certain
height, the more it will seem like a dark cloud, and at the summit the
smoke will be more visible than the dust. {130} The smoke will assume
a bluish colour, and the dust will retain its colour: this mixture of
air, smoke and dust will seem much brighter on the side whence the
light proceeds than on the opposite side; the more densely the
combatants are enveloped in this confusion the less distinctly will
their lights and shadows be visible. You must cast a glowing light on
the countenances and the figures, the atmosphere, the musketeers and
those who are near them, and this light diminishes in proportion as the
distance between it and its cause increases; and the figures which are
between you and the light will appear dark against a bright background,
and their legs will be less visible in proportion as they are nearer to
the earth, because the dust there is coarsest and thickest. And if you
depict horses galloping beyond the crowd, make little clouds of dust,
distant one from the other in proportion to the strides made by the
horses, and the cloud which is farthest away from the horse will be the
least visible; it must be high, scattered and thin, and the nearer
clouds will be more conspicuous, smaller and denser. The air must be
full of arrows falling in every direction: some flying upwards, some
falling, some on the level plane; and smoke should trail after the
flight of the cannon-balls. The foremost figures should have their
hair and eyebrows clotted with dust; dust must be on every flat portion
they offer capable of retaining it. {131} The conquerors you should
make as they charge, with their hair and the other light things
appertaining to them streaming to the wind, their brows contracted and
the limbs thrust forward inversely, that is, if the right foot is
thrust forward the left arm must be thrust forward also. And if you
portray a fallen man you must show where he has slipped and been
dragged through the blood-stained mud, and around in the wet earth you
must show the imprint of the feet of men and the hoofs of horses that
have passed there. You will also represent a horse dragging its dead
master, and in the wake of the body its track, as it has been dragged
along through the dust and the mud; you must make the vanquished and
beaten pale, their brows knit and the skin surmounting the brow
furrowed with lines of pain. On the sides of the nose there must be
wrinkles forming an arch from the nos