Flowing water, again, is expressed by certain recurring wave-lines, which remind us of the ancient linear symbols of the zigzag and meander used from the earliest times to express water. In the streams that channel the sands of the sea-shore when the tide recedes we may see beautiful flowing lines, sometimes crossing like a network, and sometimes running into a series of shell-like waves; while the sands themselves are ribbed and channelled and modelled by the recurring movement of the waves, which leave upon them the impress and the expression of their motion (much as in a more delicate medium the air-currents impress the fields of cloud, and give them their characteristic forms).
Linear Expression of Textures
Textures and surfaces, too, fall within the range of linear expression. One would naturally use lines of totally different consistency and character to express rough or smooth surfaces: to express the difference of value, for instance, between the ivory-like smoothness of an egg and the scaly surface of a pine-cone, entirely different qualities of line are obviously wanted. The firm-set yet soft feathers of the plumage of a bird must be rendered by a very different touch from the shining scales of a fish. The hair and horns of animals, delicate human features, flowers, the sinuous lines of thin drapery, or the broad massive folds of heavy robes, all demand from the designer and draughtsman in line different kinds of suggestive expression, a translation or rendering of natural fact subordinate to the artistic purpose of his work, and in relation to the material and purpose for which he works.
Linear Expression of Emotion
Then, again, when we come to the expression of ideas—of thought and sentiment—we find in line an abstract but direct medium for their illustration; and this again, too, by means of that law of inseparable association which connects the idea of praise or aspiration and ascension, for instance, with long lines inclining towards the severe vertical, as when we draw a figure with upraised hands; while the feeling might be increased if led up to or re-echoed by other groups and objects in the composition, forming a kind of vertical crescendo on the same principle which we were considering in regard to the expression of lateral movement. Few things in design are finer or more elevated in feeling than William Blake's design of the Morning Stars singing together, in the series of the Book of Job, yet it is little more than a vertical arrangement of figures with uplifted and intercrossing arms. The linear plan gives the main impetus to the expressiveness of the design, and is the basis of the beauty, which culminates in the rapture of the fresh youthful faces.