The Crown of Wild Olive
is _strikingly_ manifest. This may be simply illustrated by musical
melody; for instance, in such phrases as this:
one note (here the upper G) rules the whole passage, and has the full
energy of it concentrated in itself. Such passages, corresponding to
completely subordinated compositions in painting, are apt to be
wearisome if often repeated. But in such a phrase as this:
it is very difficult to say, which is the principal note. The A in the
last bar is lightly dominant, but there is a very equal current of
power running through the whole; and such passages rarely weary. And
this principle holds through vast scales of arrangement; so that in the
grandest compositions, such as Paul Veronese's Marriage in Cana, or
Raphael's Disputa, it is not easy to fix at once on the principal
figure; and very commonly the figure which is really chief does not
catch the eye at first, but is gradually felt to be more and more
conspicuous as we gaze. Thus in Titian's grand composition of the
Cornaro Family, the figure meant to be principal is a youth of fifteen
or sixteen, whose portrait it was evidently the painter's object to make
as interesting as possible. But a grand Madonna, and a St. George with a
drifting banner, and many figures more, occupy the centre of the
picture, and first catch the eye; little by little we are led away from
them to a gleam of pearly light in the lower corner, and find that, from
the head which it shines upon, we can turn our eyes no more.
As, in every good picture, nearly all laws of design are more or less
exemplified, it will, on the whole, be an easier way of explaining them
to analyse one composition thoroughly, than to give instances from
various works. I shall therefore take one of Turner's simplest; which
will allow us, so to speak, easily to decompose it, and illustrate each
law by it as we proceed.
Figure 32. is a rude sketch of the arrangement of the whole subject; the
old bridge over the Moselle at Coblentz, the town of Coblentz on the
right, Ehrenbreitstein on the left. The leading or master feature is, of
course the tower on the bridge. It is kept from being _too_ principal by
an important group on each side of it; the boats, on the right, and
Ehrenbreitstein beyond. The boats are large in mass, and more forcible
in colour, but they are broken into small divisions, while the tower is
simple, and therefore it still leads. Ehrenbreitstein is noble in its
mass, but so reduced by aerial perspective of colour that it cannot
contend with the tower, which therefore holds the eye, and becomes the
key of the picture. We shall see presently how the very objects which
seem at first to contend with it for the mastery are made, occultly to
increase its preeminence.
2. THE LAW OF REPETITION.
Another important means of expressing unity is to mark some kind of
sympathy among the different objects, and perhaps the pleasantest,
because most surprising, kind of sympathy, is when one group imitates or
repeats another; not in the way of balance or symmetry, but
subordinately, like a far-away and broken echo of it. Prout has insisted
much on this law in all his writings on composition; and I think it is
even more authoritatively present in the minds of most great composers
than the law of principality. It is quite curious to see the pains that
Turner sometimes takes to echo an important passage of colour; in the
Pembroke Castle for instance, there are two fishing-boats, one with a
red, and another with a white sail. In a line with them, on the beach,
are two fish in precisely the same relative positions; one red and one
white. It is observable that he uses the artifice chiefly in pictures
where he wishes to obtain an expression of repose: in my notice of the
plate of Scarborough, in the series of the "Harbours of England," I have
already had occasion to dwell on this point, and I extract in the
note[246] one or two sentences which explain the principle. In the
composition I have chosen for our illustration, this reduplication is
employed to a singular extent. The tower, or leading feature, is first
repeated by the low echo of it to the left; put your finger over this
lower tower, and see how the picture is spoiled. Then the spires of
Coblentz are all arranged in couples (how they are arranged in reality
does not matter; when we are composing a great picture, we must play the
towers about till they come right, as fearlessly as if they were
chessmen instead of cathedrals). The dual arrangement of these towers
would have been too easily seen, were it not for a little one which
pretends to make a triad of the last group on the right, but is so faint
as hardly to be discernible: it just takes off the attention from the
artifice, helped in doing so by the mast at the head of the boat, which,
however, has instantly its own duplicate put at the stern.[247] Then
there is the large boat near, and its echo beyond it. That echo is
divided into two again, and each of those two smaller boats has two
figures in it; while two figures are also sitting together on the great
rudder that lies half in the water, and half aground. Then, finally, the
great mass of Ehrenbreitstein, which appears at first to have no
answering form, has almost its _facsimile_ in the bank on which the girl
is sitting; this bank is as absolutely essential to the completion of
the picture as any object in the whole series. All this is done to
deepen the effect of repose.
Symmetry or the balance of parts or masses in nearly equal opposition,
is one of the conditions of treatment under the law of Repetition. For
the opposition, in a symmetrical object, is of like things reflecting
each other; it is not the balance of contrary natures (like that of day
and night) but of like natures or like forms; one side of a leaf being
set like the reflection of the other in water.
Symmetry in Nature is, however, never formal nor accurate. She takes the
greatest care to secure some difference between the corresponding things
or parts of things; and an approximation to accurate symmetry is only
permitted in animals because their motions secure perpetual difference
between the balancing parts. Stand before a mirror; hold your arms in
precisely the same position at each side, your head upright your body
straight; divide your hair exactly in the middle, and get it as nearly
as you can into exactly the same shape over each ear, and you will see
the effect of accurate symmetry; you will see, no less, how all grace
and power in the human form result from the interference of motion and
life with symmetry, and from the reconciliation of its balance with its
changefulness. Your position, as seen in the mirror, is the highest type
of symmetry as understood by modern architects.
In many sacred compositions, living symmetry, the balance of harmonious
opposites, is one of the profoundest sources of their power: almost any
works of the early painters, Angelico, Perugino, Giotto, &c., will
furnish you with notable instances of it. The Madonna of Perugino in the
National Gallery, with the angel Michael on one side and Raphael on the
other, is as beautiful an example as you can have.
In landscape, the principle of balance is more or less carried out in
proportion to the wish of the painter to express disciplined calmness.
In bad compositions as in bad architecture, it is formal, a tree on one
side answering a tree on the other; but in good compositions, as in
graceful statues, it is always easy, and sometimes hardly traceable. In
the Coblentz, however, you cannot have much difficulty in seeing how the
boats on one side of the tower and the figures on the other are set in
nearly equal balance; the tower, as a central mass uniting both.
3. THE LAW OF CONTINUITY.
Another important and pleasurable way of expressing unity is by giving
some orderly succession to a number of objects more or less similar. And
this succession is most interesting when it is connected with some
gradual change in the aspect or character of the objects. Thus the
succession of the pillars of a cathedral aisle is most interesting when
they retire in perspective, becoming more and more obscure in distance;
so the succession of mountain promontories one behind another, on the
flanks of a valley; so the succession of clouds, fading farther and
farther towards the horizon; each promontory and each cloud being of
different shape, yet all evidently following in a calm and appointed
order. If there be no change at all in the shape or size of the objects,
there is no continuity; there is only repetition--monotony. It is the
change in shape which suggests the idea of their being individually
free, and able to escape, if they liked, from the law that rules them,
and yet submitting to it. I will leave our chosen illustrative
composition for a moment to take up another, still more expressive of
this law. It is one of Turner's most tender studies, a sketch on Calais
Sands at sunset; so delicate in the expression of wave and cloud, that
it is of no use for me to try to reach it with any kind of outline in a
woodcut; but the rough sketch, Fig. 33., is enough to give an idea of
its arrangement. The aim of the painter has been to give the intensest
expression of repose, together with the enchanted lulling, monotonous
motion of cloud and wave. All the clouds are moving in innumerable ranks
after the sun, meeting towards the point in the horizon where he has
set; and the tidal waves gain in winding currents upon the sand, with
that stealthy haste in which they cross each other so quietly, at their
edges: just folding one over another as they meet, like a little piece
of ruffled silk, and leaping up a little as two children kiss and clap
their hands, and then going on again, each in its silent hurry, drawing
pointed arches on the sand as their thin edges intersect in parting; but
all this would not have been enough expressed without the line of the
old pier-timbers, black with weeds, strained and bent by the storm
waves, and now seeming to stoop in following one another, like dark
ghosts escaping slowly from the cruelty of the pursuing sea.
I need not, I hope, point out to the reader the illustration of this law
of continuance in the subject chosen for our general illustration. It
was simply that gradual succession of the retiring arches of the bridge
which induced Turner to paint the subject at all; and it was this same
principle which led him always to seize on subjects including long
bridges where-ever he could find them; but especially, observe, unequal
bridges, having the highest arch at one side rather than at the centre.
There is a reason for this, irrespective of general laws of composition,
and connected with the nature of rivers, which I may as well stop a
minute to tell you about, and let you rest from the study of
composition.
All rivers, small or large, agree in one character, they like to lean a
little on one side: they cannot bear to have their channels deepest in
the middle, but will always, if they can, have one bank to sun
themselves upon, and another to get cool under; one shingly shore to
play over, where they may be shallow, and foolish, and childlike, and
another steep shore, under which they can pause, and purify themselves,
and get their strength of waves fully together for due occasion. Rivers
in this way are just like wise men, who keep one side of their life for
play, and another for work; and can be brilliant, and chattering, and
transparent, when they are at ease, and yet take deep counsel on the
other side when they set themselves to their main purpose. And rivers
are just in this divided, also, like wicked and good men: the good