Hence the difficulty in prescribing any definite course for the beginner, because whilst to most instinctive artistic temperaments a certain knowledge of or feeling for composition is natural, so soon as this is reduced to definite rule and given to another, the, as it were, secondhand use, is nearly certain to betray itself by its misapplication. I would ask therefore that any suggestions given here on the subject of composition should be taken as one takes lessons in the rudiments of a language, which rudiments we violate and forget so soon as we have become proficient enough to speak it. Such rules in composition should be observed only so far as to avoid the appearance of having infringed or ignored them.
The rules of composition which may be found to apply in one of the pictorial arts must necessarily apply equally in the others, and so therefore to pictorial photography which at least aspires to be considered an art. If on a sheet of paper a rectangular space is given us wherein to draw the likeness of anything, the most natural course to pursue would be to draw that figure in the centre or thereabouts, and if then we are asked to add the likeness of two or three more objects we should naturally place these near the first object. Thus should we compose a group of objects which draw the attention to the middle of the picture or space.
Suppose we are asked to draw the picture of a church tower we should probably comply with the request somewhat as shown in fig. 1. Next we will suppose we are asked to add a cottage, some trees, and a path to the church, we should, if possessed of some sense of symmetry and order, coupled with average intelligence, make the additions somewhat as in fig. 2. It would surely be an unusual thing to follow instead the course suggested by figs. 3 and 4.
In figs. 1 and 2 we have instinctively placed the primary object in or near the centre, and the others near and around it, and the result strikes one at once as being better composed, that is, more symmetrical, than in fig. 4, in which amongst other things one is not sure which object to regard as the principal one, and one also feels that but for the boundaries of the picture left and right we might have seen a good deal more beyond, which would have added to the interest of the picture.
