if not in
the buildings, then in the life. And where there is life, movement,
humanity, there is sure to be character and interest. Groups of children
playing will give us plenty of suggestions for figure composition.
Workpeople going to and from their work, the common works going on in
the street, the waggons and horses, the shoal of faces, the ceaseless
stream of life--all these things, whether we are able to reproduce them
as direct illustrations of the life of our time, or are moved only to
select from them vivid suggestions to give force to ideal conceptions,
should all be noted--photographed, as it were, instantaneously upon the
sensitive plate of the mind's vision. We can only learn the laws of
movement by observing movement--the swing and poise of the figure, the
relation of the lines of limbs and drapery to the direction of force and
centre of gravity, so important in composition. We must constantly
supplement our school and studio work by these direct impressions of
vivid life and movement, and neglect no opportunity or despise no source
or suggestion.

There are still in England to be found such old-world corners as the
quaint street of Canterbury (p. 153[f086]), which forms an excellent
study in the composition of angular and vertical lines.

[Illustration (f086): St. Margaret St Canterbury Aug: 27 1894]

[Formal Composition]

We may perceive that there are at least two kinds of composition, which
may be distinguished as:

I. Formal.
II. Informal.

I. Under the head of Formal may be classed all those systems of
structural line with which I started, and which are found either as
leading motives or fundamental plans and bases throughout ornamental
design. Yet even these may be used in composition of figures and other
forms where the object is more or less formal and decorative, as
governing plans or controlling lines.

The radiating ribs of a fan, for instance, might be utilized as the
natural boundaries and inclosing lines of a series of vertical figures
following the radiating lines. A strictly logical design of the kind
would be a series of figures with uplifted arms, forming radiating lines
from the shoulders, somewhat in the position of Blake's well-known and
beautiful composition of the Morning Stars in the Book of Job, already
illustrated.

Using the overlapping vertical scale plan we should get relative
positions for a formal co