We will deal this evening with the laws of composition for decorative work.
I ought perhaps to avoid using the word “laws”; art is not an exact science, and no strict law can be laid down about a matter of taste. Still there are certain principles which seem to be accepted by all masters of composition, and certain others which, although not generally accepted, occur to me as likely to be of use to you.
The golden rule for the arrangement of figures in a picture, is that the nature of the subject ought to dictate the lines of the composition. If you have to paint a subject of a quiet, majestic, and dignified class, a subject for all ages, where you wish to express perfect repose and stability, you cannot do better than go back to the pyramid. This pyramidical theory of composition has been much quizzed and laughed at, but that is because the old-fashioned dilettanti who advocated it wanted to apply it universally. Now it is clearly unsuitable for subjects of action, or for filling with figures low long panels; but for altar pieces, or for pictures which are destined for central places, it is at once the most natural and the most effective method. The quiet and serene dignity of many of the ancient Holy Families and other subjects of sacred art is due mainly to the pyramidical form of grouping.
Sometimes the form is that of a truncated pyramid, as in the Hemicycle at the Ecole des Beaux Arts, where the object of the painter was to represent an ideal Areopagus of Art.
In the compositions of Masaccio and Filippino Lippi we have good examples of a horizontal style of arrangement. The structure of these groups is suggestive of solid simple architectural forms, and has a kind of dignity of its own; but though suitable enough for frescoes of the fifteenth century, it is hardly picturesque or varied enough for modern oil-pictures.
Mural paintings, particularly when they represent grave or sacred subjects, should more or less partake of this horizontal and rectilinear form of composition.
A certain amount of deviation is necessary, and it is in fixing the limit of this deviation that the skill of the artist is shown.
Too little would make his composition formal and lifeless.
Too much would take away from the symmetry which befits such subjects.
The Stanze of Raffaelle are noble examples of skill and taste in composition.