oves on a flat plane
like an ellipse in perspective. Again, first catching the eye in the
centre, it unfolds like a spiral.

Much of a painter's attention is given to keeping his edges so well
guarded that the vision in its circuit may be kept within the canvas. A
large proportion of the changes which all pictures pass through in process
of construction is stimulated by this consideration--how to stop a wayward
eye from getting too near the edge and escaping from the picture. When
every practical device has been tried, as a last resource the centre may
be strengthened.

In order to settle this point to the student's satisfaction no better
proof could be suggested than that he paint in black and white a simple
landscape motif, with no attempt to create a focus, with no suppression of
the corners and no circuit of objects--a landscape in which ground and sky
shall equally divide the interest. He may produce a counterfeit of
nature, but the result will rise no higher in the scale of art than a raw
print from the unqualified negative in photography. The art begins _at_
that point, and consists in the production of unity, in the establishment
of a focus, in the subordination of parts by the establishment of a scale
of relative values, and in a continuity of progression from one part to
another. The procedure will be somewhat as follows: Decision as to
whether the sky or ground shall have right of way; the production of a
centre and a suppression of contiguous parts; the feeling after lines
which shall convey the eye away from the focal centre and lead it through
the picture, a groping for an item, an accent, or something that shall
attract the eye away from the corner or side of the picture, where, in
following the leading lines, it may have been brought, and back toward the
focus again. Here then, will have been described the circuit of which we
speak. In the suppression of the corners the same instinct for the
elliptical line has been followed, for the composition, by avoiding them,
describes itself within the inner space.

[Huntsman and Hounds (Triangle with Circular Attraction); Portrait of Van
der Geest--Van Dyck (A sphere within a Circle)]

A composition in an oval or circle is much more easily realized than one
occupying a rectangular space, as the vexing item of the corners has been
disposed of, and the reason why these shapes are not popularly used is
that hanging committees cannot dispose of