mble a frame, entirely surrounding the
bouquet; his effort remains the same. To be effective in a frame, balance
and unity are just as necessary. The eye finds repose and delight _in the
perfect equipoise of elements,_ brought into combination and bound
together by the girdle of the frame.

A picture should be able to hang from its exact centre. Imperfect
composition inflicts upon the beholder the duty of accommodating his head
to the false angle of the picture. Pictures that stand the test of time
do not demand astigmatic glasses. We view them _balanced,_ and they
repeat the countersign--"_balanced._"

After settling upon this as the great consideration in the subject of
composition and reducing the principle to the above law, I confess I had
not the full courage of my conviction for a six month, for now and then a
picture would appear that at first glance seemed like an unruly colt, to
refuse to be harnessed to the theory and was in danger of kicking it to
pieces. After a number of such apparent exceptions and the ease with
which they submitted to the test of absolute balance from the centre, on
the scheme of the steelyards, I am now entirely convinced that what
writers have termed the "very vague subject of composition," "the
perplexing question of arrangement of parts," etc., yields to this
simplest law, and which, in its directness and clearness, affords the
simplest of working rules. Those whose artistic freedom bids defiance to
the slavery of rule, as applied to an artistic product, and who try to
produce something that shall break all rules, in the hope of being
original, spend the greater part of the time in but covering the surface
so that the principle _may not be too easily seen,_ and the rest of the
time in balancing the unbalanced.

As the balance of the figure dominates all other considerations in the
statue or painting of the human form, so does the equipoise of the
picture, or its balance of parts, become the chief consideration in its
composition. The figure balances its weight over the point of support, as
the flying Mercury on his toes, the picture upon a fulcrum on which large
and small masses hang with the same delicate adjustment. In Fortuny's
_"__Connoisseurs,__"_ the two men looking at a picture close to the left
of the centre form the subject. The dark mass behind them stops off
further penetration in this direction, but the eye is drawn away into the
light on the right and seeks th