Fig. 193
In [Fig. 193] we have an illustration of a rhythmic movement upward. The upward movement is due quite as much to an association of ideas, the thought of a growth of vegetation, as it is to mere visual attractions. It happens that the figure is also an illustration of Symmetrical Balance. As we have Harmony in the similarity of the opposite sides, the figure is an illustration of combined Harmony, Balance, and Rhythm.
There is another point which is illustrated in [Fig. 193]. It is this: that we may have rhythmic movement in an outline, or, indeed, in any composition of lines, which shows a gradual and regular change from one shape to another; which shows a gradual and regular evolution or development of shape-character; provided the changes are distributed in regular and marked measures and the direction of the changes, the evolution, the development, is unmistakable; as it is in [Fig. 193]. The changes of shape in the above outline are changes which are gradual and regular and suggest an upward movement unmistakably. The movement, however, involves a comparison of shape with shape, so it is as much a matter of perception as of sensation. Evolutions and developments in Space, in the field of vision, are as interesting as evolutions and developments in the duration of Time. When the changes in such movements are regular, when they take place in regular and marked measures, when we must take them in a certain order, the movements are rhythmical, whether in Time or in Space.
THE ATTITUDES OF OUTLINES
114. Any outline, no matter what dimensions or shape it has, may be turned upon a center and in that way made to take a great number and variety of attitudes. Not only may it be turned upon a center but inverted upon an axis. Being inverted, the inversion may be turned upon a center and made to take another series of attitudes, and this second series of attitudes will be different from the first series, except in cases of axial symmetry in the outline or area. It must be clearly understood that a change of attitude in any outline or area is not a change of shape.
115. What has been said of Harmony, Balance, and Rhythm in the attitudes of a line applies equally well to outlines and to the spaces defined by them.
THE ARRANGEMENT AND COMPOSITION
OF OUTLINES
116. By the composition of outlines I mean putting two or more outlines in juxtaposition, in contact or interlacing. In all cases of interlacing, of course, the shape-character of the interlacing outlines is lost. The outlines become the outlines of other areas and of a larger number of them. Our object in putting outlines together is, in Pure Design, to illustrate the orders of Harmony, Balance, and Rhythm, to achieve Order, as much as we can, if possible Beauty.
I will now give a series of examples with a brief analysis or explanation of each one.