The reason we prefer pictures which are not too bright lies in the fact that the eye cannot look long at very bright paintings without tiring. As a physical fact, too, the most delicate modelling and tonality is to be obtained in a medium light. From what has been previously said, it will now be understood that a picture should not be quite sharply focussed in any part, for then it becomes false; it should be made just as sharp as the eye sees it and no sharper, for it must be remembered the eye does not see things as sharply as the photographic lens, for the eye has the faults due to dispersion, spherical aberration, astigmatism, aerial turbidity, blind spot, and beyond twenty feet it does not adjust perfectly for the different planes. All these slight imperfections make the eye's visions more imperfect than that of the optician's lens, even when objects in one plane only are sharply focussed, therefore, except in very rare cases, which will be touched upon elsewhere, the chief point of interest should be slightly - very slightly - out of focus, while all things, out of the plane of the principal object, it is perfectly obvious, from what has been said, should also be slightly out of focus, not to the extent of producing destruction of structure or fuzziness, but sufficiently to keep them back and in place. For, as we have been told, "to look at anything means to place the eye in such a position that the image of the object falls on the small region of perfectly clear vision, . . . and .' . . whatever we want to see, we look at, and see it accurately; what we do not look at, we do not, as a rule, care for at the moment, and so do not notice how imperfectly we see it," Such is the case, as has been shown, for when we fix our sight on the principal object or motif of a picture, binocular vision represents clearly by direct vision only the parts of the picture delineated on the points of sight. The rule in focussing, therefore, should be, focus for the principal object of the picture, but all else must not be sharp; and even that principal object must not be as perfectly sharp as the optical lens will make it. It will be said, but in nature the eye wanders up and down the landscape, and so gathers up the impressions, and all the landscape in turn appears sharp. But a picture is not "all the landscape," it should be seen at a certain distance - the focal length of the lens used, as a rule, and the observer, to look at it thoughtfully, if it he a picture, will settle on a principal object, and dwell upon it, and when he tires of this, he will want to gather up suggestions of the rest of the picture. If it be a commonplace photograph taken with a wide-angle lens, say, of a stretch of scenery of equal value, as are most photographic landscapes, of course the eye will have nothing to settle thoughtfully upon, and will wander about, and finally go away dissatisfied. But such a photograph is no work of art, and not worthy of discussion here. Hence it is obvious that panoramic effects are not suitable for art, and the angle of view included in a picture should never be large. It might be argued from this, that Pseudo-Impressionists who paint the horse's head and top of a hansom cab are correct, since the eye can only see clearly a very small portion of the field of view at once. We assert, no, for if we look in a casual way at a hansom cab in the streets, we only see directly the head of the horse and the top of the cab, yet, indirectly, that is, in the retinal circle around the fovea centralis we have far more suggestion and feeling of horse's legs than the eccentricities of the Pseudo-Impressionist school give us, for in that part of the retinal field indirect vision aids us. The field of indirect vision must be suggested in a picture, but subordinated. But we shall go into this matter later on, here we only wish to establish our principles on a scientific basis. Afterwards, in treating of art questions, we shall simply give our advice, presuming the student has already studied the scientific data on which that advice is based. All good art has its scientific basis. Sir Thomas Lawrence said,"Painting is a science, and should be pursued as an inquiry into the laws of nature. Why, then, may not landscape painting be considered as a branch of natural philosophy, of which pictures are but experiments? "

The Pseudo-Impressionists.

Sir. T. Lawrence.

Fuzziness

Some writers who have never taken the trouble to understand even these points, have held that we admitted fuzziness in photography. Such persons are labouring under a great misconception; we have nothing whatever to do with any "fuzzy school." Fuzziness, to us, means destruction of structure. We do advocate broad suggestions of organic structure, which is a very different thing from destruction, although, there may at times be occasions in which patches of "fuzziness" will help the picture, yet these are rare indeed, and it would be very difficult for any one to show us many such patches in our published plates. We have, then nothing to do with "fuzziness," unless by the term is meant that broad and ample generalization of detail, so necessary to artistic work. We would remind these writers that it is always fairer to read an author's writings than to read the stupid constructions put upon them by untrained persons.