A feeling of straight-up-ness in a figure or of the horizontal plane in anything will produce the same effect as a vertical or horizontal line without any actual line being visible.  Blake’s “Morning Stars Singing Together” is an instance of the vertical chord, although there is no actual upright line in the figures.  But they all have a vigorous straight-up-ness that gives them the feeling of peace and elevation coupled with a flame-like line running through them that gives them their joyous energy.

[Illustration:  Diagram XII.

A, B, C]

[Sidenote:  The Right Angle]

The combination of the vertical with the horizontal produces one of the strongest and most arresting chords that you can make, and it will be found to exist in most pictures and drawings where there is the expression of dramatic power.  The cross is the typical example of this.  It is a combination of lines that instantly rivets the attention, and has probably a more powerful effect upon the mind—­quite apart from anything symbolised by it—­than any other simple combinations that could have been devised.  How powerful is the effect of a vertical figure, or even a post, seen cutting the long horizontal line of the horizon on the sea-shore.  Or a telegraph post by the side of the road, seen against the long horizontal line of a hill at sunset.  The look of power given by the vertical lines of a contracted brow is due to the same cause.  The vertical furrows of the brow continuing the lines of the nose, make a continuous vertical which the horizontal lines of the brow cross (see Fig.  A in the illustration).  The same cause gives the profile a powerful look when the eyebrows make a horizontal line contrasting with the vertical line of the forehead (Fig.  B).  Everybody knows the look of power associated with a square brow:  it is not that the square forehead gives the look of a larger brain capacity, for if the forehead protrudes in a curved line, as at C, the look of power is lost, although there is obviously more room for brains.

This power of the right angle is well exemplified in Watts’ “Love and Death,” here reproduced, page 158 [Transcribers Note:  Plate XXXV].  In this noble composition, in the writer’s opinion one of the most sublime expressions produced by nineteenth-century art, the irresistible power and majesty of the slowly advancing figure of Death is largely due to the right angle felt through the pose.  Not getting it in the contour, Watts has boldly introduced it by means of shading the farther arm and insisting on the light upper edge of the outstretched arm and hand, while losing somewhat the, outline of the head beyond.  Note also the look of power the insistence on square forms in the drapery gives this figure.  The expression is still further emphasised by the hard square forms of the steps, and particularly by the strong horizontal line of the first step so insisted on, at right angles to the vertical stand of the figure; and also the upright