ork; such illustrations as aim
only at facts of incident, space or topography, photographic reproductions
of groups wherein each individual is shown to be quite as important as
every other, and which, therefore, become a collection of separate
pictures, and such illustrations as are frequently met with in the daily
papers, where opportunities for picture-making have been diverted to show
where the victim fell, and where the murderer escaped, or where the man
drowned--usually designated by a star. These are not pictures, but
perspective maps to locate events. Besides these, in the field of
painting, are to be found now and then products of an artist's skill
which, though interesting in technique and color, give little pleasure to
a well-balanced mind, destitute as they are of the simple principles which
govern the universe of matter. Take from nature the principles of
balance, and you deprive it of harmony; take from it harmony and you have
chaos.

A picture may have as its component parts a man, a horse, a tree, a fence,
a road and a mountain; but these thrown together upon canvas do not make a
picture; and not, indeed, until they have been arranged or composed.

The argument, therefore, is that without composition, there can be no
picture; that the composition of pictorial units into a whole _is_ the
picture.

Simple as its principles are, it is amazing, one might almost say amusing,
to note how easily they eluded many artists of the earlier periods, whose
work technically is valuable, and how the new school of Impressionism or
Naturalism has assumed their non-importance. That all Impressionists do
not agree with the following is evidenced by the good that comes to us
with their mark,--"Opposed to the miserable law of composition, symmetry,
balance, arrangement of parts, filling of space, as though Nature herself
does not do that ten thousand times better in her own pretty way." The
assertion that composition is a part of Nature's law, that it is done by
her and well done we are glad to hear in the same breath of invective that
seeks to annihilate it. When, under this curse we take from our picture
one by one the elements on which it is builded, the result we would be
able to present without offence to the author of "Naturalistic Painting,"
Mr. Francis Bate.

"The artist," says Mr. Whistler, "is born to pick, and choose, and group
with science these elements, that the result may be beautiful--as the
musician