s of the best colourists, or on gazing at a
scene in Nature.

If the colouring of a picture is _too_ harmonious, it will want
solidity.

EFFECT, ACCIDENT, RELIEF, AND KEEPING.

IN Effect, the means are widely different indeed which lead to the same
result! Rembrandt, with his concentrated light and wide diffusion of
shade--Rubens, and his school, with his splendid extension of light and
of colour--Vandyke, with the Dutch and Flemish painters--Titian--all
arrive at the same end, although by the most opposite means. Some aim at
a particular effect; others at a general one, proceeding from different
combinations, and different views and ideas. All effects should be
consistent with the subject treated. The effect will be more or less bad
as the parts which are to constitute it are more or less scattered or
diffused. Masses of light, supported and brought out by masses of
shadow, are the surest means of producing it. Effect is procured by the
strongest opposition, and sometimes by the reverse. Arrangement and
Expression is, in historical composition, much the same thing that
Effect is in landscape-painting. On the other hand, particular effects
mostly arise from circumstance. Sudden and startling effects are not
unfrequently produced by a piece of charcoal on brown or grey paper;
beautiful ones by the simple operation of the black lead pencil or
stump, until we trace it up to the whole range of the palette, in the
most splendid and magnificent efforts of colour.

Every part of a picture should occasion pleasure in detail! If we are
fascinated with the colour of the highest or prevailing light, the most
anxious care should be exercised that its influence does not destroy our
admiration of the others: to avoid this prejudice, the principal light,
or colour of it, should not be so influential as to prevent the eye
being gently led away from it, by the repetition of a softer grade of
its own, to others of a less imposing quality: that _must_ of necessity
be there, to give value to, and influence the importance of the
principal.

Effect consists in either lights and shadows, or _colours_, so massed
and blended in their arrangement, as to produce breadth.

The greatest power of Effect is often produced from the most simple
materials. All the force of the palette, and all the strength of the
master, is not unfrequently called into action by no other materials
than a straight horizon meeting the sky, supported by an u