Pictorial Beauty on the Screen

by Victor Oscar Freeburg

A study of lines to illustrate the value of repetition within a pattern. See [page 40].

But we cannot all sit in the back row of a theater, and besides, even when screen motions are reasonably slow and limited, they may still fail to produce the effect of beauty.

Now, before we go further into this discussion of beauty on the screen, let us recall, that, as we have already said, the process of vision is partly eye-work and partly brain-work. These two factors are so closely connected in fact, that scientists cannot definitely separate them.[B]

[B] If any of our readers are especially interested in the details of physiological and psychological experiments in vision which are made by experts, they should read Chapter III in Hugo Muensterberg’s “The Photoplay,” and should consult the current numbers and the volumes for the last five or six years of the “Psychological Review,” the “American Journal of Psychology,” the “Journal of Experimental Psychology,” and other similar periodicals, which are available in any large library.

From the results published in scientific periodicals it may be learned that visible ugliness does not always make the physical work of the eye more difficult. This is not to contradict what we have already said in this chapter, but merely to state that there may be certain kinds of ugliness on the screen which apparently do not hurt the eye at all. And yet ugliness does affect the mental phase of vision. It will be worth while giving a page or more to the testing of this statement; and the discussion may lead to a useful definition to keep in mind when criticizing the movies.

Curiously enough, the muscular movement of the eye when ranging over a single jagged, irregular line is practically the same as when ranging over a graceful line of similar length and direction. Scientific experiment shows that we move our eye-balls in a jerky, irregular manner, even when we view the most graceful line that can be drawn. Yet it is commonly said by all of us that one line delights the eye and the other does not. Evidently, therefore, the difference must lie in that function of seeing which the brain performs. But the brain, too, is a physical organ. It, too, can become fatigued, and it finds certain kinds of work less fatiguing than others.

Psychologists have suggested that a graceful line is pleasant to look at because the regularity and smoothness of its changes in direction make it easily perceived as a complete unity. Thus in the diagram facing [page 39], lines A and B are pleasanter to look at than lines C and D, because their character as lines can be grasped by the mind more quickly and more easily than the character of C or D. And, for the same reason, lines A and B taken together make a more pleasing combination than lines B and C or lines C and D.

Now, if you will shut the book and try to draw any one of these four lines, even in your imagination, you will discover that you remember A and B almost perfectly, while you can hardly remember a single part of either C or D. This proves that in your own case the business of seeing has been more successful with graceful lines than with ugly ones. And, of course, successful effort is always more pleasing than failure.

Our working definition of good pictorial composition, offered in the preceding chapter, may be adapted here. Let us put it this way: A beautiful line or combination of lines is one in which we can see and feel much with ease, while an ugly line or combination is one in which we cannot see or feel much except with great difficulty. The terms “ease” and “difficulty” apply both to eye-work and brain-work.