January An Effect in January. 39 



one central point, it was just one of those simple and 

 harmonious arrangements of light and color which are 

 adapted to the purposes of art. It happened, too, that 

 this color-harmony of gold and gray was precisely the 

 one which an artist may attack without incurring the 

 certainty of defeat from the unapproachableness of 

 natural illumination ; for yellow is the one color which 

 may be made luminous in painting without much sacri- 

 fice of its chromatic quality. Had the sunset been a red 

 one, the difficulty (as every painter knows) would have 

 been immeasurably increased ; and, indeed, would have 

 involved the necessity of painting the whole subject in 

 so low a key, that the beautiful grays of the forest 

 would have been lost in dark neutral tints far below 

 the pearly tones of Nature. This would have been seen 

 by an artist like Diaz as a flashing of gold on gray in- 

 tricacy, and he would have painted it exactly in the way 

 best fitted to convey that impression. Another very 

 fine effect, often visible in winter at the hour of sun- 

 set, is the illumination of the trees to the east of you. 

 When the light of sunset catches the dead foliage of 

 a forest of oaks their tops burst into sudden flame, 

 so that the forest seems all on fire. The impression is 

 greatly heightened if you are unable, from your posi- 

 tion, to see the western sky, which is the origin of the 

 light. Now, for the powerful rendering of such effects 

 as these, the knowledge of plants need only be that 

 which every artist is sure to possess who has been in the 

 habit of sketching from Nature ; but whenever a painter 

 desires to give something of the beauty of foreground 



