the Thoreau Log.
8 January 1854. Concord, Mass.

Thoreau writes in his journal:

  Gilpin, in his essay on the “Art of Sketching Landscape,” says: “When you have finished your sketch therefore with Indian ink, as far as you propose, tinge the whole over with some light horizon hue. It may be the rosy tint of morning; or the more ruddy one of evening; or it may incline more to a yellowish, or a greyish cast. . . . By washing this tint over your whole drawing, you lay a foundation for harmony.”

  I have often been attracted by this harmonious tint in his and other drawings, and sometimes, especially, have observed it in nature when at sunset I inverted my head. We love not so well the landscape represented as in broad noon, but in a morning or evening twilight, those seasons when the imagination is most active . . .

  P.M.—To the Spruce Swamp in front of J. Farmer’s. Can go across both rivers now . . .

(Journal, 6:53-59)

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