and the impression, as in the Tintoretto, that of the
suspended nude model, it would be safe to say that no modern painter would
have employed such a figure. This touch of realism, even among the
transcendental painters, denotes the clean-cut separations between the
modern and mediaeval art sense.

While these two examples show the "vortex" arrangement with fluent
outlines, the _portrait_(10) by Mr. Whistler expresses the same principles
in an outline almost rectangular, but is to be placed in the same category
as the other two. The chair-back, the curtain, the framed etching, are
all formally placed with respect to the edges of the canvas, and as we
observe them in their order, we return in a circuit to the head.

The circle in composition is discoverable in many pictures where there is
no direct evidence that the intention was to compose thus, but wherein
analysis on these lines proves that, led by unity, balance and repose
(cardinal beacon-lights to the mind artistic), the painter naturally did
it.

It is of interest to review this picture through its simple evolution.
The head conceived in its pose, the next line of interest is one from neck
to feet. This, besides being the edge of the black mass of the body, is
the more apparent against the light gray wall and as a line is attractive
in forming Hogarth's "Line of Beauty." But beautiful as it may be, it
commits an unlovely act in cutting a picture diagonally, almost from
corner to corner. Interruption of this is effected by the hands and
increased by the handkerchief. Shortly below the knee this is diverted by
the base-board and at the bottom squarely stopped by the solid rectangle
of the stool.

Suppose that the picture on the wall were missing; not only would the long
parallelogram of the curtain be unrelieved, but the return of the line to
the subject in the ensemble of the picture would be broken. This,
therefore, becomes the keystone of the composition. Other considerations
besides its diversion from the curtain are, its curtailing of wall space,
and, by its close placement to the curtain, its union therewith as a
balance for head and body--in bulk of light and dark almost identical with
them, though less forcible in tonal value.

In Wiertz's group about the body of Patroclus, though its contour is more
decidedly circular (and in the use of this term is always meant a line
returning on itself), it fails to prompt circular observation to the same
ex