Page:Landscape Painting by Birge Harrison.djvu/95

REFRACTION It is fortunate, perhaps, that the limits of space here draw a line, for the things that might be said about refraction are endless. I will, however, add one parting word in regard to its technical side. How may we best secure the lost-edge and the other qualities deriving from refraction while maintaining crisp drawing and a free and agreeable brushwork. In this we can hardly do better than study and follow the two great masters of the art, Corot and Whistler. Prepare for the refraction, as they did, by lowering values as you approach the edge, so that the final stroke which draws your limb or your tree may be as fresh and as crisp as possible without being hard; and if you are painting in broken color—that is, using prismatic vibration to secure luminosity—then do all this preparatory work fully and carefully in the undertone, so that the [63]