Papers and Proceedings of the Twenty-Third General Meeting of the American Library Association: Held at Waukesha, Wisconsin, July 4-10, 1901
Science
Papers and Proceedings of the Twenty-Third General Meeting of the American Library Association: Held at Waukesha, Wisconsin, July 4-10, 1901
American Library Association; Library science -- Congresses
Concerning the composition of the bulletin, we may borrow the rules of
pictorial composition and adapt them to bulletin purposes. According to
John C. Van Dyke, "Pictorial composition may be defined as the
proportionate arranging and unifying of the different features and
objects of a picture.... There must be an exercise of judgment on the
part of the artist as to fitness and position, as to harmony of
relation, proportion, color, light; and there must be a skilful uniting
of all the parts into one perfect whole." In a bulletin as in a picture
there must be a center of interest. We should strive to effect this by
selecting for this purpose a picture which has earned its place, because
it best suggests the subject, or because pictorially, either through
tone or color, it best adapts itself to the principles of composition.
The other pictures should be grouped accordingly, always taking account
of the subject and artistic value of each in placing them. The bulletin
should be built up architecturally as well, letting the heavy pieces
support the light. Such a picture as Rosa Bonheur's "Ploughing" should
not surmount Breton's "Song of the lark."
Color has its legitimate place in bulletin work as children are keenly
alive to its attractiveness. It is because they are so sensitive and
impressionable in this regard that our responsibility is proportionately
greater; this alone should make us most discreet and careful in its use.
Van Dyke cautions us in the following terms: "Beware of your natural
taste, beware of bright pictures for they are generally bad." He tells
us "That 'color' does not mean brightness alone; and that a 'colorist'
is not one who deals in flaming colors with the recklessness of a
crazy-quilt maker, but one who justly regards the relationship, the
qualities, and the suitableness of his colors one to another...."
Harmony strives to associate colors which are congenial to each other;
however, it cannot be comprehended in the abstract. We bring to our
bulletin work the results of our previous standards of taste, be these
high or low. But we may raise our standards by holding ourselves
receptive to the influence of art, whether it be decorative, ceramic,
textile, or pictorial, and appropriate the lessons which it teaches in
blending color into harmony. The love of prime colors is characteristic
of primitive man, while the appreciation of the neutral tones is the
acquirement of civilization. Intellectual development conforms to the
epochs of racial progress. Children love crude and elementary colors.
But while we make concession to their taste we should also educate it to
an appreciation of the refined in color.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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