Pictorial beauty on the screen (1923)

Record Details:

Something wrong or inaccurate about this page? Let us Know!

Thanks for helping us continually improve the quality of the Lantern search engine for all of our users! We have millions of scanned pages, so user reports are incredibly helpful for us to identify places where we can improve and update the metadata.

Please describe the issue below, and click "Submit" to send your comments to our team! If you'd prefer, you can also send us an email to mhdl@commarts.wisc.edu with your comments.




We use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) during our scanning and processing workflow to make the content of each page searchable. You can view the automatically generated text below as well as copy and paste individual pieces of text to quote in your own work.

Text recognition is never 100% accurate. Many parts of the scanned page may not be reflected in the OCR text output, including: images, page layout, certain fonts or handwriting.

RHYTHM AND REPOSE 71 were an amateur print for your kodak album, you might improve the picture considerably by trimming off the right end as far as the woman's skirt; that is, about one-fifth of the entire width. You can estimate the value of that improvement right now by shutting off that part of the "still" with a sheet of paper or any convenient thing that ma)'' be used as a mask, Another picture may be formed by shutting off the left third, just including the reflection of the woman in the mirror. What then remains is a composition in beautiful balance, which, incidentally, appeals more strongly to the imagination than the "still" taken as a whole. But neither trimming nor repainting nor retouching can be employed to alter a bad grouping that has been recorded on a film. We sympathize, therefore, with the conscientious cinema composer who has made a mistake in composition, for he is forced either to "shoot" the scene again or to clip it out entirely from the film. Another test for balance of quantity is to draw a horizontal line through the center of the composition and weigh the visual values in the upper and lower halves thus formed. In the case of horizontal divisions, however, we have accustomed ourselves to expect greater weight at the bottom, because that is the natural arrangement of material things about us. Keeping this fact in mind let us analyze the "still" from "Audrey," facing page 45. A glance shows us that the composition is top-heavy, for almost everything of interest lies above the center line. But turn the picture upside down, and look upon it as though it were a pattern meant to be viewed in that position ;