Volume Volume1\The Practice Of Painting
Entry# 601.
Contents: Vol. 1 | Vol. 2
V.
SUGGESTIONS FOR COMPOSITIONS.
Of painting battle pieces (601-603).
OF THE WAY OF REPRESENTING A BATTLE.
First you must represent the smoke of artillery mingling in the air
with the dust and tossed up by the movement of horses and the
combatants. And this mixture you must express thus: The dust, being
a thing of earth, has weight; and although from its fineness it is
easily tossed up and mingles with the air, it nevertheless readily
falls again. It is the finest part that rises highest; hence that
part will be least seen and will look almost of the same colour as
the air. The higher the smoke mixed with the dust-laden air rises
towards a certain level, the more it will look like a dark cloud;
and it will be seen that at the top, where the smoke is more
separate from the dust, the smoke will assume a bluish tinge and the
dust will tend to its colour. This mixture of air, smoke and dust
will look much lighter on the side whence the light comes than on
the opposite side. The more the combatants are in this turmoil the
less will they be seen, and the less contrast will there be in their
lights and shadows. Their faces and figures and their appearance,
and the musketeers as well as those near them you must make of a
glowing red. And this glow will diminish in proportion as it is
remote from its cause.
The figures which are between you and the light, if they be at a
distance, will appear dark on a light background, and the lower part
of their legs near the ground will be least visible, because there
the dust is coarsest and densest 19 . And if you introduce horses
galloping outside the crowd, make the little clouds of dust distant
from each other in proportion to the strides made by the horses; and
the clouds which are furthest removed from the horses, should be
least visible; make them high and spreading and thin, and the nearer
ones will be more conspicuous and smaller and denser 23 . The air
must be full of arrows in every direction, some shooting upwards,
some falling, some flying level. The balls from the guns must have a
train of smoke following their flight. The figures in the foreground
you must make with dust on the hair and eyebrows and on other flat
places likely to retain it. The conquerors you will make rushing
onwards with their hair and other light things flying on the wind,
with their brows bent down,
Footnote: 19--23. Compare 608. 57--75.
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