DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.19950#0021
ATMOSPHERE.
So with other objects. Let him place himself so that
a tree in the foreground shall stand between his eye and
some one or more trees in the background, and then let
him closely compare their respective colours. The distant
tree is many degrees more blue than the near one, which
of course arises from the interposition of the medium—
vapour, atmosphere, cloud, mist, fog—call it what you will,
according to its density; the veil is made of the same
material, but of different thicknesses. The tops of moun-
tains, for instance, are hidden from view altogether by this
very same veil, till the sun removes it. At other times,
the vapour will roll away from the mountains and pass off
like steam from an engine. In Wales and Scotland, when
the atmosphere is thin, the dark mountains appear decidedly
blue, and sometimes even purple; but when the vapour
thickens into fog, a milky appearance occurs. It is vapour
or atmosphere which limits the field of our vision, because
the accumulation of it for miles and miles is as if you
looked through a long tube full of vapour, and when
the tube is extremely lengthened the object becomes
hidden by the accumulation. This is one extreme, when
nothing is visible but undefined forms in grey. The op-
posite extreme is of course the smallest quantity of vapour
or atmosphere : on a fine day the objects in the foreground
have really no perceptible vapour at all between them
and the spectator, and they consequently appear in their
local colour, so far as atmosphere is concerned. Every
part of the scene is of course liable to be influenced by the
colouring imparted to it by the sun's rays, independent of
So with other objects. Let him place himself so that
a tree in the foreground shall stand between his eye and
some one or more trees in the background, and then let
him closely compare their respective colours. The distant
tree is many degrees more blue than the near one, which
of course arises from the interposition of the medium—
vapour, atmosphere, cloud, mist, fog—call it what you will,
according to its density; the veil is made of the same
material, but of different thicknesses. The tops of moun-
tains, for instance, are hidden from view altogether by this
very same veil, till the sun removes it. At other times,
the vapour will roll away from the mountains and pass off
like steam from an engine. In Wales and Scotland, when
the atmosphere is thin, the dark mountains appear decidedly
blue, and sometimes even purple; but when the vapour
thickens into fog, a milky appearance occurs. It is vapour
or atmosphere which limits the field of our vision, because
the accumulation of it for miles and miles is as if you
looked through a long tube full of vapour, and when
the tube is extremely lengthened the object becomes
hidden by the accumulation. This is one extreme, when
nothing is visible but undefined forms in grey. The op-
posite extreme is of course the smallest quantity of vapour
or atmosphere : on a fine day the objects in the foreground
have really no perceptible vapour at all between them
and the spectator, and they consequently appear in their
local colour, so far as atmosphere is concerned. Every
part of the scene is of course liable to be influenced by the
colouring imparted to it by the sun's rays, independent of