There is also much to learn about artificial light. For here, again, the study is endless: from the glare of a hundred lights--electric and otherwise--to the single lamp or candle. Indeed a whole volume could be filled with illustrations of its effects. To those who aim at producing intense brilliancy, refusing to acknowledge any limitations to their capacity, a hundred or a thousand lights commend themselves; and even though wild splashes of paint may sometimes be the result, still the effort is praiseworthy. But those who prefer the mysterious lighting of a Rembrandt will find, if they sit contemplating in a room lit with one lamp only, that an endless depth of mystery surrounds them, full of dark recesses peopled by fancy and sweet thought, whilst the most beautiful gradations soften the forms without distorting them; and at the same time he can detect the laws of this science of light and shade a thousand times repeated and endless in its variety.
_Note._--Fig. 288 must be looked upon as a rough sketch which only gives the general effect of the original drawing; to render all the delicate tints, tones and reflections described in the text would require a highly-finished reproduction in half-tone or in colour.
As many of the figures in this book had to be re-drawn, not a light task, I must here thank Miss Margaret L. Williams, one of our Academy students, for kindly coming to my assistance and volunteering her careful co-operation.
[Transcriber's Note: In this chapter, [R] represents "R" printed upside-down.]
Reflections in still water can best be illustrated by placing some simple object, such as a cube, on a looking-glass laid horizontally on a table, or by studying plants, stones, banks, trees, &c., reflected in some quiet pond. It will then be seen that the reflection is the counterpart of the object reversed, and having the same vanishing points as the object itself.
Let us suppose _R_ (Fig. 289) to be standing on the water or reflecting plane. To find its reflection make square [R] equal to the original square _R_. Complete the reversed cube by drawing its other sides, &c. It is evident that this lower cube is the reflection of the one above it, although it differs in one respect, for whereas in figure _R_ the top of the cube is seen, in its reflection [R] it is hidden, &c. In figure A of a semicircular arch we see the underneath portion of the arch reflected in the water, but we do not see it in the actual object. However, these things are obvious. Note that the reflected line must be equal in length to the actual one, or the reflection of a square would not be a square, nor that of a semicircle a semicircle. The apparent lengthening of reflections in water is owing to the surface being broken by wavelets, which, leaping up near to us, catch some of the image of the tree, or whatever it is, that it is reflected.