The Æsthetic Elements. — What, then, are these æsthetic qualities I have spoken of? Will you consider the quality of “line”? Not a line, but line as an element, excluding all the possible things which may be done with lines in different relations to themselves and to other elements. Now will you consider also the other elements, “mass” and “color”? Do you see that here are three terms which suggest possibilities of combination of infinite scope? and they are purely intellectual. What may be done with them may be done, primarily, without taking into consideration the representation of any material fact whatsoever. Take as the type, conventional ornament. You can make the most exquisite combinations, in which the only interest and charm lies in the fact of those combinations in line and mass and color.

Take architecture. Quite aside from the use of the building is the æsthetic resultant from combinations of line and mass and color.

And so in the picture the question of art, the question of æsthetic entity, lies in the intellectual qualities of combinations of line and mass and [170] color which permeate through and through the technical and material structure that you call the picture, and give it whatever universal and permanent value it has, and which make it immortal, if immortal it ever can be.

Composition. — The bearing of all this on composition should be obvious, for composition is the technique of combination. In the composition of a picture all the elements come into play. It is in composition that the management of the abstract results in the concrete.

Let us look at it from a more practical side. Frankly, there are qualities, which you always look for in a picture, — good drawing, of course, and good color. But there are such things as these: Harmony, Balance, Rhythm, Grace, Impressiveness, Force, Dignity. Where do they come from? Must not every good picture have them, or some of them, to some extent? How are you going to get them? If you have fifteen or twenty square feet or square yards of surface, you will not get them onto it by unaided inspiration. Inspiration is, like any other intellectual quality, quite logical, only it acts more quickly and takes longer steps between conclusions perhaps. You will get these qualities onto your canvas only by so arranging all the objects which make up the body of your picture that these qualities shall be the result. It is arrangement then. [171]

Arrangement. — But arrangement of what? how? The objects. But on some principle back of them. Consider another set of qualities: proportion, i.e., relative size; arrangement, relative position; contrast; accent, — these are what you manipulate your objects with, and your objects themselves are only line and mass and color in the concrete. Objects, figures, bric-a-brac, draperies, houses and trees, skies and mountains, and every and any other natural fact, you may consider as so many bits of form and color with which you may work out a scheme on canvas; and how you do it is to consider them as pawns in your game of æsthetics. With these as materials, what you really do is to combine mass and line and color by means of proportion, arrangement, contrast, and accent, that a beautiful entity of harmony, balance, rhythm, grace, dignity, and force may result. And this is composition.

No Rules. — Naturally in dealing with a thing like this, which is the very essence of art, rules are of very little use. Ability in composition may be acquired when it is not natural, but it calls for a continuous training of the sense of proportion and arrangement, just as the development of any other ability calls for training.

The best thing that you can do is to study good examples and try to appreciate, not only their beauty, but how and why they are beautiful. Cultivate [172] your taste in that direction; and with the taste to like good and dislike bad composition will come the feeling which tells you when it is good and when it is bad, and this feeling you can apply to your own work, and by experiment you will gain knowledge and skill.

Rules are not possible simply because they are limitations, and the true composer will always overstep a limitation of that kind, and with a successful result.

Principles of composition, too, must be variously adapted, according to the kind of picture you have in hand. The principles are the same, of course; but as the materials differ in a figure painting and a landscape, for instance, you must apply them to meet that difference.

Suggestions. — The first suggestion that might be made as a help to the study of composition is to consider your picture as a whole always. No matter how many figures, no matter how many groups, they must all be considered as parts of a whole, which must have no effect of being too much broken up.

If the figures are scattered, they must be scattered in such a way that they suggest a logical connection between them as individuals in each group, and groups in a whole. There should usually be a main mass, and the others subsidiary masses. There should be a centre of interest of [173] some sort, whether it be a color, a mass, or a thing; and this centre should be the point to which all the other parts balance.

Simplicity is a good word to have in mind. However complicated the composition may seem superficially, you may treat it simply. You will control it by not considering any part as of any importance in itself, but only as it helps the whole; and you may strengthen or weaken that part as you need to. Don't cut the thing up too much. Let a half a dozen objects count as one in the whole. Mass things, simplify the masses, and make the elements of the masses hold as only parts of those masses.

Study placing of things in different sizes relative to the size of the canvas. Make sketches which take no note of anything but the largest masses or the most important lines, and change them about till they seem right; then break them up in the same way into their details. Apply the steps suggested for drawing to the study of composition, searching for balance chiefly, or for some other quality which is proper to composition.

Line. — Each of the main elements of composition can be used as a problem of arrangement. You can study composition in line, in mass, or in color.

“The Golden Stairs,” by Burne-Jones, is almost purely an arrangement in line, and beautifully illustrates [174] the use of this element as the main æsthetic motive in a picture.

Compare this composition in line with the “Descent from the Cross,” in which the line is equally marked, but more complicated, and used in connection with mass to a much greater extent, and involved with interrelations of chiaroscuro and color. Consider the effect which each picture [177] derives as a whole from this management of these elements. The one emphasizing that of line, with the resultant of rhythm and grace; the other balancing the elements, and so gaining power and impressiveness.