insight

Almost unconsciously he stopped in Saint Sulpice square, flooded in sunshine, and observed a boy climbing the statues in the fountain. Suddenly he became aware of what he was seeing: a dark orange color in the light, the most vivid violet at the edges of the shadows, and golden reflections in the shadows cast on the ground. The orange and the violet alternated, sometimes blended; the golden tone was seemingly tinged with green. He noted this precisely in his diary long before impressionism.

-- Josef Svoboda, on Delacroix The Secret of Theatrical Space