hend.

It may appear in the freedom of an empty foreground, which, like a stage
unadorned, merely supports the action upon it; or, if this foreground be
adorned then happily by items of slight interest leading to the subject;
or it may insist with such an emphatic demand for attention that the
common places of receding perspective have been employed.

One spot or circumference there should be toward which through the
suppression of other parts the eye is led at once. When there, even
though the vision has passed far into the canvas, one is at the focal
point only, the true goal of the pictorial intention. Any element which
proves too attractive along this avenue of entrance is confusing to the
sight and weakening to the impression.

One item after another, in sequence, the visitor should then be led to,
and, having made the circuit and paid his respects to the company in the
order of importance with that special care which prevails at a Chinese
court function, the visitor should be shown the exit. Getting out of a
picture is almost as important as getting into it, but of this later.

If the artist, in the composition of his picture, cannot so arrange a
reception for his guests, he is not a successful host.

This disposal of the subject matter into which _principality_ enters so
acutely is more patent in the elaborate figure subject than in any other,
with the distinction between an assemblage of, and a crowd of figures,
made plain.

The writer once called, in company with a friend of the painter, upon the
late Edmond Yon, the French landscapist. We found him in his atelier, and
saw his completed picture, about to be sent to the Salon. He shortly took
us into an adjacent room, where hung his studies, and thence through his
house into the garden, showed us his view of the city, commented on the
few fruit trees, the flowers, as we made the circuit of the little plot,
and, at the porte, we found the servant with our hats. It was a perfectly
logically sequence. We had come to the end; and how complete!

"He always does it so," said the friend. We had seen the man, his
picture, his studies, his house, caught the inspiration of his view, had
made the circuit of the things which daily surrounded him, and what
more--nothing; except the hats. Bon jour!

The new picture, like any new acquaintance, we are tempted to sound at
once, in a single glance, judging of the great and apparent planes of
character, seeking th