■STUDY Xî. ICI 



t-ure p-refents to us a great variety of forts of it. 

 Painting, with refpect to this article, is as barren 

 as language. 



I have been told of a famous Painter of Italy, 

 who, upon a certain occafion, found himfelf very 

 much embarrafled how to reprefent, in one of his 

 pieces, three figures drefled in white. The point 

 in queftion was, to give effect to thofe figures, to 

 be thus uniformly dreffed, and to draw out diffe- 

 rent fhades of the moft fimple, and the leaft com- 

 pounded, of all colours. He was going to aban- 

 don his object as a thing impoffible, when, hap- 

 pening to pafs through a corn -market, he per- 

 ceived the effect which he was in queft of. It was 

 a group formed by three millers, one of whom was 

 under a tree, the fécond in the half tint of the 

 fhade of that tree, and the third expofed to the 

 rays of the Sun : fo that though the drapery of all 

 the three was white, they were completely de- 

 tached from each other. He introduced a tree, 

 therefore, amidft the three perfonages of his pic- 

 ture, and, by illuminating one of them with the 

 rays of the Sun, and throwing over the other two 

 different tints of fhade, he was enabled to exhibit 

 a drapery of three feveral calls of white. 



This, however, was rather to elude the diffi- 

 culty, than to refolve it. And this is, in fact, what 



h 7 Painters 



