at the right-hand lower corner. And then he has made a determined stand
against the flow of lines carrying you out of the picture on the right,
by putting straight, upright trees and insisting upon their
straightness.
[Illustration: Diagram XVI.
ILLUSTRATING SOME OF THE MAIN LINES ON WHICH THE RHYTHMIC UNITY OF THIS
PICTURE DEPENDS.]
[Illustration: Plate XXXVIII.
THE RAPE OF EUROPA. BY PAOLO VERONESE (VENICE)
A composition of rich full forms and rich full colour. (See the diagram
on opposite page for analysis of line rhythm.)
_Photo Anderson_]
Another rhythmic form the lines at the basis of a composition may take
is a flame-like flow of lines; curved lines meeting and parting and
meeting again, or even crossing in one continual movement onwards. A
striking instance of the use of this quality is the work of the
remarkable Spanish painter usually called El Greco, two of whose works
are here shown (page 172 [Transcribers Note: Plate XL]). Whatever may
be said by the academically minded as to the incorrectness of his
drawing, there can be no two opinions as to the remarkable rhythmic
vitality of his work. The upward flow of his lines and the flame-like
flicker of his light masses thrills one in much the same way as watching
a flaring fire. There is something exalting and stimulating in it,
although, used to excess as he sometimes uses it, it is apt to suffer
from lack of repose. Two examples of his pictures are reproduced here,
and illustrate his use of this form of movement in the lines and masses
of his compositions. Nowhere does he let the eye rest, but keeps the
same flickering movement going throughout all his masses and edges. The
extraordinary thing about this remarkable painter is that while this
restless, unrestrained form of composition makes his work akin to the
rococo work of a later period, there is a fiery earnestness and
sincerity in all he does, only to be matched among the primitive
painters of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and very different
from the false sentiment of the later school.
Blake was also fond of this flame line, but usually used it in
combination with more straight lines than the energetic Spaniard allowed
himself. Plates III and V in the Job series are good examples of his use
of this form. In both cases it will be seen that he uses it in
combination with the steadying influence of straight lines, which help
to keep the balance and repose necessary in the treatment of even the
most violent subjects in art.
A continual interruption in the flow of lines, and a harsh jarring
of one against another in an angular, jagged fashion, produces a feeling
of terror and horror. A streak of fork lightning is a natural example of
this. The plate of Blake's No. XI, p. 148 [Transcribers Note: Plate
XXXII], reproduced here, is also a good example. I have had it put
sideways on so that you may see that the look of horror is not only in
the subject but belongs to the particular music of line in the picture.
The effect of the harsh contrasts in the lines is further added to by
the harsh contrasts of tone: everywhere hard lights are brought up
against hard darks. Harsh contrasts of tone produce much the same look
of terror as harsh contrasts of line. Battle pictures are usually, when
good, full of these clashes of line and tone, and thrilling dramatic
effects in which a touch of horror enters are usually founded on the
same principle. In the picture by Paolo Uccello in the National Gallery,
reproduced on page 170 [Transcribers Note: Plate XXXIX], a milder
edition of this effect is seen. The artist has been more interested in
the pageantry of war and a desire to show off his newly-acquired
knowledge of perspective, than anything very terrible. The contrasts of
line are here but confined to the smaller parts, and there are no
contrasts of light and shade, chiaroscuro not being yet invented.
However, it will be seen by the accompanying diagram how consistently
the harsh contrasts of line were carried out in the planning of this
picture. Notice the unconscious humour of the foreshortened spears and
figure carefully arranged on the ground to vanish to the recently
discovered vanishing point.
[Illustration: Diagram XVII.
SHOWING THE CLASH OF LINES IN SYMPATHY WITH THE MARTIAL NATURE OF THIS
SUBJECT.]
[Illustration: Plate XXXIX.
BATTLE OF ST. EGIDIO. PAOLO UCCELLO (NATIONAL GALLERY)
Illustrating the effect of jarring lines in composition. (See diagram on
opposite page.)
_Photo Morelli_]
* * * * *
Lines radiating in smooth curves from a common centre are another form
employed to give unity in pictorial design. The point from which they
radiate need not necessarily be within the picture, and is often
considerably outside it. But the feeling that they would meet if
produced gives them a unity that brings them into harmonious
relationship.
There is also another point about radiating lines, and that is their
power of setting up a relationship between lines otherwise unrelated.
Let us try and explain this. In Panel A, page 174 [Transcribers Note:
Diagram XVIII], are drawn some lines at random, with the idea of their
being as little related to each other as possible. In B, by the
introduction of radiating lines in sympathy with them, they have been
brought into some sort of relationship. The line 1-2 has been selected
as the dominating line, and an assortment of radiating ones drawn about
it. Now, by drawing 7-8, we have set up a relationship between lines
3-4, 5-6, and 1-2, for this line radiates with all of them. Line 9-10
accentuates this relationship with 1-2. The others echo the same thing.
It is this echoing of lines through a composition that unites the
different parts and gives unity to the whole.
The crossing of lines at angles approaching the right angle is always
harsh and somewhat discordant, useful when you want to draw attention
dramatically to a particular spot, but to be avoided or covered up at
other times. There is an ugly clash of crossing lines in our original
scribble, and at C we have introduced a mass to cover this up, and also
the angles made by line 3-4 as it crosses the radiating lines above 1-2.
With a small mass at 11 to make the balance right, you have a basis for
a composition, Diagram C, not at all unpleasing in arrangement, although
based on a group of discordant lines drawn at random, but brought into
harmony by means of sympathetic radiation.
[Illustration: Plate XL.
THE ASCENSION OF CHRIST. BY DOMINICO THEOTOCOPULI CALLED EL GRECO.
Note the flame-like form and flow of the light masses, and the exalted
feeling this conveys.
_Photo Anderson_]
[Illustration: Plate XLI.
THE BAPTISM OF CHRIST. BY DOMINICO THEOTOCOPULI CALLED EL GRECO
Another example of his restless, flame-like composition.
_Photo Anderson_]
In Panel D the same group is taken, but this time line 3-4 is used as
the dominant one. Line 7-8 introduces 3-4 to 1-2, as it is related to
both. Lines 9-10 and 11-12 introduce 3-4 to 5-6, as they are related to
both, and the others follow on the same principle. By introducing some
masses covering up the crossings, a rhythmic basis for a composition
(Diagram E) entirely different from C is obtained, based on the same
random group.
In Panel F, 1-2 has been taken as the dominant line, and sympathetic
lines drawn on the same principle as before. By again covering the
crossings and introducing balancing masses we obtain yet another
arrangement from the same random scribble.
I would suggest this as a new game to students, one giving another two
or three lines drawn in a panel at random, the problem being to make
harmonious arrangements by the introduction of others radiating in
sympathy.
Often in a picture certain conditions are laid down to start with;
something as ugly as our original group of lines drawn at random has to
be treated pictorially, and it is by means such as here suggested that
its discordancy can be subdued and the whole brought into harmony with
the shape of your panel. The same principles apply in colour, discordant
notes can be brought into harmony by the introduction of others related
to both the original colours, thus leading the eye from one to the other
by easy stages and destroying the shock. Somewhat in the way a musician
will take you from one key into another very remote by means of a few
chords leading from the one to the other; whereas, had he taken you
straight there, the shock would have been terrible. As it is, these
transitions from one key into another please and surprise one, and are
very effective.
[Illustration: Diagram XVIII.
SHOWING HOW LINES UNRELATED CAN BE BROUGHT INTO HARMONY BY THE
INTRODUCTION OF OTHERS IN SYMPATHY WITH THEM.
A. LINES DRAWN AT RANDOM.
B. TAKING LINE 1-2 AS DOMINANT LINE.
C. AS AT B BUT WITH ADDITION OF MASSES TO COVER LINES CROSSING AND
RESTORE BALANCE
D. TAKING LINE 3-4 AS DOMINANT LINE
E. AS AT D BUT WITH ADDITION OF MASSES TO COVER LINES CROSSING AND GIVE
BALANCE
F. TAKING LINE 5-6 AS DOMINANT LINE
G. AS AT F BUT WITH MASSES TO COVER LINES CROSSING & TO GIVE BALANCE]
[Illustration: Diagram XIX.
SHOWING HOW LINES UNRELATED CAN BE BROUGHT INTO HARMONY BY THE
INTRODUCTION OF OTHERS IN SYMPATHY WITH THEM.
H. LINES DRAWN AT RANDOM.
I. LINES DRAWN AT RANDOM.
J. ADDITIONAL LINES DRAWN TO RELATE ORIGINAL LINES AND BRING THE WHOLE
INTO HARMONY TAKING LINE 1-2, AS DOMINANT.
K. ADDITIONAL LINES DRAWN TO RELATE ORIGINAL LINES TAKING 1-2 AS
DOMINANT.
L. THE SAME AS J WITH ADDITION OF MASSES TO COVER CROSSING OF LINES.
M. THE SAME AS AT K WITH ADDITION OF MASSES TO COVER CROSSING LINES.]
In H, I have introduced a straight line into our initial scribble, and
this somewhat increases the difficulties of relating them. But by
drawing 7-8 and 9-10 radiating from 1-2, we have introduced this
straight line to 5-6. For although 5-6 and 9-10 do not radiate from the
same point, they are obviously in sympathy. It is only a short part of
the line at the end marked 5 that is out of sympathy, and had 5-6 taken
the course of the dotted line, it would have radiated from the same
point as 9-10. We still have line 3-4 to account for. But by drawing
11-12 we bring it into relationship with 5-6, and so by stages through
9-10 and 7-8 to the original straight line 1-2. Line 13-14, by being
related to 3-4, 11-12, and also 5-6, still further harmonises the group,
and the remainder echo 5-6 and increase the dominant swing. At L masses
have been introduced, covering crossing lines, and we have a basis for a
composition.
In Diagram I lines have been drawn as before, at random, but two of them
are straight and at right angles, the longer being across the-centre of
the panel. The first thing to do is to trick the eye out of knowing that
this line is in the centre by drawing others parallel to it, leading the
eye downwards to line 9-10, which is now much more important than 1-2
and in better proportion with the height of the panel. The vertical line
3-4 is rather stark and lonely, and so we' introduce two more verticals
at 11-12 and 13-14, which modify this, and with another two lines in
sympathy with 5-6 and leading the eye back to the horizontal top of the
panel, some sort of unity is set up, the introduction of some masses
completing the scheme at M.
There is a quality of sympathy set up by certain line relationships
about which it is important to say something. Ladies who have the
instinct for choosing a hat or doing their hair to suit their face
instinctively know something of this; know that certain things in their
face are emphasised by certain forms in their hats or hair, and the care
that has to be taken to see that the things thus drawn attention to are
their best and not their worst points.
The principle is more generally understood in relation to colour;
everybody knows how the blueness of blue eyes is emphasised by a
sympathetic blue dress or touch of blue on a hat, &c. But the same
principle applies to lines. The qualities of line in beautiful eyes and
eyebrows are emphasised by the long sympathetic curve of a picture hat,
and the becoming effect of a necklace is partly due to the same cause,
the lines being in sympathy with the eyes or the oval of the face,
according to how low or high they hang. The influence of long lines is
thus to "pick out" from among the lines of a face those with which they
are in sympathy, and thus to accentuate them.
To illustrate this, on page 178 [Transcribers Note: Plate XLII] is
reproduced "The Portrait of the Artist's Daughter," by Sir Edward
Burne-Jones.
The two things that are brought out by the line arrangement in this
portrait are the beauty of the eyes and the shape of the face. Instead
of the picture hat you have the mirror, the widening circles of which
swing round in sympathy with the eyes and concentrate the attention on
them. That on the left (looking at the picture) being nearest the
centre, has the greatest attention concentrated upon it, the lines of
the mirror being more in sympathy with this than the other eye, as it is
nearer the centre. If you care to take the trouble, cut a hole in a
piece of opaque paper the size of the head and placing it over the
illustration look at the face without the influence of these outside
lines; and note how much more equally divided the attention is between
the two eyes without the emphasis given to the one by the mirror. This
helps the unity of impression, which with both eyes realised to so
intense a focus might have suffered. This mirror forms a sort of echo of
the pupil of the eye with its reflection of the window in the left-hand
corner corresponding to the high light, greatly helping the spell these
eyes hold.
[Illustration: Diagram XX.
INDICATING THE SYMPATHETIC FLOW OF LINES THAT GIVE UNITY TO THIS
COMPOSITION.]
[Illustration: Plate XLII.
PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST'S DAUGHTER SIR EDWARD BURNE-JONES, BART.
An example of sympathetic rhythm. (See diagram on opposite page.)
_Photo Hollyer_]
The other form accentuated by the line arrangement is the oval of the
face. There is the necklace the lines of which lead on to those on the
right in the reflection. It is no mere accident that this chain is so in
sympathy with the line of the face: it would hardly have remained where
it is for long, and must have been put in this position by the artist
with the intention (conscious or instinctive) of accentuating the face
line. The line of the reflection on the left and the lines of the mirror
are also sympathetic. Others in the folds of the dress, and those
forming the mass of the hands and arms, echo still further this line of
the face and bring the whole canvas into intense sympathetic unity of
expression.
The influence that different ways of doing the hair may have on a face
is illustrated in the accompanying scribbles. The two profiles are
exactly alike--I took great trouble to make them so. It is quite
remarkable the difference the two ways of doing the hair make to the
look of the faces. The upward swing of the lines in A sympathise with
the line of the nose and the sharper projections of the face generally
(see dotted lines), while the full downward curves of B sympathise with
the fuller curves of the face and particularly emphasise the fullness
under the chin so dreaded by beauty past its first youth (see dotted
lines). It is only a very sharply-cut face that can stand this low knot
at the back of the head, in which case it is one of the simplest and
most beautiful ways of doing the hair. The hair dragged up high at the
back sharpens the lines of the profile as the low knot blunts them.
[Illustration: Diagram XXI.
ILLUSTRATING THE EFFECT ON THE FACE OF PUTTING THE HAIR UP AT THE BACK.
HOW THE UPWARD FLOW OF LINES ACCENTUATES THE SHARPNESSES OF THE
FEATURES.]
[Illustration: Diagram XXII.
ILLUSTRATING THE EFFECT ON THE SAME FACE AS DIAGRAM XXI, OF PUTTING THE
HAIR LOW AT THE BACK. HOW THE FULLER LINES THUS GIVEN ACCENTUATE THE
FULLNESSES OF THE FEATURES.]
The illustrations to this chapter have been drawn in diagrammatical form
in order to try and show that the musical quality of lines and the
emotions they are capable of calling up are not dependent upon truth to
natural forms but are inherent in abstract arrangements themselves. That
is to say, whenever you get certain arrangements of lines, no matter
what the objects in nature may be that yield them, you will always get
the particular emotional stimulus belonging to such arrangements. For
instance, whenever you get long uninterrupted horizontal lines running
through a picture not opposed by any violent contrast, you will always
get an impression of intense quiet and repose; no matter whether the
natural objects yielding these lines are a wide stretch of country with
long horizontal clouds in the sky, a pool with a gentle breeze making
horizontal bars on its surface, or a pile of wood in a timber yard. And
whenever you get long vertical lines in a composition, no matter whether
it be a cathedral interior, a pine forest, or a row of scaffold poles,
you will always have the particular feeling associated with rows of
vertical lines in the abstract. And further, whenever you get the
swinging lines of the volute, an impression of energy will be conveyed,
no matter whether it be a breaking wave, rolling clouds, whirling dust,
or only a mass of tangled hoop iron in a wheelwright's yard. As was said
above, these effects may be greatly increased, modified, or even
destroyed by associations connected with the things represented. If in
painting the timber yard the artist is thinking more about making it
look like a stack of real wood with its commercial associations and
less about using the artistic material its appearance presents for the
making of a picture, he may miss the harmonic impression the long lines
of the stacks of wood present. If real wood is the first thing you are
led to think of in looking at his work, he will obviously have missed
the expression of any artistic feeling the subject was capable of
producing. And the same may be said of the scaffold poles or the hoop
iron in the wheelwright's yard.
This structure of abstract lines at the basis of a picture will be more
or less overlaid with the truths of nature, and all the rich variety of
natural forms, according to the requirements of the subject. Thus, in
large decorative work, where the painting has to take its place as part
of an architectural scheme, the severity of this skeleton will be
necessary to unite the work to the architectural forms around it, of
which it has to form a part; and very little indulgence in the
realisation of natural truth should be permitted to obscure it. But in
the painting of a small cabinet picture that exists for close
inspection, the supporting power of this line basis is not nearly so
essential, and a full indulgence in all the rich variety of natural
detail is permissible. And this is how it happens that painters who have
gloried in rich details have always painted small pictures, and painters
who have preferred larger truths pictures of bigger dimensions. It
sounds rather paradoxical to say the smaller the picture the more detail
it should contain, and the larger the less, but it is nevertheless true.
For although a large picture has not of necessity got to be part of an
architectural scheme, it has to be looked at from a distance at which
small detail could not be seen, and where such detail would greatly
weaken its expressive power. And further, the small picture easily
comes within the field of vision, and the whole impression can be
readily grasped without the main lines being, as it were, underlined.
But in a big picture one of the greatest difficulties is to get it to
read simply, to strike the eye as one impression. Its size making it
difficult for it to be got comfortably within the field of vision, every
artifice has to be used to give it "breadth of treatment," as it is
called, and nothing interferes with this like detail.
XIII
VARIETY OF MASS
The masses that go to make up a picture have variety in their #shape#,
their #tone values#, their #edges#, in #texture# _or_ #quality#, and in
#gradation#. Quite a formidable list, but each of these particulars has
some rhythmic quality of its own about which it will be necessary to say
a word.
[Sidenote: Variety of Shape.]
As to variety of shape, many things that were said about lines apply
equally to the spaces enclosed by them. It is impossible to write of the
rhythmic possibilities that the infinite variety of shapes possessed by
natural objects contain, except to point out how necessary the study of
nature is for this. Variety of shape is one of the most difficult things
to invent, and one of the commonest things in nature. However
imaginative your conception, and no matter how far you may carry your
design, working from imagination, there will come a time when studies
from nature will be necessary if your work is to have the variety that
will give life and interest. Try and draw from imagination a row of elm
trees of about the same height and distance apart, and get the variety
of nature into them; and you will see how difficult it is to invent. On
examining your work you will probably discover two or three pet forms
repeated, or there may be only one. Or try and draw some cumulus clouds
from imagination, several groups of them across a sky, and you will
find how often again you have repeated unconsciously the same forms. How
tired one gets of the pet cloud or tree of a painter who does not often
consult nature in his pictures. Nature is the great storehouse of
variety; even a piece of coal will suggest more interesting rock-forms
than you can invent. And it is fascinating to watch the infinite variety
of graceful forms assumed by the curling smoke from a cigarette, full of
suggestions for beautiful line arrangements. If this variety of form in
your work is allowed to become excessive it will overpower the unity of
your conception. It is in the larger unity of your composition that the
imaginative faculty will be wanted, and variety in your forms should
always be subordinated to this idea.
Nature does not so readily suggest a scheme of unity, for the simple
reason that the first condition of your picture, the four bounding
lines, does not exist in nature. You may get infinite suggestions for
arrangements, and should always be on the look out for them, but your
imagination will have to relate them to the rigorous conditions of your
four bounding lines, and nature does not help you much here. But when
variety in the forms is wanted, she is pre-eminent, and it is never
advisable to waste inventive power where it is so unnecessary.
But although nature does not readily suggest a design fitting the
conditions of a panel her tendency is always towards unity of
arrangement. If you take a bunch of flowers or leaves and haphazard
stuff them into a vase of water, you will probably get a very chaotic
arrangement. But if you leave it for some time and let nature have a
chance you will find that the leaves and flowers have arranged
themselves much more harmoniously. And if you cut down one of a group of
trees, what a harsh discordant gap is usually left; but in time nature
will, by throwing a bough here and filling up a gap there, as far as
possible rectify matters and bring all into unity again. I am prepared
to be told this has nothing to do with beauty but is only the result of
nature's attempts to seek for light and air. But whatever be the
physical cause, the fact is the same, that nature's laws tend to
pictorial unity of arrangement.
[Sidenote: Variety of Tone Values]