File:A treatise on painting - In four parts The whole illustrated by examples from the Italian, Venetian, Flemish, and Dutch schools (1837) (14597755068).jpg

Identifier: treatiseonpainti00burn (find matches)
Title: A treatise on painting : In four parts ... The whole illustrated by examples from the Italian, Venetian, Flemish, and Dutch schools
Year: 1837 (1830s)
Authors: Burnet, John, 1784-1868
Subjects: Painting
Publisher: London : James Carpenter
Contributing Library: Getty Research Institute
Digitizing Sponsor: Getty Research Institute

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Text Appearing Before Image:
oss to take in all the gradations lying between soopposite qualities, I have, for the sake of clearness, made use of inter-mediate links, viz. half dark and half light. If we take a ground of ashade composed chiefly of half dark and middle tint, and introduce thestrongest lights, we shall find it necessary to introduce a portion of halflight to spread and break down their harshness. If the extreme dark isplaced upon the middle tint, it will by contrast render it more in unionwith the half light; if it be placed on the half dark, a breadth of shadowand softness will be the result. Harshness of effect in treating picturesupon a dark scale arises, most commonly, from the want of sufficientquantities of middle tint and half light, thereby causing the principal lightto be too much defined ; as we frequently observe in the works of MichaelAngelo Caravaggio. Rembrandt and Coreggio excelled all others in the introduction ofdemi tints, which illuminate their deepest shadows. In their works and
Text Appearing After Image:
Fui? Ju2y JS26,ty f&j>m£er&San.Old .Bond Street. LIGHT AND SHADE IN PAINTING. 39 in nature we perceive the lowest tones of middle tint are removed fromblackness, either by their warmth, or the introduction of some positiveblack or blue, to produce an appearance of air floating within them. The exact quantity of middle tint must depend upon the arrangementof the subject and the taste of the painter ; but it is absolutely necessary,to prevent it from always interposing betwixt the extreme light andextreme dark. This invariably gradual declination of the light into the shadow is onecause of the insipid look of most of Vanderwerfs works, nor is it, asSir Joshua Reynolds justly observes, consonant with the effects in nature.Variety demands some portion of the composition to be sharp and cutting;and richness is to be obtained only by a continual changing of portionscoming sometimes dark and sometimes light off the ground ; this endlessvariety in nature can be imitated only by th

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