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[[image]]
Fig 6

When the composition is kept dark, forming a map of shadow in the center of the canvas, the light is often conducted around it by means of the sky, water, or light foreground; &  as the dark becomes in a manner isolated, it receives great vigour & importance. As this is the reverse of Fig 3, we find the same broad principle predominant, & whether it be composed of a clump of trees, or the dark drop of a whole length figure, we find the management guided by the same rules; only if a portrait, the circumstance of the face coming light off the background requires the fat or the base of the figure to tell dark on the ground for the sake of firmness, & if any part is more lost in the background than another, it perhaps ought to be the middle portion of the figure. If a clump of trees such as we often find in Claude is to be represented, their stems short out of the ground of the same darkness, thereby producing a union of the trees with the shadow which they cast on the ground.  As a light in the center of dark tints must thereby acquire an increased consequence, so a dark in the middle of light tints receives the same importance.


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[[image]]
Fig 7

I have noticed in another place the union of one part of the picture with another, by means of a repetition of the light.  It is not only of service to repeat the light, but it should also be of the same colour, accordingly we observe in [[?]] whose principal light is often yellow, that it is carried into the dark parts of the pic by means of yellow drapery, a cow, sheep, or a few touches of golden colour, according as he wishes such extension of his light large or small. If the principle light is cold, such as blue or white, we find it repeated either by a reflection in water or by a figure dressed in the same cool tint. Portrait painters generally make use of the light in the sky to repeat the light of their heads & hands, by making it of the same colour.