apparent, give that well-knit, dignified look so in harmony with the
nature of the subject.

[Sidenote: Curved Lines]

Curved lines have not the moral integrity of straight lines. Theirs is
not so much to minister to the expression of the sublime as to woo us to
the beauteous joys of the senses. They hold the secrets of charm. But
without the steadying power of straight lines and flatnesses, curves get
out of hand and lose their power. In architecture the rococo style is an
example of this excess. While all expressions of exuberant life and
energy, of charm and grace depend on curved lines for their effect, yet
in their most refined and beautiful expression they err on the side of
the square forms rather than the circle. When the uncontrolled use of
curves approaching the circle and volute are indulged in, unrestrained
by the steadying influence of any straight lines, the effect is gross.
The finest curves are full of restraint, and excessive curvature is a
thing to be avoided in good drawing. We recognise this integrity of
straight lines when we say anybody is "an upright man" or is "quite
straight," wishing to convey the impression of moral worth.

Rubens was a painter who gloried in the unrestrained expression of the
zeal to live and drink deeply of life, and glorious as much of his work
is, and wonderful as it all is, the excessive use of curves and rounded
forms in his later work robs it of much of its power and offends us by
its grossness. His best work is full of squarer drawing and planes.

#Always be on the look out for straightnesses in curved forms and for
planes in your modelling.#

Let us take our simplest form of composition again, a stretch of sea and
sky, and apply curved lines where we formerly had straight lines. You
will see how the lines at A, page 164 [Transcribers Note: Diagram XIV],
although but slightly curved, express some energy, where the straight
lines of our former diagram expressed repose, and then how in B and C
the increasing curvature of the lines increases the energy expressed,
until in D, where the lines sweep round in one vigorous swirl, a perfect
hurricane is expressed. This last, is roughly the rhythmic basis of
Turner's "Hannibal Crossing the Alps" in the Turner Gallery.

One of the simplest and most graceful forms the tying lines of a
composition may take is a continuous flow, one line evolving out of
another in graceful sequence, thus leading the eye on from one part to
ano