“Though the Chinese are not well versed in opticks, yet experience has taught them that objects appear less in size, and grow dim in colour, in proportion as they are more removed from the eye of the spectator. These discoveries have given rise to an artifice, which they sometimes put into practice. It is forming prospects in perspective by introducing buildings, vessels, and other objects, lessened according as they are more distant from the point of view; and that the deception may be still more striking, they give a greyish tinge to the distant parts of the composition, and plant in the remoter parts of these scenes trees of a fainter colour, and smaller growth, than those that appear in the front or fore-ground; by these means rendering what in reality is trifiling and limited, great and considerable in appearance.”

—Sir William Chambers (1726–1796), from the essay Of the Art of Laying Out Gardens Among the Chinese, which accompanies his Design of Chinese Buildings, Furniture, Dresses, Machines, and Utensils, 1757.