warm shadows are required to support strong coloured
lights. So, strong colours are equally useful in focussing the shadows,
or in giving them variety.

That beautiful diffusion of _aeriel_ and fluctuating _pearly_
reflections, that play equally over the surfaces of the strongest
colours, shadows, and lights, in the tenderest hues and forms, and with
which all nature appears invested, should engage our deepest attention
and enquiry, as their properties so softly blend and break down the
harshness and influence of positive colour, and the asperity of opposing
tints, by tempering them with their airy and luminous sweetness.

If the general harmony or _hue_ of a picture is warm, the deepest
shadows should be warm also; while the _strongest_ colour, being brought
into the middle space, will serve to connect both the light and the
shadow. Indian red, in most instances, should be the mixing medium,
using cold colours _sparingly_, and _only_ where they are wanted as a
_foil_; as the greens of trees are set off from the rich brown shadows,
producing a splendid effect, and bringing the hot and cold colours into
harmony.

Colours, forming the middle tint and shadows, should always be warm;
though the light may be cold, the effect will be beautiful.

Warm shadows will support the _strongest_ colours.

I generally observe that Titian, Rubens, and the best colourists, use
their reds in the shadows, at once to support and give them
brilliance;--for when it happens that the shadows of a picture are
wholly made up of warm colours, the effect is sure to be splendid,
though the lights are cold;--considering red, perhaps, too _strong_ a
colour to interfere with the _light_, at the risk of destroying its
breadth. Their manner was often that of deepening the colour as it lost
or absorbed itself in the background.

Every object receiving the light of the sun, receives likewise the
_general_ light, producing _two_ shadows, the darkest one being
occasioned by the sun.

When the horizon is tinged with red by the rays of the setting sun, the
distant shadows, being blue or azure, mingling with the red, produces
purple.

The air between the earth and the sun, when it rises or sets, invests
all objects with a degree of obscurity, which is whiter on the earth
than towards the zenith.

When the vapours descend to the earth at sunset, all objects that the
sun's rays do not reach become confused and dark; but those that are
tinged with its