Camera Volume 7

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1903 Excerpt: ...can only do this as far as our lenses allow, but the application of aerial perspective will often enable us to work so as to keep the several objects in their respective situations and give a natural reality to the most complicated scene. A row of columns will diminish accordingly as they are drawn true to linear perspective, but it is to this quality of light and shade that they are indebted for their effect upon the vision. Also, two angles may occupy the same space on the retina; but, by this power, one is made to approach and the other to recede, so that one is diminished to the size of a tent, the other increased to a pyramid. In the famous picture by Cuyp, entitled "The Canal of Dort," we find not only an excellent example of aerial perspective, but also of that assemblage of lines produced by the repetition of forms which assists the receding of objects from their diminution, the doubling of the lines in producing richness of effect and that harmony which arises from one line counteracting another in its direction, giving thereby a general balance to the whole. The effect of aerial perspective upon the eye being mainly attributable to the application of shadow to the several outlines, thereby giving them their approaching or receding character, such arrangement is to be chosen which shall give them this quality, and which is to be afterward repeated in smaller proportions throughout the piece. (See illustration.) In accidental combinations in nature we often perceive this arrangement. We also find aerial perspective indebted in its effect to the collection of many parts whose shadows form a mass of half-tint, their distance bringing them in apparent contact, owing to their diminutions, while their softness gives them apparent distance owing...