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Pictorial Composition and the Critical Judgment of Pictures. Henry Rankin Poore
Читать онлайн.Название Pictorial Composition and the Critical Judgment of Pictures
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isbn 4064066104108
Автор произведения Henry Rankin Poore
Жанр Документальная литература
Издательство Bookwire
Here we have the dog and fan balancing the body and plant. The balance across the diagonal of the figure, by the opposition of the dog with the plant is very complete. Joined with the hanging lamp above, this sinuous line effects a letter S or without the dog and leaf Hogarth's line of beauty.
In the matter also of the weakening of the necessary foundation lines which support the figure (the sofa), and cut the picture in two, this curving figure, the pillow and the large leaf do excellent service.
[pg 35]
When one fills a vase with flowers he aims at both unity and balance, and if, in either color combination, or in massing and accent, it lacks this, the result is disturbing. Let the vase become a bowl and let the bowl be placed on its edge and made to resemble a frame, entirely surrounding the bouquet; his effort remains the same. To be effective in a frame, balance and unity are just as necessary. The eye finds repose and delight in the perfect equipoise of elements, brought into combination and bound together by the girdle of the frame.
A picture should be able to hang from its exact centre. Imperfect composition inflicts upon the beholder the duty of accommodating his head to the false angle of the picture. Pictures that stand the test of time do not demand astigmatic glasses. We view them balanced, and they repeat the countersign—“balanced.”
After settling upon this as the great consideration in the subject of composition and reducing the principle to the above law, I confess I had not the full courage of my conviction for a six month, for now and then a picture would appear that at first glance seemed like an unruly colt, to refuse to be harnessed to the theory and was in danger of kicking it to pieces. After a number of such apparent exceptions and the ease with which they submitted to the test of absolute balance from the centre, on the scheme of the steelyards, I am now entirely convinced that what writers have termed the “very vague subject of composition,” “the perplexing question of [pg 36] arrangement of parts,” etc., yields to this simplest law, and which, in its directness and clearness, affords the simplest of working rules. Those whose artistic freedom bids defiance to the slavery of rule, as applied to an artistic product, and who try to produce something that shall break all rules, in the hope of being original, spend the greater part of the time in but covering the surface so that the principle may not be too easily seen, and the rest of the time in balancing the unbalanced.
As the balance of the figure dominates all other considerations in the statue or painting of the human form, so does the equipoise of the picture, or its balance of parts, become the chief consideration in its composition. The figure balances its weight over the point of support, as the flying Mercury on his toes, the picture upon a fulcrum on which large and small masses hang with the same delicate adjustment. In Fortuny's “Connoisseurs,” the two men looking at a picture close to the left of the centre form the subject. The dark mass behind them stops off further penetration in this direction, but the eye is drawn away into the light on the right and seeks the man carrying a portfolio. At his distance, together with the lighted objects he easily balances the important group on the other side of the centre. Indeed, with the attractiveness of the clock, vase, plaque, mantel and chest, his face would have added a grain too much, and this the artist happily avoided by covering it with the portfolio.
[pg 37]
In the portrait study of “Lady with Muff,” one first receives the impression that the figure has been carelessly placed and, indeed, it would go for a one-sided and thoughtless arrangement but for the little item, almost lost in shadow, on the left side. This bit of detail enables the eye to penetrate the heavy shadow, and is a good example of the value of the small weight on the long arm of the steelyard, which balances its opposing heavy weight.
This picture is trimmed a little too much on the top to balance across the horizontal line, and, indeed, this balance is the least important, and, in some cases, not desirable; but the line of light following down from the face and across the muff and into the lap not only assists this balance, but carries the eye into the left half, and for that reason is very valuable in the lateral balance, which is all important to the upright subject.
One other consideration regarding this picture, in the matter of balance, contains a principle: The line of the figure curves in toward the flower and pot which become the radius of the whole inner contour. This creates an elliptical line of observation, which being the arc on this radius receives a pull toward its centre. There is a modicum of balance in the mere weight of this empty space, but when given force by its isolation, plus the concession to its centripetal significance, the small item does great service in settling the equilibrium of the picture. The lines are precisely those of the Rubens recently added to the Metropolitan Museum, wherein the [pg 40] figures of Mary, her mother, Christ and John form the arc and the bending form of the monk its oppositional balance.
In proof of the fact that the half balance, or that on either side of the vertical is sufficient in many subjects, see such portraits in which the head alone is attractive, the rest being suppressed in detail and light, for the sake of this attraction.
It is rarely that figure art deals with balance over the horizontal central line in conjunction with balance over the vertical.
One may recall photographs of figures in which the positions on the field of the plate are very much to one side of the centre, but which have the qualifying element in leading line or balance by an isolated measure that brings them within the requirements of unity. The “Brother and Sister” 7 by Miss Kasebier—the boy in sailor cap crowding up to the face and form of his younger sister—owes much to the long, strongly-relieved line of the boy's side and leg which draws the weight to the opposite side of the picture. In imagination we may see the leg below the knee and know how far on the opposite side of the central vertical his point of support really is. The movement in both figures originates from this side of the picture as the lines of the drapery show. Deprive such a composition of its balancing line and instead of a picture we would have but two figures on one side of a plate.
[pg 41]
The significance of the horizontal balance is best understood in landscape, with its extended perspective. Here the idea becomes reminiscent of our childhood's “teeter.” Conceiving a long space from foreground to distance, occupied with varied degrees of interest, it is apparent how easily one end may become too heavy for the other. The tempering of such a chain of items until the equipoise is attained must be coordinate with the effort toward the lateral balance.
VERTICAL AND HORIZONTAL BALANCE.
In the “Salute to the Wounded,”by Detaille, complete and formal balance on both the vertical and horizontal line is shown. The chief of staff is on one side of centre, balanced by the officer on the other, and the remaining members of staff balance the German infantry. Although the heads of prisoners are all above the horizontal line, three-fourths of the body comes below—a just equivalent—and, in the case of the horsemen, the legs and bodies of the horses draw down the balance toward the bottom of the canvas, specially aided by the two cuirassiers in the left corner. In addition to this, note the value of the placement of the gray horse and rider at left, as a means of interrupting the necessary and objectionable line of feet across the canvas and leading the eye into the picture and toward the focus, both by the curve to the left, including the black horse, and also by the direct jump across [pg 42] the picture, through the white horse and toward the real subject—i.e., the prisoners.
Much has been written by way of suggestion in composition dealing with this picture or that to illustrate a thought which might have been simplified over the single