But all artifice in art must be concealed, #a picture obviously composed is badly composed#.  In a good composition it is as though the parts had been carefully placed in rhythmic relation and then the picture jarred a little, so that everything is slightly shifted out of place, thus introducing our “dither” or play of life between the parts.  Of course no mechanical jogging will introduce the vital quality referred to, which must come from the vitality of the artist’s intuition; although I have heard of photographers jogging the camera in an endeavour to introduce some artistic “play” in its mechanical renderings.  But one must say something to show how in all good composition the mechanical principles at the basis of the matter are subordinate to a vital principle on which the life in the work depends.

This concealment of all artifice, this artlessness and spontaneity of appearance, is one of the greatest qualities in a composition, any analysis of which is futile.  It is what occasionally gives to the work of the unlettered genius so great a charm.  But the artist in whom the true spark has not been quenched by worldly success or other enervating influence, keeps the secret of this freshness right on, the culture of his student days being used only to give it splendour of expression, but never to stifle or suppress its native charm.

XV

BALANCE

There seems to be a strife between opposing forces at the basis of all things, a strife in which a perfect balance is never attained, or life would cease.  The worlds are kept on their courses by such opposing forces, the perfect equilibrium never being found, and so the vitalising movement is kept up.  States are held together on the same principle, no State seeming able to preserve a balance for long; new forces arise, the balance is upset, and the State totters until a new equilibrium has been found.  It would seem, however, to be the aim of life to strive after balance, any violent deviation from which is accompanied by calamity.

And in art we have the same play of opposing factors, straight lines and curves, light and dark, warm and cold colour oppose each other.  Were the balance between them perfect, the result would be dull and dead.  But if the balance is very much out, the eye is disturbed and the effect too disquieting.  It will naturally be in pictures that aim at repose that this balance will be most perfect.  In more exciting subjects less will be necessary, but some amount should exist in every picture, no matter how turbulent its motive; as in good tragedy the horror of the situation is never allowed to overbalance the beauty of the treatment.

[Sidenote:  Between Straight Lines and Curves]