he top of a high cliff, and still the horizon will be on
the same level as your eye.

[Footnote 3: In a sea-view, owing to the rotundity of the earth, the
real horizontal line is slightly below the sea line, which is noted
in Chapter I.]

This is an important line for the draughtsman to consider, for the
effect of his picture greatly depends upon the position of the horizon.
If you wish to give height and dignity to a mountain or a building, the
horizon should be low down, so that these things may appear to tower
above you. If you wish to show a wide expanse of landscape, then you
must survey it from a height. In a composition of figures, you select
your horizon according to the subject, and with a view to help the
grouping. Again, in portraits and decorative work to be placed high up,
a low horizon is desirable, but I have already spoken of this subject in
the chapter on the necessity of the study of perspective.

III

POINT OF DISTANCE

Fig. 11. The distance of the spectator from the picture is of great
importance; as the distortions and disproportions arising from too near
a view are to be avoided, the object of drawing being to make things
look natural; thus, the floor should look level, and not as if it were
running up hill--the top of a table flat, and not on a slant, as if cups
and what not, placed upon it, would fall off.

In this figure we have a geometrical or ground plan of two squares at
different distances from the picture, which is represented by the line
_KK_. The spectator is first at _A_, the corner of the near square
_Acd_. If from _A_ we draw a diagonal of that square and produce it to
the line _KK_ (which may represent the horizontal-line in the picture),
where it intersects that line at _A'_ marks the distance that the
spectator is from the point of sight _S_. For it will be seen that line
_SA_ equals line _SA'_. In like manner, if the spectator is at _B_, his
distance from the point _S_ is also found on the horizon by means of the
diagonal _BB"_, so that all lines or diagonals at 45 deg are drawn to the
point of distance (see Rule 6).

Figs. 12 and 13. In these two figures the difference is shown between
the effect of the short-distance point _A'_ and the long-distance point
_B'_; the first, _Acd_, does not appear to lie so flat on the ground as
the second square, _Bef_.

From this it will be seen how important it is to choose the right point
of distance: if we take it too near th