Early in the sixteenth century much improvement was made in the use of water for providing distance, and a few of the Venetian painters gave some consideration to aerial perspective, but the most perfect example of this perspective in the period is contained in an early work of Raphael.[d] In the background is a lake extending into a gradually deepening haze, and in this a boat is so skilfully placed as to increase considerably the apparent distance to the horizon. This picture is a distinct advance upon the Venetian distance work of the time.[e] Later on in the century an artist rarely introduced water into a view specially to assist in producing distance by means of boats, more advanced methods being adopted. Titian used sunlight effects with varying shadows,[f] or alternating clear and wooded ground.[g] These plans, and the use of water with the addition of trees and low hills,[h] constitute the chief devices to be found in the late sixteenth-century Italian pictures. Some of the sun effects rendered for distance purposes even before Titian's best time are quite effective, though formal.[]
[a] See Piero di Cosimo's Death of Procris, National Gallery, London, and Mars and Cupid, Berlin.
[] Van Eyck's Chancellor Rollin before the Virgin, and Bout's Adoration of the Magi.
[c] Lucas Moser's Voyage of the Saints (1431), Tiefenbroun, Germany.
[d] Central panel in a triptych of the Crucifixion, Hermitage, Petrograd. This picture has been sometimes attributed to Perugino, but it is unquestionably from the hand of Raphael.
[e] See Titian's Jacopo Pesaro presented to St. Peter, Antwerp.
[f] Charles V. at Mühlberg, Madrid.
[g] Meeting of Joachim and Anna, Padua; and others.
[h] Bronzino's Venus and Cupid, Uffizi, Florence.
[] Schiavone's Jupiter and Io, Hermitage.