Oldal 107 [107]
OCR
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 detected 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 instinctively 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 reflection was in a vertical plane between the sun and spectator; or he might have noticed, walking on the shore, that the reflection came straight from the sun to his feet, and intending 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.” |
