chance;
but the rules by which men of extraordinary parts, and such as are called
men of genius, work, are either such as they discover by their own
peculiar observations, or of such a nice texture as not easily to admit
being expressed in words, especially as artists are not very frequently
skillful in that mode of communicating ideas. Unsubstantial, however, as
these rules may seem, and difficult as it may be to convey them in
writing, they are still seen and felt in the mind of the artist; and he
works from them with as much certainty as if they were embodied upon
paper. It is true these refined principles cannot always be made palpable,
as the more gross rules of art; yet it does not follow but that the mind
may be put in such a train that it still perceives by a kind of scientific
sense that propriety which words, particularly words of impractical
writers, such as we are, can but very feebly suggest."

Science has to do wholly with truth, Art with both truth and beauty; but
in arranging a precedence she puts beauty first.

Our regard for the science of composition is acknowledged when, after
having enjoyed the painter's work from the art side alone, the science of
its structure begins to appear. Instead of the concealment of art by art
it is the suppression of the science end of art that takes our cunning.

"The picture which looks most like nature to the uninitiated," says a
clever writer, "will probably show the most attention to the rules of the
artist."

Ten years ago the writer took part in an after-dinner discussion at the
American Art Association of Paris over the expression "the rules of
composition." A number of artists joined in the debate, all giving their
opinion without premeditation. Some maintained that the principles of
composition were nothing more than aesthetic taste and judgment, applied
by a painter of experience.

Others, with less beggary of the question, affirmed that the principles
were negative rather than positive. They warned the artist rather than
instructed him; and, if rules were to follow principles, they were rules
concerning what should not be done. The epitome of the debate was that
composition was like salt, in the definition of the small boy, who
declared that salt is what makes things taste bad when you don't put any
on.

[Three Ideas in Pictorial Balance]

The Classic Scales--equal weights on even arms, the controlling idea of
decorative compo