Pictorial beauty on the screen (1923)

84 BEAUTY ON THE SCREEN And the circus itself is in a sense the pictorial motion of animals and men. In the presentation of drama, too, pictorial motion has always played a vital part. When we look back over the history of the theater we see that the managers were never satisfied with the mere physical exhibition of actors and dancers, but began very early to add other motions to their performance. A large variety of motions was added by bringing animals upon the scenes. Fire was put into the service of show. We know that its flame and flicker, borne in torches or beating upon the witches' caldron, was not uncommon on Shakespeare's stage. Water in the form of leaping cascades and playing fountains was used at least two hundred years ago to make the scene more pictorial. More recently, wind has been produced artificially in order to give motion to draperies, flags, or foliage. All this amounts to something far more than an attempt to bring nature upon the stage. It is the creation of new beauty. The kind of beauty which professional entertainers have for thousands of years spun together from various motions into patterns simple or subtle, is the beauty of art, for it comes from human personality expressing itself in forms and combinations never found as such in nature. Now, if these showmen are really artists, at least in intent, we may well ask how they have combined their motions so as to produce the pleasing effects which they desired. Have they worked hit-or-miss and achieved beauty only by accident, or have they intentionally or instinctively obeyed certain laws of the human eye and mind?