“Since the magnitude of the pupil is subject to be varied by various degrees of light, let NO be its semi-diameter when the object PL is viewed by the naked eye from the distance OP; and upon a plane that touches the eye at O, let OK be the semi-diameter of the greatest area, visible through all the glasses to another eye at P, to be found as PL was; or, which is the same thing, let OK be the semi-diameter of the greatest area inlightened by a pencil of rays flowing from P through all the glasses; and when this area is not less than the area of the pupil, the point P will appear just as bright through all the glasses as it would do if they were removed; but if the inlightened area be less than the area of the pupil, the point P will appear less bright through the glasses than if they were removed in the same proportion as the inlightened area is less than the pupil. And these proportions of apparent brightness would be accurate if all the incident rays were transmitted through the glasses to the eye, or if only an insensible part of them were stopt.”
A very important fact connected with our present subject is: The brightness of a self-luminous surface does not depend upon its inclination to the line of sight. Thus a red-hot ball of iron, free from scales of oxide, &c., appears flat in the dark; so, also, the sun, seen through mist, appears as a flat disk. This fact, however, depends ultimately upon the second law of thermodynamics (see Radiation). It may be stated, however, in another form, in which its connexion with what precedes is more obvious—The amount of radiation, in any direction, from a luminous surface is proportional to the cosine of the obliquity.
The flow of light (if we may so call it) in straight lines from the luminous point, with constant velocity, leads, as we have seen, to the expression μr −2 (where r is the distance from the luminous point) for the quantity of light which passes through unit of surface perpendicular to the ray in unit of time, μ being a quantity indicating the rate at which light is emitted by the source. This represents the illumination of the surface on which it falls. The flow through unit of surface whose normal is inclined at an angle θ to the ray is of course μr −2 cos θ, again representing the illumination. These are precisely the expressions for the gravitation force exerted by a particle of mass μ on a unit of matter at distance r, and for its resolved part in a given direction. Hence we may employ an expression V = Σμr −1, which is exactly analogous to the gravitation or electric potential, for the purpose of calculating the effect due to any number of separate sources of light.
And the fundamental proposition in potentials, viz. that, if n be the external normal at any point of a closed surface, the integral ∫∫(d V/dn)dS, taken over the whole surface, has the value −4πμ0, where μ0 is the sum of the values of μ for each source lying within the surface, follows almost intuitively from the mere consideration of what it means as regards light. For every source external to the closed surface sends in light which goes out again. But the light from an internal source goes wholly out; and the amount per second from each unit source is 4π, the total area of the unit sphere surrounding the source.
It is well to observe, however, that the analogy is not quite complete. To make it so, all the sources must lie on the same side of the surface whose illumination we are dealing with. This is due to the fact that, in order that a surface may be illuminated at all, it must be capable of scattering light, i.e. it must be to some extent opaque. Hence the illumination depends mainly upon those sources which are on the same side as that from which it is regarded.
Though this process bears some resemblance to the heat analogy employed by Lord Kelvin (Sir W. Thomson) for investigations in statical electricity and to Clerk Maxwell’s device of an incompressible fluid without mass, it is by no means identical with them. Each method deals with a substance, real or imaginary, which flows in conical streams from a source so that the same amount of it passes per second through every section of the cone. But in the present process the velocity is constant and the density variable, while in the others the density is virtually constant and the velocity variable. There is a curious reciprocity in formulae such as we have just given. For instance, it is easily seen that the light received from a uniformly illuminated surface is represented by ∫∫r −2 cos θdS.
As we have seen that this integral vanishes for a closed surface which has no source inside, its value is the same for all shells of equal uniform brightness whose edges lie on the same cone.
ILLUSTRATION. In a general sense, illustration (or the art
of representing pictorially some idea which has been expressed
in words) is as old as Art itself. There has never been a time
since civilization began when artists were not prompted to
pictorial themes from legendary, historical or literary sources.
But the art of illustration, as now understood, is a comparatively
modern product. The tendency of modern culture has been
to make the interests of the different arts overlap. The theory
of Wagner, as applied to opera, for making a combined appeal
to the artistic emotions, has been also the underlying principle
in the development of that great body of artistic production
which in painting gives us the picture containing “literary”
elements, and, in actual association with literature in its printed
form, becomes what we call “illustration.” The illustrator’s
work is the complement of expression in some other medium.
A poem can hardly exist which does not awaken in the mind
at some moment a suggestion either of picture or music. The
sensitive temperament of the artist or the musician is able to
realize out of words some parallel idea which can only be conveyed,
or can be best conveyed, through his own medium of
music or painting. Similarly, music or painting may, and often
does, suggest poetry. It is from this inter-relation of the emotions
governing the different arts that illustration may be said
to spring. The success of illustration lies, then, in the instinctive
transference of an idea from one medium to another; the more
spontaneous it be and the less laboured in application, the better.
Leaving on one side the illuminated manuscripts of the middle ages (see Illuminated MSS.) we start with the fact that illustration was coincident with the invention of printing. Italian art produced many fine examples, notably the outline illustrations to the Poliphili Hypneratomachia, printed by Aldus at Venice in the last year of the 15th century. Other early works exist, the products of unnamed artists of the French, German, Spanish and Italian schools; while of more singular importance, though not then brought into book form, were the illustrations to Dante’s Divine Comedy made by Botticelli at about the same period. The sudden development of engraving on metal and wood drew many painters of the Renaissance towards illustration as a further opportunity for the exercise of their powers; and the line-work, either original or engraved by others, of Pollajuolo, Mantegna, Michelangelo and Titian has its place in the gradual enlargement of illustrative art. The German school of the 16th century committed its energies even more vigorously to illustration; and many of its artists are now known chiefly through their engravings on wood or copper, a good proportion of which were done to the accompaniment of printed matter. The names of Dürer, Burgmair, Altdorfer and Holbein represent a school whose engraved illustrations possess qualities which have never been rivalled, and remain an invaluable aid to imitators of the present day.
Illustration has generally flourished in any particular age
in proportion to the health and vigour of the artistic productions
in other kinds. No evident revival in painting has come about,
no great school has existed during the last four centuries, which
has not set its mark upon the illustration of the period and
quickened it into a medium for true artistic expression. The
etchers of the Low Countries during the 17th century, with
Rembrandt at their head, were to a great extent illustrators
in their choice of subjects. In France the period of Watteau
and Fragonard gave rise to a school of delicately engraved
illustration, exquisite in detail and invention. In England
Hogarth came to be the founder of many new conditions, both
in painting and illustration, and was followed by men of genius
so distinct as Reynolds on the one side and Bewick on the other.
With Reynolds one connects the illustrators and engravers
for whom now Bartolozzi supplies a surviving name and an
embodiment in his graceful but never quite English art. But
it is from Thomas Bewick that the wonderfully consistent
development of English illustration begins to date. Bewick
marks an important period in the technical history of wood-engraving
Progress
in
England.
as the practical inventor of the “tint”
and “white line” method of wood-cutting; but he
also happened to be an artist. His artistic device
was to give local colour and texture without shadow,
securing thereby a precision of outline which allowed no form
to be lost. And though, in consequence, many of his best
designs have somewhat the air of a specimen plate, he succeeded
in bringing into black-and-white illustration an element of
colour which had been wholly absent from it in the work of the
15th and 16th century German and Italian schools. Bewick’s
method started a new school; but the more racy qualities
