Smoke, dust and mist in the landscape
How smoke brightens against the sun, moves with the wind, and veils fire and distance
A run of short chapters treats atmospheric bodies as the painter must render them. Chapter [468] observes that smoke, dust and mist seen between the sun and the eye are brighter than the rest of the landscape, but appear dark when the viewer stands between sun and them. Chapter [469] notes that dust raised by an animal's running is brighter the higher it rises, and [470] gives a fuller account of smoke: darker and more transparent at the edges of its billows, more oblique with a stronger wind, of colors matching what burns, casting no defined shadow, white near its source and blue toward its end, and darkening the fire behind it. The passage closes advising the painter to render the landscape with smoke like a thick mist.
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Smoke, dust and mist brightest against the sun
Smoke seen between the sun and the eye is brighter and more luminous than any other part of the landscape where it arises, and dust and mist do the same. But if you stand between the sun and them, they will instead appear dark to you.
Dust raised by an animal; the drift of smoke
The dust raised by the running of some animal is brighter the higher it rises, and darker the less it rises, when it stands between the sun and the eye. Smoke moves with the greater obliquity the more powerful the wind that drives it, and takes as many colors as the things that generate it.
Rendering smoke like thick mist over distance
Smoke casts no terminated shadows; it is whiter near its beginning and bluer toward its end, and the fire looks darker the more smoke lies between it and the eye. Where the smoke is more remote things are less obscured by it, so the painter should render the landscape with smoke in the manner of a thick mist.