Burnet, John: A treatise on painting: in four parts: Consisting of an essay on the education of the eye with reference to painting, ann four parts. Consisting of an essay on the education of the eye with reference to painting, and practid practical hints on composition, chiaroscuro and colour (London, 1837)

LIGHT AND SHADE IN PAINTING. 21

cool when near the face. To give the flesh a luminous character, he often
introduces cool tints coming near it, and when he can find nothing else,
uses the shadows of linen for such purpose. In Vandyke's early Italian
manner we find the linen much brighter than in his later works, where it
became more of a leaden cast.

Plate IV. Fig. 4, and 5.

We sometimes find the light of the sky introduced for the purpose of
repeating the lights of the heads and hands, as in Fig. 4; sometimes to
spread and enlarge the lights of the head, and give it more consequence,
as in Fig. 5. To assist the hand in keeping its situation in this picture,
he has defined it by the hat and shadow on the chair. As it is of the
utmost consequence that every object should keep its relative distance
with regard to the eye of the spectator, it is a good method to define
those parts we wish to advance by a dark shadow coming in contact with
them, and to surround the retiring portions with a ground of a less
opposing character; as we know lines strongly and sharply defined will
approach, and those of a softer nature will retire. Such blots are
afterwards to be accounted for by the contrivance of the artist: in this
consists the application of the background to the figures, one of the most
difficult and essential portions of the art.

As light and shade determine the concavities or convexities of all
objects, without them the most intelligent outline would be but as a map