The Dominant Idea
Above and beyond the object which dominates all others is the idea which dominates the picture. Such may be light, gloom, space, action, passion, repose, communion, humor, or whatever has stimulated and therefore must govern the composition. If with the sentiment of Repose as subjective, the principal object expresses action, there must necessarily be conflict between the idea and the reality.
Action, however, may very appropriately be [pg 269] introduced into a conception of repose, its contrast heightening this emotion; the creeping baby, the frolicking kitten, the swinging pendulum, the distant toilers observed by a nearer group at rest.
The point where a counter emotion weakens and where it strengthens the idea is determined on a scale of degree, many necessary parts taking precedence thereto before the opposed sentiment shall attract us. These ideas, correlative to their principal, have also their scale of attraction, and only in the formal arrangement of allegory and decoration may two units be allowed the same degree of attraction. This is one of the most frequent forms in which weak composition develops, leaving the mind uncertain as to the sequence, and the eye wavering between the equal claims of separated parts. The neglect of leading lines, or of forcing a logical procedure from part to part, so that no part may escape the continuous inspection of all, produces decomposition. The avoidance of inharmony must of course yield harmony.