The following quotation is well worth considering--the observation it contains is new. "As to the influence of light upon the local colours, one of the plainest proofs of it is, that the colour of objects seen in broad day, diminishes in force the more that the sun enlightens the distant plain on which they are placed. This observation, and many other analogous ones, convince me that the light in a picture in general exerts a greater influence upon the local colours than even the air, although those who have written upon the art seem to attribute the local colours exclusively to the interposition of the air and the vapours with which it is charged. The above remark, though useful to all painters, becomes the more indispensable to those who have to do with landscape, seeing that without attention to it, the aerial perspective would render useless, by a false and mannered representation, the just proportions and the exact contours dictated by linear perspective. Another remark, not less interesting, is, that the colour of cast shadows depends, beyond every thing, on that of the light, and consequently on the state of the atmosphere and the time of the day, as well as the season of the year." Hence is it that the brown shadows of art, which are adopted for the sake of warm, are, in good painters such as Vandyke, always blended with the silvery grey. "Of the general tone of colour."--This part of the subject is treated rather with regard to strict observation of nature, than its poetical applicability to art. For surely there is a distinction; there should be a tone of colour belonging to the subject, irrespective of the actual colour of place or time of day, properly belonging to the action represented. It is well observed, that the argentine or silvery tone so much admired and sought after by amateurs, "is nothing but the faithful imitation of the tone assumed by nature in countries where the rays of the sun are not too perpendicular, every time that the air is in that state of transparency required to temper to the necessary degree the too brilliant blue of a pure sky, and itself to receive and transmit this desirable silvery tone which delights the spectator." By this it would appear that our artists' dreams of countries, _alio sub sole_, are not likely to bring beauty of colour to their pictures--that the fables of Eastern skies are, with regard to art, fables; and though there is now always an attempt, and that by no mean powers, to drag the spectators at our exhibitions under the very chariot of the sun, "sub curru nimium propinqui solis," real beauty of colour will be found much nearer home.