Pictorial beauty on the screen (1923)

EYE TESTS FOR BEAUTY 39 was at first seen from the front seat. It will appear much more pleasing to the eye than it did the first time. But we cannot all sit in the back row of a theater, and besides, even when screen motions are reasonably slow and limited, they may still fail to produce the effect of beauty. Now, before we go further into this discussion of beauty on the screen, let us recall, that, as we have already said, the process of vision is partly eye-work and partly brain-work. These two factors are so closely connected in fact, that scientists cannot definitely separate them.* From the results published in scientific periodicals it may be learned that visible ugliness does not always make the physical work of the eye more difficult. This is not to contradict what we have already said in this chapter, but merely to state that there may be certain kinds of ugliness on the screen which apparently do not hurt the eye at all. And yet ugliness does affect the mental phase of vision. It will be worth while giving a page or more to the testing of this statement ; and the discussion may lead to a useful definition to keep in mind when criticizing the movies. Curiously enough, the muscular movement of the eye when ranging over a single jagged, irregular line is practically the same as when ranging over a graceful * If any of our readers are especially interested in the details of physiological and psychological experiments in vision which are made by experts, they should read Chapter III in Hugo Muensterberg's "The Photoplay," and should consult the current numbers and the volumes for the last five or six years of the "Psychological Review," the "American Journal of Psychology," the "Journal of Experimental Psychology," and other similar periodicals, which are available in any large library.