The whole page is taken up with the following notes:
This holds good in viewing remote Bodies | in light and shade as at distance: | altho the rules of light and shade enforces | the nearer shadow to be the strongest it | not prove so but depends much upon | the distance of the object casting shadow | and not always that which is nearest | the Eye – a Building shall receive the | sun rays and the shadow of any | objects at a considerable distance hence | it becomes less [?directed ...] strength | but that building will make a positive | shadow upon the adjoining building – | positive and strong the shadows of | the [?first will] longer from the distance | they will stretch but the last will be | positive appears parallel and strong
This passage follows on from folio 83 verso (
D07495) and is the last page of the sequence running back through the sketchbook from folio 91 verso (
D07511). John Gage has discussed these provisional notes (not developed in the perspective lectures) as an example of Turner’s close observation of natural phenomena,
1 in this case the question of sunlight travelling in parallel lines or otherwise, responding to a chapter of
The Art of Painting by Gérard de Lairesse (1640–1711), in the English translation by John Frederick Frisch (London 1738 and later editions).
2 See under
D07511 for a discussion of Lairesse’s text.
Maurice Davies has registered the whole section as ‘on light and shadow’, and has grouped the part specified by Gage with other notes as part of a longer sequence running back to folio 72 verso (
D07473); folios 81 verso (
D07491) and 79 verso (
D07487) are the next relevant pages.
3
