Of the Fundamental Essentials of Design: Line, Form,
Space--Principles of Structural and Ornamental Line in Organic
Forms--Form and Mass in Foliage--Roofs--The Mediaeval
City--Organic and Accidental Beauty--Composition: Formal and
Informal--Power of Linear Expression--Relation of Masses and
Lines--Principles of Harmonious Composition.
We may take it, then, from the principles and examples I have
endeavoured to put before you in the previous chapters, that there are
three fundamental elements or essentials of Design--Line, Form, Space.
[Fundamental Essentials of Design]
Line we need, not only for our ground-plan and framework, but also to
define or express our forms. Form we need to give substance and mass,
interest and variety; and it is obvious that Space is required to
contain all these elements, while Space asserts its influence, as we
have seen, upon both Line and Form in combination upon it, whether
object or surface, by the shape of its boundary, the extension of its
plane, and the angle and position of its plane in regard to the eye, as
well as from the point of view of material and use.
Questions of the character of line and form, and their combination and
disposition in or over spaces, are questions of composition. They demand
the most careful solution, whatever our subject and purpose may be,
from the simplest linear border up to the most elaborate figure design.
But although the three essentials to composition must be always present,
it is always possible to rely more upon the qualities of one of them for
our main motive and interest, keeping the other two subsidiary. We might
centralize the chief interest of our composition upon _Line_, for
instance, and make harmonious relation or combination of lines our
principal object (as in line-design and ornament), or we might rather
dwell upon the contours, masses, and contrasts and relationships of
_Form_: as in pictorial design, figure compositions of all kinds, and
modelling and sculpture: or, again, we might choose that the peculiar
character given by the control of certain inclosing spaces should
determine the interest of our design, as the due filling of particular
panels and geometric shapes; or seek the interest of aerial perspective
in the pictorial and atmospheric expression of space.
Taking combinations of Line first, and bearing in mind what has been
said regarding its capacities for expression, whether of emotion,
direction of force, movement, rest, as well as of facts of structure and
surface, let us see if we can trace the principle of harmonious
composition, of which these things may be considered as parts.
[Line in Organic Forms]
Look at any of the systems of line in the organic structures of nature:
the radiating ribs of the scallop shell, or the spiral of many other
varieties; the set of the feathers upon the expanded wing of a bird; the
radiation of the sun's rays; the flowing line of the wave movement; the
lines of structure in flowers and leaves; the scales of a fish; the
scales of a pine-cone or an artichoke. We feel that any of these
combinations of lines are harmonious and beautiful, and we know that
they are essential to the character and structure. They are organic
lines, in short. They mean life and growth. In principle they are
radiating and recurring lines; in each form they repeat each other in
varying degrees of direction and declension of curve. No two lines are
alike, yet there is no contradiction and no unnecessary line, and
variety is combined with unity. Each affords a perfect instance of
harmonious composition of line, and gives us definite principles upon
which to work (see illustration, p. 140[f080]).
[Illustration (f080): Principles of Structural and Ornamental Line in
Natural Forms.]
These systems of line in organic nature have been adopted and adapted by
art, and are found throughout the historical forms of ornament which, as
we have good reason to believe, were often derived from mechanical
structures, illustrating the same principles; which, again, the logic of
geometry enforces in drawing on plane surfaces.
All organic structures teach us the same lesson of relation and
recurrence of line. The bones of all vertebrate animals, from _fish_ to
_man_, illustrate the constant repetition in different degrees of the
same character and direction of line. The vertebral column itself is an
instance, and the recurring spring of the ribs from it, like the
branches from the stem of a tree, further expressed in the ramification
of the jointed bones of the limbs and extremities. The principle may be
followed out in the structure of the muscles in their radiating fibres,
which the delicate contours and flowing lines of the surface of the
body only combine in a greater degree of subtlety (see illustration, p.
142[f081a]).
[Illustration (f081a): Radiating, Recurring and Counterbalancing Lines
in the Structure of the Skeleton and the Muscles.]
Look at the anatomy of any tree, as it is disclosed to us in its wintry
leaflessness, a beautiful composition of line rather than of form (see
illustration, p. 143[f081b]).
[Illustration (f081b): General Principles of Line and Form in the
Branching and Foliage Masses of Trees.]
Here we see organic life and structure expressed in the vigorous spring
of inter-dependent and corresponding curves, from the rigid sinuous
column of the main stem springing from the ground, presently divided
into the main forks of the branches, which again subdivide and subdivide
into smaller forks, so that the tree may sustain and spread its life in
the air and the sun, both supporting and continuing its existence by
this wonderful economic system of co-operative, subdivided, and
graduated helpfulness.
The massive green pavilion of summer, which this delicate vaulting of
branch-work sustains, gives us another, more sumptuous, but perhaps not
a greater beauty in the combination or substitution of form and mass for
line composition.
[Form and Mass in Foliage]
We might express, in an abstract way, the principle of the
line-structure of the ramifying tree by super-imposing vertically fork
upon fork in gradually diminishing scale, either curvilinear or
rectangular; and the principle of the mass-structure in the formation of
the foliage might be expressed by a series of overlapping curves,
suggestive of scales or cloud masses: to both of which indeed they
correspond in principle, illustrating the scale principle in detail and
the cloud principle in the mass; thus repeating the same general law of
natural roofing, or covering, in different materials (see
illustration, p. 145[f082]).
[Illustration (f082): Principles of Structure in Foliage Masses.]
In a mass of foliage each leaf falls partly over the one below it, as by
the system of their growth and suspension upon the stem they are of
course bound to do, whether symmetric or alternate in their arrangement,
the gaps caused by decay or accident being generally filled by new
shoots. Each shoot, eager to expand its leaves in the light, ever
spreading, forms mass after mass of the beautiful green panoply--the
coat armour of the forest, arboreal man's first form of domestic
architecture.
[Illustration (f083): Albert Durer: Detail from 'The Prodigal Son.']
The principle of structure here is just the same as the overlapping
principle of the tiles and slates upon our ordinary house-roofs; but
each leafy tile is different, being alive, and in the mass infinitely
varied and beautiful in form and colour, instead of being mechanical and
uniform, as we try to make our artificial roofs.
[German Roofs]
Very pretty and varied effects are produced in the old roofs of
southern Germany by the use of different coloured glazed tiles--red,
green, and yellow--arranged in simple patterns. One of the old towers at
Lindau has such a roof, and the colour effect is very rich and striking.
But I must not be led into a disquisition upon roofs further than in so
far as they illustrate the subject of composition of line and form, and
from the painter's point of view they frequently do in a very
delightful and instructive way.
[Illustration (f084): Albert Durer: St. Anthony.]
What, for instance, can be more varied and charming than the
compositions we constantly meet with in the rich backgrounds of Albert
Durer? Those steep barn roofs, and those quaint German towns inclosed in
walls with protecting towers--nests of steep tiled gables of every
imaginable degree--which give so much character and interest to his
designs, as in the background of his copper-plates "The Prodigal Son"
and "St. Anthony" here given. Their prototypes still exist here and
there in Germany, in such towns as Rothenburg, practically unchanged
since the sixteenth century, and give one an excellent idea of what such
houses were like. A visit there is like a leap back into the Middle
Ages. Every street is a varied and interesting composition. No two
houses are alike. They were built by the citizens to really pass their
lives in. The town is strongly placed upon the crest of a hill, with a
river at its foot, and well fortified and protected by massive
encircling walls and towers and deep gates, which give it so strong and
picturesque a character, while the timber and tile-roofed gallery for
the warders still exists along the inside of the walls. Such cities
arose by the strength of the social bond among men--the necessity for
mutual help in the maintenance of a higher standard of life, and mutual
protection against the ravages of sinister powers.
[The Mediaeval City]
Strong externally, internally they were made as home-like and full of
the varied delight of the eyes, as if the people had reasoned, "Since we
must live close together in a small place, let us make it as delightful
and romantic as we can." We know that the idea of Paradise and the New
Jerusalem to the imagination of the Middle Ages was always the fair
walled garden and the fenced city. The painters embodied the idea of
security and protection from the savage and destructive forces of nature
and man--a sanctuary of peace, a garden of delight.
[Illustration (f085): Roof-lines: Rothenburg.]
We have in modern times turned rather from the city as a complete and
beautiful thing, to the individual home, and to the interior of that,
and, in the modern competitive search for the necessary straws and
sticks to make our individualist-domestic composition of comfort and
artistic completeness, bowers are too often built upon the ruins of
others, or are fair by reason of surrounding degradation. The common
collective comfort and delight of the eyes is too often ignored, so that
it comes about that, if our modern cities possess any elements of beauty
or picturesqueness, it is rather owing to accidents and to the
transfiguring effects of atmosphere than to the beauty or variety of
architectural form and colour. We have to seek inspiration among the
fragments of the dead past in monuments and art schools.
[Organic and Accidental Beauty]
The modern development of the municipality and extension of its
functions may, indeed, do something, as it has done, and is doing,
something to protect public health and further public education; but we
have yet to wait for the full results, and everything must finally
depend upon the public spirit and disinterestedness of the citizens, and
in matters of art upon a very decided but somewhat rare and peculiar
sympathy and taste, as well as enthusiasm.
The absence of beauty of line, form, and proportion from the external
aspects of daily life in towns has probably a greater effect than we are
apt to realize in deadening the imagination, and it certainly seems to
produce a certain insensibility to beauty of line and composition, since
the perception must necessarily be blunted by being inured to the
commonplace and sordid. The instinct for harmony of line and form
becomes weakened, and can only be slowly revived by long and careful
study in art, instead of finding its constant and most vital stimulus in
every street.
For all that, however, an eye trained to observe and select may, even in
the dullest and dingiest street, find artistic suggestions, if not in
the buildings, then in the life. And where there is life, movement,
humanity, there is sure to be character and interest. Groups of children
playing will give us plenty of suggestions for figure composition.
Workpeople going to and from their work, the common works going on in
the street, the waggons and horses, the shoal of faces, the ceaseless
stream of life--all these things, whether we are able to reproduce them
as direct illustrations of the life of our time, or are moved only to
select from them vivid suggestions to give force to ideal conceptions,
should all be noted--photographed, as it were, instantaneously upon the
sensitive plate of the mind's vision. We can only learn the laws of
movement by observing movement--the swing and poise of the figure, the
relation of the lines of limbs and drapery to the direction of force and
centre of gravity, so important in composition. We must constantly
supplement our school and studio work by these direct impressions of
vivid life and movement, and neglect no opportunity or despise no source
or suggestion.
There are still in England to be found such old-world corners as the
quaint street of Canterbury (p. 153[f086]), which forms an excellent
study in the composition of angular and vertical lines.
[Illustration (f086): St. Margaret St Canterbury Aug: 27 1894]
[Formal Composition]
We may perceive that there are at least two kinds of composition, which
may be distinguished as:
I. Formal.
II. Informal.
I. Under the head of Formal may be classed all those systems of
structural line with which I started, and which are found either as
leading motives or fundamental plans and bases throughout ornamental
design. Yet even these may be used in composition of figures and other
forms where the object is more or less formal and decorative, as
governing plans or controlling lines.
The radiating ribs of a fan, for instance, might be utilized as the
natural boundaries and inclosing lines of a series of vertical figures
following the radiating lines. A strictly logical design of the kind
would be a series of figures with uplifted arms, forming radiating lines
from the shoulders, somewhat in the position of Blake's well-known and
beautiful composition of the Morning Stars in the Book of Job, already
illustrated.
Using the overlapping vertical scale plan we should get relative
positions for a formal composition of three figures, although they need
not necessarily be formal in detail. A typical design of three
associated ideas treated emblematically would be the most natural use of
such an arrangement--as Faith, Hope, and Charity; Liberty, Equality,
Fraternity; Science, Art, and Industry; or the three goddesses Here,
Pallas, and Aphrodite, as choice and purpose might decide. A
semicircular scale plan would not only repeat in a safe and sound
manner, but would afford suggestive shapes in which to throw designs of
figures, and could be effectively utilized either for a wall or ceiling
repeat.
The inclosure formed by two spiral lines gives a graceful ornamental
shape for a half-reclining figure; while a series of floating or flying
figures linking their hands would be appropriately governed by similar
spiral lines, uniting them with the meandering wave line (see
illustration, p. 155[f087]).
[Illustration (f087): Formal Composition: Figure Designs Controlled by
Geometric Boundaries.]
Upon a series of semicircles or ellipses, alternating horizontally,
might be arranged a little frieze of children with skipping ropes, or
Amorini with pendent garlands; the up-and-down movement in the former
case being conveyed by a variation, each alternate semicircle being
struck upwards. This would restore the emphatic wave or spiral line,
which always conveys the sense of rhythmic movement in a design.
Such a line, vertically employed, will give again a good plan for a
series of seated figures, say emblematic of the Hours, where similarity
of attitude and type would be appropriate, while the emblems and
accessories might be varied. A severer treatment would be suggested by
making the controlling line angular (see illustration, p. 156[f088]).
[Illustration (f088): Formal Composition: Figure Designs Controlled by
Geometric Boundaries.]
Such are a few illustrations of what I have termed formal composition,
in which the geometric and structural plans of pure ornament or
ornamental line maybe utilized to combine, control, or even suggest
figure designs.
[Informal Composition]
II. While formal compositions, though naturally falling into classes and
types, may be varied to a very great extent, when we come to informal
compositions the variations are unlimited, and a vista of extraordinary
and apparently endless choice, invention, and selection opens out before
the designer, co-extensive with the variety of nature herself.
In seeking harmonious and expressive composition in the pictorial
direction the guides are much less definite and secure. Individual
feeling and instinct, which must have an important influence in all
kinds of designing, are in this direction paramount. Yet even here, if
we look beneath the apparent freedom and informality, we find certain
laws at work which seem to differ only in degree from the more definite
and constructive control of line which we have been considering. In the
first place, there are our direct impressions from nature; and,
secondly, our conscious aims and efforts to express an idea in our
minds. We have the same restricted and definite forms of language and
materials in each case--line, form, space, brushes, pencil, colour,
paper, canvas, or clay. We are taken by some particular scene: the
composition of line and form at a particular spot attracts us more than
another. We do not stop as a rule to ask why, since it usually takes all
our time and our best skill to get into shape what we are seeking--and
carry away with us an artistic record of the place. We have seen that in
the case of certain natural structures, shells, leaves, flowers, the
fundamental structural lines are so beautiful that they not only form
ornament in themselves, but furnish the basis for whole types and
families of ornament. When we look at a landscape, putting aside for the
moment all the surface charms of colour and effect, and concentrating
our attention upon its lines of structures, we shall find that it owes a
great part of its beauty to the harmonious relation of its leading
lines, or to certain pleasant contrasts, or a certain impressiveness of
form and mass, and at the same time we shall perceive that this linear
expression is inseparable from the sentiment or emotion suggested by
that particular scene.
A gentle southern landscape--undulating downs, and wandering
sheep-walks; the soft rounded masses of the sheep upon smooth cropped
turf--all these are so many notes or words in the language of line and
form which go to express the idea of pastoral life. They are
inextricably bound up with inseparable associations conveyed by such
lines and forms. The undulating lines of resting or dancing figures
would only give point, true emphasis, and variety, and a note of
contrast in the forms would serve to bring out the general sentiment
more strongly.
Substitute rugged rocks, swollen torrents, wind-tossed trees and stormy
skies, and all is changed. Such things cannot be expressed without much
more emphatic lines and masses, and the use of opposing angles and
energetic curves of movement which would be destructive of the sentiment
of peace, in other cases. Yet even then to convey the expression of
energy and rapid movement, concerted groups of lines are none the less
necessary (see illustration, p. 159[f089]).
[Illustration (f089): Informal Composition: Expression of (1) Storm and
(2) Calm In Landscape.]
Such comparisons indicate not only that there is a necessary
association of ideas with certain lines and forms, but also that certain
relations and associations of line of a similar character are necessary
to produce a harmonious composition, and one which conveys a definite
and pervading sentiment or emotion, just as we saw that the controlling
lines of structural curves, spirals, and angles require to be in
relation, and to be re-echoed by the character of the design they
inclose or which is built upon them.
The same law holds true in figure composition. The sense of repose and
restfulness necessary to sitting or reclining groups depends upon the
gentle declivities of the curves and their gradual descent to the
horizontal.
[Illustration (f090): Informal Composition: Expression of Repose and
Action.]
Draw a figure sitting rigid, tense, and alert, and you destroy the sense
of repose at once, and you are obliged also to resort to angles, still
more emphatic where strong action is to be expressed; while to express
continual or progressive movement, a choice of associated lines of
action in different stages of progress leading up to the crescendo of
the final one (as in a group of mowers) would be necessary (see
illustrations, p. 161[f090]). We cannot, then, in any composition have
too definite a conception. We must, at any sacrifice of detail, bring
out the main expression and meaning. Every group of figures must be in
the strictest relation to each other and to the central interest or
expression of the design. You cannot, for instance, in a procession of
figures, make your faces turn all sorts of ways without stopping the
onward movement which is essential to the idea of a procession. This
would not preclude variety, but the general tendency must be in one
direction. Every line in a composition must lead up to the central idea,
and be subordinated or contributory to it (see illustration, Nos. 1 and
2, p. 163[f091a]).
[Illustration (f091a): (1) and (2) Movement in a Procession]
The same with masses: you cannot put a number of forms together without
some sort of relation, either of general character and contour or some
uniting line. We may learn this principle from nature also. Look at a
heap of broken stones and debris, which in detail may contain all sorts
of varieties of form, as we find them tumbled down a steep place, as the
rocky bed of a mountain stream, a heap of boulders upon a hillside, or
the debris from a quarry or mine; in each case the law of gravity and
the persistence of force working together arrange the diverse forms in
masses controlled by the lines, which express the direction and degree
of descent, and the pressure of force. The same thing may be seen on any
hilly ground after heavy rain; the scattered pebbles are arranged in
related groups, combined and composed by the flow of miniature streams,
which channel the face of the ground and form hollows for their
reception (see Nos. 3 and 4, p. 163[f091b]). The force of the tides and
currents upon the sea-shore illustrates the same principle and affords
us magnificent lessons in composition, not only in the delicate lines
taken by the sculptured sand, but in the harmonious grouping of masses
of shingle and shells, weeds and drift, arranged by the movement of the
waves.
[Illustration (f091b): (3) Lines Left by a Watercourse, (4) Lines
Governing Fallen Debris from a Quarry.]
[Principles of Harmonious Composition]
So that we may see that the principles of harmonious composition are not
the outcome of merely capricious fancy or pedantic rule, but are
illustrated throughout the visible world by the laws and forces of the
material universe. It is for the artist to observe and apply them in his
own work of re-creation.