APPEARANCE AND REALITY IN PICTURES. 251 



The shadow which all objects cast when exposed to any kind of 

 light is a capital sign of bodily substance. Our conception of bodies 

 is inseparable from that of their shadows. The importance of this 

 phenomenon as an aid to projection is illustrated by the manner in 

 which through them flat letters on signs are made to appear standing 

 out as solid bodies. 



The painter is also able to represent motion by taking advantage 

 of the unconscious working of our preconceived impressions. Looking 

 at a masterly marine landscape in the National Gallery at Berlin one 

 day, I could almost see the ship rising and falling upon the waves, 

 and the waves themselves seemed to be in motion as they swelled and 

 swept by the vessel. The painter had seized a single instant in the 

 succession, and had so represented it as to call out the idea of consecu- 

 tiveness. The question arises, How is the artist to illustrate motion, 

 as he often has to do, say in such a case as that of a rapidly turning 

 wheel, in which we can at no instant distinguish the single spokes, but 

 see only a confusion of flying lines? It is clearly impossible for him 

 to give the exact appearance of motion. He can only seize a given 

 instant or stage, and so manage that it shall represent itself as the 

 effect of the preceding stage and the cause of the following one : A 

 sword-blow must be represented at a decisive point, not at a stage in 

 the descent of the weapon, else the illusion will be destroyed ; a pen- 

 dulum in motion, not at the bottom of its course, where it would seem 

 to be at rest. In painting a galloping horse, no stage of the exact 

 motion is reproduced. The instantaneous photographs have demon- 

 strated that ; and also that, if the artist should attempt a reproduction 

 of the kind, he would give any but the effect desired. He makes a 

 more pleasing and probable picture, having, however, no counterpart 

 in Nature, in which he does no violence to her, but, as Schiller has 

 said, " increases the natui'e that is in Nature." 



The theory of color-perceptions is not yet far enough advanced to 

 permit a full explanation of all the phenomena of coloring ; still, it is 

 competent in its present condition to give valuable hints concerning 

 the color-effects experienced in the contemplation of paintings. 



All the variations in color perceived in Nature may be produced 

 from red, yellow, and blue, or, as others have it, from red, green, and 

 violet, and their combinations. The painter does not possess any of 

 these colors in their purity, but always adulterated with more or less 

 that is foreign to them, and can hardly ever reproduce the exact color 

 he finds in Nature, and it is his task to combine the materials he has 

 so as to give as near as possible an approach to them. How does he, 

 with the deviations he is forced to make, bring about the magic illu- 

 sion that causes us to perceive in his creations the same endless play 

 of light and color that Nature so lavishly bestows upon her pictures ? 

 How does he repi'oduce the burning glow of the setting sun and the 

 objects it illuminates ? He does it by means of a contrast of colors, 



