ngle scheme of light and
shade. The rays from one side modify the shadows cast from the other
side, and a perplexing and involved arrangement of values is the
result. This is a favorite technical problem with painters, and its
solution is splendid training; but the student who can successfully
solve it is not far from the end of his "student days."

CHAPTER XX

COMPOSITION

=Importance.=--Composition is of the utmost importance. It is
impossible that a picture should be good without it. You may define it
as that study by means of which the balance of the picture comes
about. But you must understand the word balance in its broadest sense.
There is nothing in the planning of the picture which has not to be
considered in making the picture balance.

The arrangement of the lines, of the forms, of the masses, and of the
colors must all be right if the composition be right. Composition is
the planning of the picture; and it is more or less complicated, more
or less to be carefully studied beforehand in exact accordance with
the simplicity or complication of the scheme of the picture. You may
not need more than the consideration of a few main facts. It may
almost be done by a few moments' deliberation in some simple studies
or even pictures. But even then there is possible the most subtle
discrimination of selection, and a perfect gem of composition may be
found in the arrangement of a picture having the simplest and fewest
elements. The more complicated the materials which are to be worked
into a picture, the more careful must be the previous planning; but,
for all that, the genius will find scope for his utmost powers in a
simple figure, just because the fewer the means, the more each single
thing can interfere with the balance of the whole, and the more a fine
choice will tell.

=The AEsthetic.=--I have already mentioned briefly the aesthetic
elements of a picture. I have called to your attention that back of
the obvious facts of a subject and the objects in the picture, and the
theme which the painter makes his picture represent; back of the
technical processes and management of concrete material which make
painting possible, is the aesthetic purpose of the work of art; without
this it could not be a work of art at all: it would be merely a more
or less exact representation of something, a mere prosaic description,
the interest in which would lie who