Pictorial beauty on the screen (1923)

EYE TESTS FOR BEAUTY 33 and we would sense a better continuity of movement. The subject of color in the movies will be discussed again in following chapters. It may be remarked in passing that, since color movies are still highly experimental, it is only to be expected that mistakes of many kinds will be made. Doubtless the leading directors can be trusted to learn from experience. Yet it behooves us who sit in the theaters to be as disapproving of new faults as we are exultant over new beauties. It is not discouraging to discover a fault, so long as we see that it is one which might have been avoided. We want to make it plain in this chapter that, although the movies sometimes hurt the eyes, it is never due to any necessity. It is a fact that pictures on the screen, when properly made, are always pleasing to the spectators' eyes. And he who does not accept this as a fundamental proposition can hardly come by any large faith in the future of the photoplay as art. But we must make a few more eye tests for beauty. If you face a wall about twenty feet away, you can, without changing the position of your head, look at the left side or the right, at the top or bottom, or you can look at the four corners of the wall in succession. These three different kinds of movements, vertical, horizontal, circular, are controlled by as many different sets of muscles. When we look at pictures, especially large pictures, these muscles are constantly busy directing our line of regard from one point of interest to another; and, whether there are definite points of interest or not, our eyes will range over the lines and shapes as we try to discover what they are meant to represent.