What types are characteristic of the different kinds of pictures?
In order to answer this question we must ask first, What are the
different kinds of pictures? One answer, at least, is at once
suggested to the student on a comparison of the pictures with
their groupings according to subjects. All those which represent
the Madonna enthroned, with all variations, with or without
saints, shepherds, or Holy Family, are very quiet in their action;
that is, it is not really an action at all which they represent,
but an attitude,--the attitude of contemplation. This is no
less true of the pictures we may call "Adorations," in which,
indeed, the contemplative attitude is still more marked. On the
other hand, such pictures as the "Descents," the "Annunciations,"
and very many of the miscellaneous religious, allegorical, and
genre pictures, portray a definite action or event. Now the
pyramid type is characteristic of the "contemplative" pictures
in a much higher degree. A class which might be supposed to
suggest the same treatment in composition is that of the portraits,
--absolute lack of action being the rule. And we find, indeed,
that no single type is represented within it except the pyramid
and double-pyramid, with eighty-six per cent. of the former.
Thus it is evident that for the type of picture which expresses
the highest degree of quietude, contemplation, concentration,
the pyramid is the characteristic type of composition. Among
the so-called "active" pictures, the diagonal and V-shaped types
are most numerous.
The landscape picture presents a somewhat different problem. It
cannot be described as either "active" or "passive," inasmuch as
it does not express either an attitude or an event. There is no
definite idea to be set forth, no point of concentration, as
with the altar-pieces and the portraits, for instance; and yet
a unity is demanded. An examination of the proportions of the
types shows at once the characteristic type to be here also the
diagonal and V-shaped.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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