Sun and Eye Positions; Reminder to the Painter
A landscape half light and half dark; shadow length by distance
The page works through the cases of the sun's and eye's positions: with the sun east and the eye to north or south the eye sees the eastern bodies' shadows and the western bodies' lights, standing between them; with sun and eye both east all sunlit surfaces appear lit; with eye west and sun east the interposed opaque bodies show their shadows, so a landscape comes out half bright and half dark [765a]. A 'Reminder to the painter' [766] urges that, when depicting landscapes with light from the right or left, the shadows must occupy more or less space as the bodies are nearer or farther from the light. A horizontal diagram low on the page shows several cylindrical bodies with converging lines illustrating shadows cast at varying distances. Chapter [767] opens the matter of shadows agreeing with their lights.
On this page
Sun east, eye west: a landscape half light and half dark
When the eye in the west sees the sun in the east, opaque bodies interposed between east and west show the eye their shadows; it follows [765a] that a landscape comes out half bright and half dark. When sun and eye are both east, every sunlit surface appears illuminated.
[766] Reminder: shadow length grows with distance from the light
When depicting landscapes or countryside with the light on the right or left, remember that the shadows of bodies occupy a greater or lesser quantity according as the bodies are nearer to or more remote from the cause that illuminates them.
Diagram of bodies casting shadows at varying distances
A horizontal diagram low on the page shows a row of cylindrical bodies with lines converging across them, illustrating how shadow quantity varies with a body's distance from the illuminating source, as the surrounding text on landscape shadows describes.