they are suddenly
terminated by the sharpest lines which nature ever shows. For no outline
of objects whatsoever is so sharp as the edge of a close shadow. Put
your finger over a piece of white paper in the sun, and observe the
difference between the softness of the outline of the finger itself and
the decision of the edge of the shadow. And note also the excessive
gloom of the latter. A piece of black cloth, laid in the light, will not
attain one-fourth of the blackness of the paper under the shadow.

Sec. 2. And therefore the distinctness of shadows is the chief means of
expressing vividness of light.

Sec. 3. Total absence of such distinctness in the works of the Italian
school.

Sec. 4. And partial absence in the Dutch.

Hence shadows are in reality, when the sun is shining, the most
conspicuous thing in a landscape, next to the highest lights. All forms
are understood and explained chiefly by their agency: the roughness of
the bark of a tree, for instance, is not seen in the light, nor in the
shade: it is only seen between the two, where the shadows of the ridges
explain it. And hence, if we have to express vivid light, our very first
aim must be to get the shadows sharp and visible; and this is not to be
done by blackness, (though indeed chalk on white paper is the only thing
which comes up to the intensity of real shadows,) but by keeping them
perfectly flat, keen, and even. A very pale shadow, if it be quite
flat--if it conceal the details of the objects it crosses--if it be gray
and cold compared to their color, and very sharp edged, will be far more
conspicuous, and make everything out of it look a great deal more like
sunlight, than a shadow ten times its depth, shaded off at the edge, and
confounded with the color of the objects on which it falls. Now the old
masters of the Italian school, in almost all of their works, directly
reverse this principle: they blacken their shadows till the picture
becomes quite appalling, and everything in it invisible; but they make a
point of losing their edges, and carrying them off by gradation; in
consequence utterly destroying every appearance of sunlight. All their
shadows are the faint, secondary darknesses of mere _daylight_; the sun
has nothing whatever to do with them. The shadow between the pages of
the book which you hold in your hand is distinct and visible enough,
(though you are, I suppose, reading it by the ordinary daylight of your
room,) o