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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Hidden Masterpiece by Honore de Balzac: tresses waved--she breathed! And yet, though I have grasped the secret
of rendering on a flat canvas the relief and roundness of nature, this
morning at dawn I saw many errors. Ah! to attain that glorious result,
I have studied to their depths the masters of color. I have analyzed
and lifted, layer by layer, the colors of Titian, king of light. Like
him, great sovereign of art, I have sketched my figure in light clear
tones of supple yet solid color; for shadow is but an accident,--
remember that, young man. Then I worked backward, as it were; and by
means of half-tints, and glazings whose transparency I kept
diminishing little by little, I was able to cast strong shadows
deepening almost to blackness. The shadows of ordinary painters are
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