2d. Avoid sharp angles, and particulary right angles, unless you wish to draw special attention to them.
3d. Be very careful about the relative position of the heads, so that viewed as points of interest they do not form any regular geometrical pattern.
These three rules seem to me the most important ones to be observed in the composition of decorative figure-pictures, and we will examine them seriatim.
The first rule I have given is to avoid concave forms for the general outline of the groups. There is no rule without exceptions, and to this one there are a good many; still it will be found that, speaking generally, convex outlines give grandeur wherever they are introduced. This convexity in the form of the groups need not be dependent on the outlines of the figures themselves; it may be got by introducing drapery or other accessories. I know of no example showing the value of full convex outlines more strikingly than the Madonna di S. Sisto. In the pictures of the Umbrian school, on the contrary, we find extreme poverty of line. The figures themselves are not particularly attenuated, but they are not sufficiently connected together nor enveloped in those useful pieces of flowing drapery which give such grandeur and fulness to the works of Fra Bartholomeo, Sebastian del Piombo, and other painters of the Roman school.
I have in former lectures entered fully into the subject of convex lines being almost always associated with forward movement, and concave with retreat, and need not go over the same ground again.
I would, however, observe that the terms boldness and convexity are almost synonymous when applied to outline; thus when we speak of a mountain having a bold outline, we mean that though steep and precipitous it is bluff or convex in form. A mountain with a depression on the top, or surmounted by a sharp-pointed cone, would hardly ever be noted for its bold outline.
The second rule to which I wish to call your attention is the avoidance of right angles in the composition of your figures.
All angles, unless they be obtuse ones, are to be deprecated, but the most objectionable of all are the right angles. In a single figure, rectangular outlines are not so unpleasant, but I cannot agree with those who think that the big seated Egyptian figures with which we are all familiar, owe their grandeur to their rectangular contour. I have no doubt but that these gigantic figures in their native swamp, and illumined by an Egyptian moon, would look very imposing, but the solemn grandeur of their aspect would be due to their size and to their surroundings, and not to their harsh rectangular outline. If the “Moses” of Michael Angelo could be magnified to the size of these figures and transported to the banks of the Nile, I fully believe he would be far more impressive.
Simplicity and grandeur are often bracketed together as though the terms were almost synonymous; but they certainly are not so. The street and chapel architecture of the Georgian era was simple even to baldness, but no one can call it grand.
It is not, however, in single figures that right angles are so much to be avoided, as in complicated groups of several figures. Here they arrest and distract the eye, giving harshness to the composition, and destroying the look of spontaneous action and easy-flowing movement which figures always should have.