214 July — Gray Coloring after Heat. 



XXXIX. 



Gray Coloring after Heat — Blue Sky turns to Gray — French Landscape- 

 painting — Monotony of Sunshine — Favorable to Work — Abundant 

 Light — Ennui of Sunshine — Despondency caused by it — Oppres- 

 sion of Sunshine — 'Mariana in the South ' — The Black Shadow — 

 Auguste Bonheur's Interpretation of Sunshine — Changes in the Con- 

 dition of the Eye — Sunshine of Different Degrees — Streams in the 

 Val Ste. Veronique — Dreary Scenes on Southern Rivers — The Loire 

 — Its Affluents — The Great Bridges — The Herds — Processions for 

 Rain — Oppressive Heat — Sudden Coming of a Thunderstorm. 



TOWARDS the end of July, if the year has not 

 been exceptionally wet, the landscape of Eastern 

 France loses its freshness, and acquires that rather dull 

 and gray look which often astonishes English critics 

 in the works of the most faithful French landscape- 

 painters. From the artistic point of view I cannot think 

 that this gray look is altogether a misfortune, The 

 brightness of the spring color is quite gone, much of 

 the herbage is dried by a sun that is almost African 

 in its severity ; but what the landscape loses in gayety 

 it gains in sobriety, and the tints, quiet as they are, often 

 go very well together, and richly deserve study. The 

 greens all become tertiary greens, but there is great 

 variety in them, and it is just the variety which a 

 cultivated colorist is sure to pay great attention to, 



