In the search for finer relations there must be every opportunity for choice; the better the choice, the finer the art. The square and circle allow choice only as to interior divisions, but the rectangle is capable of infinite variation in its boundary lines.

The scientific mind has sought, by analysis of many masterpieces, to discover a set of perfect proportions, and to reduce them to mathematical form, for example, 3:5, or 4:7. The secret of spacing in Greek art has been looked for in the “golden mean”, viz: height is to length as length is to the sum of height and length. Doubtless such formulae were useful for ordinary work, but the finest things were certainly the product of feeling and trained judgment, not of mathematics. Art resists everything that interferes with free choice and personal decision; art knows no limits.

Poverty of ideas is no characteristic of the artist; his mind is ever striving to express itself in new ways.

The personal choice of proportions, tones and colors stamps the work with individuality. A master in art is always intensely individual, and what he does is an expression of his own peculiar choices.

The beauty of proportion in your rectangle is measured by your feeling for fine relations, not by any formula what ever. No work has art-value unless it reflects the personality of its author, What everybody can do easily, or by rule, cannot be art.

The study of Variation tends to lead the mind away from the conventional and humdrum, toward original and individual expression. Variation has no place in academic courses of art teaching, but in composition it is a most important element.

The masters of music have shown that infinite possibilities of variation—the same theme appearing again and again with new beauty, different quality and complex accompaniment. Even so can lines, masses and colors be wrought into musical harmonies and endlessly varied. The Japanese color print exemplifies this, each copy of the same subject being varied in shade or hue or disposition of masses to suit the restless inventive energy of its author. In old Italian textiles the same pattern appears repeatedly, but varied in size, proportion, dark-and-light and color. In times when art is decadent, the designers and painters lack inventive power and merely imitate nature or the creations of others. Then comes Realism, conventionality, and the death of art.

Some experience in choice of proportions and the cutting of rectangular spaces may be gained from the following

EXERCISE

In the first case there is variation of interior lines only; in the second all lines are changed. This exercise admits of great expansion, according to age of pupils and limits of time.

EXAMPLES OF RECTANGULAR DESIGN.

Contact with the best works of art is an essential part of art education, for from them comes power and the stimulus to create. The student hears and reads much that passes for art criticism but is only talk about the subject of a picture, the derivation and meaning of a design, or the accuracy of a drawing. These minor points have their place in discussing the literary and scientific sides of a masterpiece; they relate to art only superficially, and give no key to the perception of fine quality.

The most important fact about a great creative work is that it is beautiful; and the best way to see this is to study the art-structure of it,—the way it is built up as Line, Notan, Color,—the principle of composition which it exemplifies. See what a master has done with the very problem you are trying to work out.

This method of approach will involve a new classification of the world's art, cutting across the historical, topical and geographical lines of development. The instructor in composition will illustrate each step with many examples differing as to time, locality, material and subject, but alike in art-structure.

Museum collections might be used for a series of progressive studies based upon composition; taking up one principle at a time and seeking illustrations in a group of wide range,—a picture, sculpture, architecture, Gothic carving, metal work, old textile, bit of pottery, Japanese print.

The beauty of simple spacing is found in things great and small, from a cathedral tower to a cupboard shelf.

The campanile of the Duomo of Florence (No. 30) designed by that master of architecture and painting, Giotto, is a rectangular composition of exceeding beauty. Its charm lies chiefly in its delicately harmonized proportions on a straight-line scheme. It is visual music in terms of line and space. The areas are largest at the top, growing gradually smaller in each of the stories downward. The graceful mouldings, the window tracery, the many colors of marble and porphyry are but enrichments of the splendid main lines.

The Ca' d'Oro of Venice (No. 31, A) presents this rectangular beauty in an entirely different way. First, a vertical line divides the facade into two unequal but balanced proportions; each of these is again divided by horizontal lines and by windows and balconies into smaller spaces, the whole making a perfect harmony—each part related to, and affected by every other part.

The tokonoma of a Japanese room (No. 31, B) is arranged in a similar rectangular scheme. A vertical line, as in the Venetian palace facade, divides the whole space into two; one of these is divided again into recesses with shelves or sliding doors; the other is for pictures (kakemono), not more than three of which a hung at a time. No. 31, C shows three of these sets of shelves. The Japanese publish books with hundreds of designs for this little recess. The fertility of invention combined with feeling for good spacing, even in such a simple bit of craft, is characteristic of the Japanese. Their design books, from which I have copied many examples for this volume, are very useful to the student of art.

Style, in furniture, is a matter of good spacing, rather than of period or person. The best designs are very simple, finely balanced compositions of a few straight lines (No. 31, D).

Book covers with their lettering and decorations, and book pages with or without illustrations are examples of space cutting,—good or commonplace according to the designer's feeling for line-beauty, In the early days of printing the two pages of an open book were consider together as a single rectangular space. Into this the type was to be set with the utmost care as to proportion and margin.

EXERCISE

The few examples given here show how varied are the applications of a single principle. The study of these will suggest a field for research. If possible the student should work from the objects themselves or from large photographs; and from the original Japanese design books. These [pg 41]

[pg 42] tracings are given for purposes of comparison.

COMPOSITION OF POTTERY FORMS. Makers of modern commercial ware usually leave beauty of line out of account, thinking only of utility,—of the piece of pottery as a feeding-dish, or as a costly and showy object. The glaring white glaze, harsh colors and clumsy shapes of common table-ware must be endured until there is sufficient public appreciation to demand something better; yet even this is less offensive than the kind that pretends to be art,—bad in line and glittering with false decoration.

Pottery, like other craft-products, is truly useful when it represents the best workmanship, combined with feeling for shape, tone, texture and color,—in a word, fine art.

Such quality is found, to mention only a few cases, in some of the “peasant wares”; in the best Japanese pottery, ancient and modern; in Chinese, especially of the Sung period (A. D. 960-1280) in Moorish, Persian, Rhodian and Greek. When each maker tried to improve up older models, and had the taste and inventive genius to do it, the art grew to supreme excellence; even fragments such handicraft are now precious. The difference between the contours a really great piece of pottery and ordinary one may seem very slight, but in just this little difference lies the art.

EXERCISE

One good way to stimulate invention in composing pottery shapes is to evolve them from rectangles. In the straight line there is strength; a curve is measured by a series of straight lines connected in rhythm. No. 32a. This principle is recognized in blocking out a freehand drawing,—a process often misunderstood and exaggerated.

Curved profiles are only variations of rectangular forms, for example the bowl in No. 32b.

Change the height and a series of new shapes will result. As the top and bottom lines remain the same we have to compare the curved sides only. Another effect (c) comes from varying [pg 43] the width; and still another (d) by changing both height and width. In No. 33 are students' drawings of pottery profiles evolved from rectangles. For brushwork, in this exercise, it is well to indicate the lines of the rectangle in pale red, the pottery in black. Make many sketches, select the best profiles, improve them by tracing in ink, and compare with historic pieces. Drawing from the finest examples of pottery, and making original variations of the forms, will aid in drawing from the cast or the nude, because of the intimate study of the character of curves.

FLOWERS and other forms as LINE-MOTIVES. The rectangular space may be subdivided, as was the square, by a simple line-motif,—flower, fruit, still life, animal or figure,—following some Principle of Composition. In chapter III, under Subordination, an exercise was suggested and illustrated; it could be taken up again at this point, with new subjects, for a study of Variation. As rectangular compositions will be found under Notan and Color, it is not necessary to consider them further here as pure line, except in the case of Landscape, to which a special chapter is given.