Eastern, Southern and Northern Trees at Sunrise
Confused light in thick woods, the effect of eye height, and the varied greens of species
A page of the Treatise on Painting on how the position of the sun and the viewer shape the light and shade of trees. It notes that distant foliage loses its shadow because the tiny images of light and shade blur together, the main lights sitting in the middle of a tree and the shadows toward its tips. Chapters marked a and b ([899], [900]) explain that at sunrise eastern trees are haloed with light except toward the ground, southern and northern trees are half lit and half shadowed, and eastern trees are dark in the middle with luminous tips. Further notes add that a high eye sees fewer shadows than a low one, and that the greens of plants are as varied as their species; a final chapter ([901]) begins on the shadows of eastern plants.
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Confused light and shade in thick woods
Distant trees lose their shadow because the tiny images of light and shade reaching the eye are mixed and cannot be told apart. The principal lights sit in the middles of the trees and the shadows toward the tips; in thick woods the tree-masses are separated by the shadows of the gaps between them, while in sparse woods the outlines are barely seen.
Eastern, southern and northern trees at sunrise [899]
With the sun in the east, trees seen toward that east are ringed with light around their shadows except toward the ground, unless pruned the previous year. Southern and northern trees are half shadowy and half luminous, more or less so according as they lie more east or west.
Eye height and the varied greens of species
A high eye sees trees with few shadows, a low eye with many, so viewpoint alters their light and shade. And the greens of plants are as varied as their species; chapter [900], marked b, adds that at sunrise eastern trees are dark toward the middle with luminous tips, and [901] opens on the shadows of eastern plants.