Pictorial beauty on the screen (1923)

MOTIONS IN A PICTURE 89 length in a way which pleases the eyes. Such motions we see in the slender waterfall, in the narrow stream, in such inanimate things as the long belting in a factory, or the glowing line of a shooting star, and in the files of geese, or cattle, or marching men. A line may move in other directions besides that of its own length. It may swing stiffly from one end, as in the case of a pendulum or the rays from a searchlight. It may wave like a streamer in the breeze. It may move sidewise, as in the long lines of surf that roll up on the beach. It may move in countless other manners, as in the handling of canes, swords, spears, golf clubs, polo mallets, whips, etc. Now, of course, the director ordinarily thinks of a weapon as a weapon, and not as a moving line. He studies the characteristic action of an officer drawing his sword or of a Hottentot hurling his spear and tries to reproduce them faithfully so that no small boy in the audience may be able to pick out flaws. This is well, so far as it goes. A painter would study these characteristic actions, too, and would suggest them with equal faithfulness. But he would do something more. He would place every object so carefully in his picture that its line harmonized with the four lines of the frame and with all of the other lines, spots, and pictorial values in his work. Now we are beginning to guess how pictorial motions must be composed; but first let us see what other kinds of motion there are. If we take another look at the geese in the sky we may find that they have composed themselves into the form of a "V" or a "Y" floating strangely beneath the clouds. This