Pictorial Beauty on the Screen

by Victor Oscar Freeburg

A Triangle. The fundamental pattern in a picture should not be obtrusive, as in this too obviously triangular shape. Compare this “still” with the illustration facing [page 76]. See also [pages 59], [72] and [76].

By contrast many motion picture directors of to-day are mere bunglers. For example, in the “still” portrait which we have just studied there is unity and a definite, though heavy, equilibrium, but there is no rhythm, and the emphasis is sadly misplaced. The pose of the woman and her relation to the rug and the background admittedly make a unity. Our eyes ranging over the triangle, can easily grasp all that is important in the picture and leave out the rest; but the triangular design is severe and makes a wrong emphasis. In the first place, the design is too obviously a triangle. We think of it as a mathematical figure, and thus waste part of the attention which should be directed upon the woman herself. And, in the second place, the accent is at the wrong corner and on the wrong side of the triangle. The base of the triangle is accented by containing the longest line in the composition, the line being further emphasized by its straightness and by the sharp contrast between black and white which it marks. This emphasis is, of course, wrong, for we are certainly not interested in the pattern of this rug. There is also no reason why our attention should be called to the woman’s foot, or to the adjacent corner of the white panel in the rug, yet our glance is attracted to that region by the strange zigzag line described by the slipper and that white corner. These accents are wrong at first glance, and they remain wrong as long as the picture lasts, because every time we repeat the tour of inspection our eyes rest a moment on these false interests.

To show that these mistakes lie entirely in the treatment, and not in the device of the triangle, we need only turn to the painting of “Mme. Lebrun and Her Daughter,” facing [page 76]. Here is a composition distinctly triangular in design, yet one may have admired this picture hundreds of times without observing that fact. Here is unity, without obviousness or severity. Our eyes leap to the apex of the triangle, and there find the chief interest, the head of the mother. And, as we continue gazing, our attention still favors the mother, because the white areas of her shoulder, arm, and robe attract the eye more strongly than the other portions of the picture. Here, too, is graceful balance and a flowing rhythm in every line.

If we consider merely the dramatic action of the subjects, as the motion picture directors so often do, we observe that the poses in Mme. Lebrun’s painting are natural and easy, that the gesture is graceful and telling, and we realize how completely and impressively the technique of design, the craft of composition, expresses the message of the painter.

A part of Mme. Lebrun’s technique consisted in eliminating the setting, because in this particular case she found it easier to express her meaning without describing environment. Setting may often well be eliminated in the movies, too, as in “Moon-Gold,” discussed below; but usually the physical environment of action, as has been stated rather exhaustively in Chapter VIII of “The Art of Photoplay Making,” can be dramatized more vividly in the movies than in any other narrative art. And it is an interesting problem of design to weave places into a definite unity with persons, things, and action.

Let us see how this problem has been met in the cabin scene of “The Spell of the Yukon,” facing [page 28], which, in spite of the too conspicuous window, already spoken of, has a rather successful pictorial arrangement. For the sake of experiment, this “still” may be analyzed by making a simple drawing, as in the sketch facing [page 28]. We see that the design consists essentially of an oval shape surrounded by rectangles. The rectangles may be seen in the lines of the window, the bunk, the table, etc. The oval, which includes all of the dramatic action, may be traced from the boy’s head, down the boy’s arm to the man’s right knee and leg, up the man’s left hand, arm, and shoulder to his head, and thence across to the boy’s head again. In the center of this oval is the hand holding a pipe and making a telling gesture in the story.

This oval design, taken by itself, is an excellent composition. The lines furnish easy paths for the eye, and bind the boy and man together into a dramatic unity. There is, to be sure, only an imaginary line between the faces of the man and the boy, but that imaginary line is nevertheless as vivid as any visible thing in the picture. In fact, the break in the visible part of the oval serves to arrest our attention upon the faces for a moment every time our glance swings through the oval pattern. Leading toward this oval are the straight lines of the bunk and the table, thus serving to give unity and force. But the lines of the window make an isolated pattern which, instead of leading one’s eye toward the dramatic focus, does just the opposite. The design, as a whole, therefore, is imperfect. And, though we see much in the picture, we do not see it entirely with ease.

If we turn to “Derby Day,” facing this page, a drawing by the English artist, Thomas Rowlandson, we shall find a more interesting design and a surer control of accents. Here the basic theme is a long line. By “line” in this case we mean, not merely a single stroke of the pencil, but any succession of lines, shapes, or even spots, so arranged that they make a track for the eye to follow. In “Derby Day” the long swinging line of the road is the basis of the design. Yet this line is not quite identical with the wheel tracks. It begins, in fact, with the feet of the donkey at the lower right-hand corner of the frame, and follows through the dog, the baskets under the wagon, the hub of the wheel, then over the heads of the group, through the hubs of the third wagon, then with a slight downward drop it swings along the edge of the field and the hedge, and finally leads through the horses and wagons, out at the left end of the picture.

Derby Day, a drawing by Thomas Rowlandson, showing the kind of composition which could be effectively used in photoplays. See [page 64].