CHAPTER III.

SECTION IV.

SUNSET.

At Sunset there is even less variety of colour observable in the illumined parts of objects than when the sun is higher in the sky. This arises from the influence of the atmosphere previously alluded to. A greater quantity of the medium is loaded with light, and the local colours of the objects seen through it are consequently affected to a greater degree thereby. The colour of the light is also affected by the medium through which it passes, and it becomes much richer, and more nearly approaching to orange.

The light in the sky, or illuminating power, is made yellow; but the lights on objects are rendered of a fleshy colour, which is made to appear warmer by the opposition of positive purple shadows, while those objects which do not receive any of the sun's light are kept very cool grey (the effect of reflected light from the blue sky), which by contrast throws the whole of the illuminated part of the picture into warmth. Frontispiece.