As these are pictures with a human interest, and, therefore full of action and particular points of interest, it was to be expected that I. would be in all forms the element most frequently appearing.  In compositions showing great variations from geometrical symmetry, it was also to be expected that V. and L., elements which have been little used up to this point, should suddenly appear in very high percentages; for, as being the most strikingly ‘heavy’ of the elements, they serve to compensate for other variations combined.  In general, however, the balance is between the interesting side, which is also often the most occupied (I. + Ms.), and the direction of suggestion to the other side.

For the first time in this investigation the S. & S. and D.C. types appear in appreciable numbers.  It is of some significance that the most irregular type of all, S. & S., in which the weight of interest and of mass is overwhelmingly on one side, should be invariably balanced by the third dimension (V.).  As these somewhat infrequent cases are especially enlightening for the theory of substitutional symmetry, it is worth while to analyze one in detail.

286.  Pieter de Hooch, The Card-players, in Buckingham Palace, portrays a group completely on the Right of Cn., all facing in to the table between them.  Directly behind them is a high light window, screened, and high on the wall to the extreme Right are a picture and hanging cloaks.  All goes to emphasize the height, mass and interest of the Right side.  On the Left, which is otherwise empty, is a door half the height of the window, giving on a brightly lighted courtyard, from which is entering a woman, also in light clothing.  The light streams in diagonally across the floor.  Thus, with all the ‘weight’ on the Right, the effect of this deep vista on the Left and of its brightness is to give a complete balance, while the suggestion of line from doorway and light makes, together with the central figure, a roughly outlined V, which serves to bind together all the elements.  This matter of binding together of elements is reserved for further discussion—­the purpose of this detailed description is only to show the extraordinary power of a single element, vista, to balance a whole composition of others, and its significance in the tables as an increasing accompaniment of increasing variations from symmetry.

The D.C. cases, inasmuch as they always present a balance of interest at least, are less valuable for our theory; among the variations the larger side, Ms., is often balanced by a vista, or, combining with the usual equation for genre pictures, Ms. + I. + D. = V. + I. + D. There is only one picture which cannot be schematized (263).

Landscape.

The landscape is another type of unfettered composition.  As it represents no action or single object or group of objects, its parts are naturally more or less unconnected.  It should, therefore, be said that no picture was taken as D.C. unless there was a distinct separation of the two sides.  The typical examples are analyzed in detail.