DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.19950#0020
20
ATMOSPHERE.
distinct as those in the foreground, and the chief difference
between them consists in size; but in our own country the
atmosphere is seldom without a considerable degree of den-
sity, which, acting as a veil hung between the spectator and
the object, gives it the colour of the medium through which
the light is cast, and at the same time renders the object
itself more or less indistinct.
Now this fact, although it seems very simple and rea-
sonable, is never practically observed and acted on till the
student can see with the eye of an artist. His previous
knowledge so blinds his present perception—he so constantly
takes for granted, instead of examining, the colour and ap-
pearance of the objects before him, that, so far as truth of
colouring is concerned, he might as well content himself
with making on the spot mere general memoranda of the
colour of the different parts of the scene, and put the
colours in afterwards from previous knowledge (as he
thinks) at home. But he is under a delusion. Almost all
the objects he sees appear of a different colour to what he
thinks they appear. He sees, for instance, a meadow, the
grass of which he knows abstractedly to be green, and
therefore colours it of a uniform green throughout: whereas
the different density (or quantity) of atmosphere between
him and the object, (and which he calls air, and thinks
of no consequence) really alters the appearance of the
colour of every few feet of land, and instead of being
of a uniform green throughout, the meadow really appears
less and less green by every foot that it recedes from
his eye.
ATMOSPHERE.
distinct as those in the foreground, and the chief difference
between them consists in size; but in our own country the
atmosphere is seldom without a considerable degree of den-
sity, which, acting as a veil hung between the spectator and
the object, gives it the colour of the medium through which
the light is cast, and at the same time renders the object
itself more or less indistinct.
Now this fact, although it seems very simple and rea-
sonable, is never practically observed and acted on till the
student can see with the eye of an artist. His previous
knowledge so blinds his present perception—he so constantly
takes for granted, instead of examining, the colour and ap-
pearance of the objects before him, that, so far as truth of
colouring is concerned, he might as well content himself
with making on the spot mere general memoranda of the
colour of the different parts of the scene, and put the
colours in afterwards from previous knowledge (as he
thinks) at home. But he is under a delusion. Almost all
the objects he sees appear of a different colour to what he
thinks they appear. He sees, for instance, a meadow, the
grass of which he knows abstractedly to be green, and
therefore colours it of a uniform green throughout: whereas
the different density (or quantity) of atmosphere between
him and the object, (and which he calls air, and thinks
of no consequence) really alters the appearance of the
colour of every few feet of land, and instead of being
of a uniform green throughout, the meadow really appears
less and less green by every foot that it recedes from
his eye.