Pictorial beauty on the screen (1923)

138 BEAUTY ON THE SCREEN usually done. The four corners of the frame are always strongly emphasized, because of the crossing of lines at right angles. To lead another strong line into one of the corners would surely result in undue emphasis and lack of balance, because of the power of converging lines. It is almost as bad to lead a strong line squarely into the frame between the corners, because such a meeting creates two more right angles to attract attention. Of course, there may be certain lines in a composition, such as the line of the horizon, which cannot stop short of the frame. In such a case it is well to have some other strong accent not far from the center of the picture in order to keep the attention of the beholder within the frame. What is true of the relation between fixed lines is also true of the relation between paths of motion and fixed lines. It is rather annoying to watch a continuous movement continually being cut off by the frame ; and it is especially annoying when one sees that such a composition might have been avoided. In a waterfall, for example, the points of greatest interest are the curving top and the foaming bottom, and we like to see both at the same time and wholly within the frame. A motion shown entirely surrounded by things at rest is reposeful on the screen as well as in nature. Like a fixed object it stays where it is. There are certain pictorial motions, however, such as the falling of snow, which must always either begin or continue outside of the frame. But even when we view such a motion on the screen or in nature we get a feeling of repose, because our eyes do not perform any following movement; we do not, in watching a snow storm through a window, pick out cer