LITMIR.BIZ

      The possibilities of balanced arrangement being so extensive, susceptible in fact of the most eccentric and fantastic composition, it follows: that its adaptability to all forms of presentation disarms argument against it. In almost every case, when the work of an accomplished painter fails to convince, through that completeness which of all qualities stands first, when, after the last word has been said by him, when, nature, in short, has been satisfied and the work still continues in its feeble state of insurrection, which many artists will confess it frequently requires years to quell, it is sure proof that way back in the early construction of such a picture some element of unbalance had been allowed.

THE NATURAL AXIS

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      In varying degrees pictures express what may be termed a natural axis, on which their components arrange themselves in balanced composition. This axis is the visible or imaginary line which the eye accepts connecting the two most prominent measures or such a line which first arrests the attention. If there be but one figure, group or measure, and there be an opening or point of attraction through the background diverting the vision from such to it, then this line of direction becomes the axis. The axis does not merely connect two points within the picture, but pierces it, and the near end of the shaft has much to do with this balance.

      [pg 45]

      Balance across the centre effects the unity of the picture in its limitations with its frame. Balance on the axis expresses the natural balance of the subject as we feel it in nature when it touches us personally and would connect our spirit with its own.

      We discern the former more readily where the subject confronts us with little depth of background. We get into the movement of the latter when the reach is far in, and we feel the subject revolving on its pivot and stretching one arm toward us while the other penetrates the visible or the unknown distance.

      Balance constructed over this line will bring the worker to as unified a result as the use of the steelyard on the central vertical line.

      In this method there is less restraint and when the axis is well marked it is best to take it. Not every subject develops it however. It is easily felt in Clairin's portrait of Sarah Bernhardt, the “Lady with Muff,” “The Path of the Surf,” and in the line of the horse, Indian, and sunset. When the axis is found, its force should be modified by opposed lines or measures, on one or both sides. In these four examples good composition has been effected in proportion as such balance is indicated; in the first by dog and palm, in the second by flower-pot, in the third by the light on the stubble and cloud in left hand corner, and in the last by the rocks and open sea.

      A further search among the accompanying illustrations would reveal it in the sweeping line [pg 46] of cuirassiers, 1807 balanced by the group about Napoleon, the line of the hulk and the light of the sky in “Her Last Moorings,” the central curved line in “The Body of Patroclus” the diagonal line through the arm of Ariadne into the forearm of Bacchus.

APPARENT OR FORMAL BALANCE.

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      Raphael is a covenient point at which to commence a study of composition. His style was influenced by three considerations: warning by the pitfalls of composition into which his predecessors had fallen; confidence that the absolutely formal balance was safe; and lack of experience to know that anything else was as good. To these may be added the environment for which most of his works were produced. His was an architectural plan of arrangement, and this well suited both the dignity of his subject and the chaste conceptions of a well poised mind.

      Raphael, therefore, stands as the chief exponent of informal composition. His plan was to place the figure of greatest importance in the centre. This should have its support in balancing figures on either side; an attempt then often observable was to weaken this set formality by other objects wherein, though measure responded to measure, there was a slight change in kind or degree, the whole arrangement resembling that of an army in battle array; with its centre, flanks and skirmishers. The balance of equal measures—seen in his “Sistine Madonna,” is conspicuous in most ecclesiastical pictures of that [pg 47] period, notably the “Last Supper of Leonardo” in which two groups of three persons each are posed on either side of the pivotal figure.

      This has become the standard arrangement for all classical balanced composition in pictorial decoration. The doubling of objects on either side of a central figure not only gives to it importance, but contributes to the composition that quietude, symmetry and solemnity so compatible with religious feeling or decorative requirement. The objection to this plan of balance is that it divides the picture into equal parts, neither one having precedence, and the subdivisions may be continued indefinitely. For this reason it has no place in genre art. Its antiphonal responses belong to the temple. A more objectionable form of balance on the centre is that in which the centre is of small importance. This cuts the picture into halves without reason. The “Dutch Peasants on the Shore,” “Low Tide,” and “The Poulterers,” and David's “Rape of the Sabine Women,” are examples.

      These pictures present three degrees of formal balance. In the first a lack of sequence impairs the picture's unity. In the second, though the objects are contiguous there is no subjective union, and in David's composition the formality of the decorative structure is inapplicable to the theme.

      The circular group of Dagnan-Bouveret's “Pardon in Brittany,” where the peasants are squatted on the left in the foreground is a daring bit of balance, finding its justification in the [pg 48] movement of interest toward the right in the background.

      In all forms, save the classic decoration it should be the artist's effort to conceal the balance over the centre.