APPEARANCE AND REALITY IN PICTURES. 253 



phenomena into consideration, and, making due allowance for the weak- 

 ness of bis pigments, to incorporate the apparent tints into his picture. 

 Here, again, what Nature with her vivid colors does in an instant, the 

 artist has to bring about more slowly ; but the illusion is complete in 

 both cases from the moment our conceptions are brought into accord 

 with it. 



There is, furthermore, something in the colors of natural objects 

 which is distinct from the strength and clearness of the illumination, 

 and appears peculiar to certain kinds of light. Among such peculiari- 

 ties are the metallic luster, the silken sheen, and opalescence, which, 

 although they all proceed from combinations of the spectrum-colors, 

 have not yet been sufficiently investigated to enable us to determine 

 all the circumstances contributing to produce them. 



The colors used in painting afford little that is analogous with these 

 lusters. Can the painter produce these effects also by contrast ? They 

 appear in pictures by the most eminent masters to be reached almost 

 in perfection. If, however, we inquire whether the painter can repro- 

 duce the peculiarities of luster and color which we admire so much in 

 Nature through the contrast of his colors alone, we shall have to admit 

 that he calls other elements into play. 



We have already shown how our conceptions of the relations of 

 objects in place are influenced by our unconscious prepossessions. 

 May not these also intrude themselves upon and modify our concep- 

 tions of the color and tone of the picture ? The connoisseur who has 

 frequently observed the shimmer of the sea, and who has followed with 

 a finely developed perceptive power the transformations of the landscape 

 under a changing light, and who has been in the habit of watching in 

 an testhetic mood the combination and grouping of the individual 

 features of Nature, is doubtless better able to realize these peculiarities 

 also in works of painting, than he who applies only a sharp but un- 

 trained discernment to the gradual development of the idea of the 

 picture. 



Thus art, temporarily withdrawing us from Nature by substituting 

 her own creations for the reality, brings us back to Nature as the in- 

 exhaustible source whence all its elements are borrowed ; and the 

 imagination, also, in its own way, is able to make use of those ele- 

 ments for new creations. Translated for the Popular Science Month- 

 ly from Die Natur. 



Colonel Seepa Pinto and Lieutenant Cardozo last year made a successful 

 scientific exploration of the lake-region of Africa. They made a geodetic trian- 

 gulation of the country from Ibo to Lake Nyassa, -whence Lieutenant Cardozo 

 Colonel Pinto having withdrawn on account of illness went to Shirva and Blan- 

 tyre, and by a new road to Quilimane. This is the first scientific work of the 

 kind done in that part of Africa. 



