sition.

A later notion of balance--the Steelyard, a small weight on the long arm of
the fulcrum, admitting great range in the placement of balancing measures.

The Scales or Steelyard in perspective, developing the notion of balance
through the depth of a picture discoverable over a fulcrum or neutral
space.

CHAPTER III - BALANCE

Of all pictorial principles none compares in importance with Unity or
Balance.

"Why all this intense striving, this struggle to a finish," said George
Inness, as, at the end of a long day, he flung himself exhausted upon his
lounge, "but an effort to obtain unity, unity."

The observer of an artist at work will notice that he usually stands at
his easel and views his picture at varied distances, that he looks at it
over his shoulder, that he reverses it in a mirror, that he turns it
upside down at times, that he develops it with dots or spots of color here
and there, points of accent carefully placed and oft-times changed.

What is the meaning of this thoughtful weighing of parts in the
slowly-growing mosaic, but that he labors under the restraint of a law
which he feels compelled to obey and the breaking of which would cause
anguish to his esthetic sense. The law under which his striving proceeds
is the fundamental one of balance, and the critical artist obeys it
whether he be the maker of vignettes for a newspaper, or the painter who
declares for color only, or the man who tries hard to produce naivete by
discarding composition. The test to which the sensitive eye subjects every
picture from whatsoever creed or camp it comes is _balance_ or equipoise,
judgment being rendered without thought of the law. After the picture has
been left as finished, why does an artist often feel impelled to create an
accent on this side or weaken an obtrusive one on the other side of his
canvas if not working under a law of balance?

Let any picture be taken which has lived long enough before the public to
be considered good by every one; or take a dozen or more such and add
others by artists who declare against composition and yet have produced
good pictures; subject all these to the following simple test: Find the
actual centre of the picture and pass a vertical and horizontal line
through it. _The vertical division is the more important, as the natural
balance is on the lateral sides of a central support._ It will be found
that the actual centre of the canvas is also the actual pivot or