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REFLEXIONS IN SMOOTH WATER 17 distance, so that, by reason of the different juxtaposition of the component parts of our picture, we get different effects of contrast. The tufts of grass at the waters edge, instead of being merged into the flat expanse of green meadow behind them, stand out sharply against the sky or a background of distant trees. Surfaces that are turned towards the sky, such as roofs, are foreshortened in the reflexion, whilst the reverse is the case with those that face downwards, as the under side of a boat or the inside of the arch of a bridge. The reflexion of trees and bushes at the water’s edge reveals more of the dark lower surfaces of their leaves and branches than appears when we look straight at them. ‘‘ We see the dark sides of leaves hanging over a stream, in their reflection, though we see the light sides above; and all objects and groups of objects are thus seen in the reflection under different lights, and in different positions with respect to each other, from those which they assume above; some which we see on the bank being entirely lost in their reflection, and others which we cannot see on the bank brought into view. Hence nature contrives never to repeat herself, and the surface of water is not a mockery, but a new view of what is above it. And this difference in what is represented, as well as the obscurity of the representation, is one of the chief sources by which the sensation of surface is kept up in the reality. The reflection is not so remarkable, it does not attract the eye in the same degree when it is entirely different from the images above, as when it mocks them and repeats them, and we feel that the space and surface have colour and C
