Stranica 107 [107]
REFLEXIONS IN RIPPLED WATER :9
through ignorance of this principle. “In one of the smaller
rooms of the Uffizi at Florence, off the Tribune, there are
two so-called Claudes; one a pretty wooded landscape, I
think a copy, the other a marine with architecture, very
sweet and genuine. The sun is setting at the side of the
picture, it casts a long stream of light upon the water. This
stream of light is oblique, and comes from the horizon, where
it is under the sun, to a point near the centre of the picture.
If this had been done as a license, it would be an instance
of most absurd and unjustifiable license, as the fault is de¬
tected by the eye in a moment, and there is no occasion nor
excuse for it. But I imagine it to be an instance rather of
the harm of imperfect science. Taking his impression instinc¬
tively from nature, Claude usually did what is right and put
his reflection vertically under the sun; probably, however, he
had read in some treatise on optics that every point in this re¬
flection was in a vertical plane between the sun and specta¬
tor; or he might have noticed, walking on the shore, that the
reflection came straight from the sun to his feet, and intend¬
ing to indicate the position of the spectator, drew in his next
picture the reflection sloping to this supposed point, the error
being excusable enough, and plausible enough to have been
lately revived and systematized.” The gist of the whole
matter is contained in a footnote. “Every picture is the
representation of a vertical plate of glass, with what might
be seen through it drawn on its surface. Leta vertical plate
of glass be taken, and wherever it be placed, whether the
sun be at its side or at its centre, the reflection will always
be found in a vertical line under the sun, parallel with the
side of the glass. The pane of any window looking to sea
is all the apparatus necessary for this experiment; and yet
it is not long since this very principle was disputed with me
by a man of much taste and information, who supposed
Turner to be wrong in drawing the reflection straight down
at the side of his picture, as in his ‘Lancaster Sands,’ and
innumerable other instances.” |