How Contours and Colours Fade with Distance
Aerial perspective: the order in which forms and colours are lost from view
Continuing the Treatise on Painting, this page gathers rules of aerial perspective. It observes that the outlines of bodies are so faint that even a friend becomes unrecognizable at a short distance, then lists the order in which detail is lost as objects recede: first their boundaries, then the shadows dividing touching parts, then the thickness of the legs, until only a confused oval mass remains. A parallel chapter ranks the colours that vanish with distance, first the lustre, then the light, then the principal shadows.
On this page
Contours so faint that distance dissolves recognition
The boundaries of bodies are of so slight an evidence that at every small interval placed between the thing and the eye, the eye can no longer make out the likeness of a friend or relative and recognizes him only by his dress, receiving knowledge of the whole together with the part.
The order in which forms are lost with distance
The first things lost as one moves away from shadowed bodies are their boundaries; next, at greater distance, the shadows that divide the touching parts; third, the thicknesses of the legs at the feet; and so, successively, the more minute parts, until at long range only an oval mass of confused figure remains.
The order in which colours are lost with distance
The first thing of the colours to be lost with distance is the lustre, the smallest part and the light of lights; second is the light, because smaller than the shadow; third the principal shadows; and at the last there remains a middling, confused darkness.