Pictorial beauty on the screen (1923)

EYE TESTS FOR BEAUTY '27 exact tone of the next picture. The shock can also be avoided by joining various sections of the film in a series of steps of increasing brightness or darkness. The eye is hurt, we have said, by a sharp succession of black and white. It is also hurt by a sharp contrast of whites and blacks lying side by side on the screen. Such extremes are avoided in paintings. The next time you are in an art museum please compare the brightest white in any portrait with the white of your cuff, or your handkerchief, or a piece of paper. You may be surprised to discover that the high light in that painting is not severely white. It is rather grayish or yellowish, soft and easy to the eye. Observe also that the darkest hue in that painting is far from the deepest possible black. The extremes of tone are, in fact, never very far apart, and are therefore easily grasped by the eye without undue strain. And while you are thinking of this practice of painters, you might compare it with the similar practice of composers of music. Your piano has many keys, the highest one in the treble being extremely far from the lowest one in the bass. Yet if you examine the score of any single piece of music you will discover that the highest note in that piece is not so very far from the lowest note in the same piece. It might have been possible to use the entire keyboard, but the composer has been wise enough not to try it. His extreme notes are so near together that the ear is able to catch them and all the subtle values of the music in between, without being strained by the effort. It seems, therefore, that in artistic matters moderation is a good thing, is, in fact, necessary to produce real beauty. But moderation in the movies is not yet