Pictorial beauty on the screen (1923)

58 BEAUTY 0>N THE SCREEN Andrew," by Frans Hals, facing page 79, and you get at once the distinct impression that Hals's picture depicts a larger crowd than the "still." But you will be astonished to find that the painting actually contains but twelve men, while the "still" contains seventeen men, one woman, and one horse. In the painting every head is isolated by hat, ruff, costume, or panel, and seems to have plenty of room to move freely without bumping. Our eyes can study the contours and values of those heads without colliding with other interests. And the fact that each head is treated almost as though it were a separate portrait might be called a trick of design which makes us overestimate the number in the group, thus getting the impression of a throng. Surely this is good economy. Compare it with the extravagant composition of the circus crowd. There you see heads and bodies huddled together in a meaningless jumble. No interest is significantly framed, no two interests are properly spaced. The director may have swelled the wage roll, but he has shrivelled the art product. Perhaps it is not necessary to go further in support of our contention that certain visual values and devices of arrangement can be used, separately or in combination, to control the glances of spectators, and that, unless these means are properly used, pictorial impressiveness cannot be obtained. We have discussed the uses of a bright patch on a generally dark ground, long converging lines, crosses, sharp contrasts of tone and color, unfamiliar shapes, and isolation of subject. Scores of other principles of design, well known to painters, might be used to emphasize a screen picture during that moment of the action when all movement seems to have