Pictorial beauty on the screen (1923)

6 BEAUTY ON THE SCREEN graphs, etc. It does not deal with literary expression. It deals with fixed and moving designs, the things which the spectator actually sees, the only forms which actually hold and present the contents of a photoplay. At times we shall, of course, be obliged to say something about the familiar "sub-titles," which interrupt the pictorial flow in a film. But word-forms are not characteristic photoplay forms. Fundamentally, a photoplay is a sequence of motion pictures, and a man can no more write those pictures than he can write a row of paintings on a wall. However, it would be unfair to say that a writer could not in some way lend a hand in the making of a motion picture ; we merely insist that the finished picture should not be judged as writing. We must also get rid of the notion that "photoplays are acted.33 It would hardly be further from the truth to say that paintings are posed. A finished painting may, in fact, contain the image of some person who has posed for the artist ; but the painting contains something else far more significant. We cannot thank Raphael's model for the beauty of "The Sistine Madonna," nor can we thank Charles I. of England for the beauty of Van Dyck's portraits of him. Turning to movies, it must be admitted that actors are tremendously important, but it must not be said that they act motion pictures. They only act while motion pictures are being made. We cannot thank them for the poignant beauty of glowing lights and falling shadows, of flowing lines, and melting forms, and all that strange evanescence that makes up the lure of cinematic forms. Also we must reject the theory that the artistic