaroscuro; and, therefore, in speaking of form
generally as an element of landscape, I mean that perfect and harmonious
unity of outline with light and shade, by which all the parts and
projections and proportions of a body are fully explained to the eye,
being nevertheless perfectly independent of sight or power in other
objects, the presence of light upon a body being a positive existence,
whether we are aware of it or not, and in no degree dependent upon our
senses. This being understood, the most convincing proof of the
unimportance of color lies in the accurate observation of the way in
which any material object impresses itself on the mind. If we look at
nature carefully, we shall find that her colors are in a state of
perpetual confusion and indistinctness, while her forms, as told by
light and shade, are invariably clear, distinct, and speaking. The
stones and gravel of the bank catch green reflections from the boughs
above; the bushes receive grays and yellows from the ground; every
hairbreadth of polished surface gives a little bit of the blue of the
sky or the gold of the sun, like a star upon the local color; this local
color, changeful and uncertain in itself, is again disguised and
modified by the hue of the light, or quenched in the gray of the shadow;
and the confusion and blending of tint is altogether so great, that were
we left to find out what objects