Pictorial beauty on the screen (1923)

MYSTERIOUS EMOTIONS OF ART 187 which are sparkling without the so-called "flashes" of scenes, pictures which flow firmly, one into the next, with delicate mingling of tones and patterns, pictures in. which sometimes the moving elements are as airy as gossamer threads blown by a fairy's breath. This quality of exquisiteness is something which the director cannot produce by taking thought or signing a contract. Other values he may develop by study and experiment, but not this one. He may bring balance and unity to his pictorial elements; he may accent the interests properly ; he may succeed in starting a vital rhythm and stimulating the beholder's fancy, all this through determined application of skill; but he will need the help of inspiration before he can create the charm of exquisiteness. The gods have granted that mysterious help to other artists; they will grant it to the cinema composer, too, whenever he proves worthy. There is at least another peculiar art-emotion which the cinema composer should be able to arouse. It is the emotion which comes over us at the overwhelming discovery that a given masterpiece of art has a wealth of beauty that we can never hope to exhaust. That emotion is stimulated by the reserve which lies back of all really masterful performance in art. We feel it when we have read a poem for the twentieth time and know that if we read it again we shall find new beauties and deeper meaning. We feel it in a concert hall listening to a symphony that has been played for us repeatedly since childhood and yet reveals fresh beauties to our maturing powers of appreciation. We feel it in the mystic dimness of some cathedral beneath whose arches a score of generations have prayed and