[218] Of the flesh-tones of faces.
a. That color of bodies which is of greater quantity keeps best over a long distance.
This proposition shows us that the face becomes dark at distances, because shadow is the greatest part that the face has, and the lights are very small, and therefore they fail at a short distance; and their highlights are the very smallest, and this is the cause that, the darker part remaining, the face becomes or appears dark; and it will seem to draw the more toward black the whiter the thing that such a face has upon its body or head.

[219] 3.
b. Painters, in order to depict things in relief, ought to tint the surfaces of their papers with a middling darkness, and then lay in the darker shadows, and last the principal lights in a small place — which are those that, at a small distance, are the first to be lost to the eye.

[220] Of the variety of one and the same color at various distances from the eye.
Among colors of the same nature, that one varies least which is least removed from the eye. It is proved because the air interposed between the eye and the thing seen somewhat obscures the said thing; and if the interposed air is of great amount, then the thing seen is strongly tinted with the color of that air, and if that air is of slight amount, then the object will be little hindered.

[221] Of the greenery seen in the countryside.
Of the greenery of fields of equal quality, that will appear darker which is in the foliage of the trees, and