Pictorial Effect in Photography; Being Hints on Composition and Chiaroscuro for Photographers

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. BALANCE OF LINES AND CONTRAST. Composition in art may be said to consist of the selection, arrangement, and combination in a picture of the objects to be delineated, so as to produce an agreeable presentation of forms and tones, to tell the story which is to be elucidated, and to embody the spirit of what it is intended the picture shall represent or suggest. The principal objects to be sought are harmony and unity, so set forth that pleasure may be given to the eye without any sacrifice of the truth of nature. By the preservation of a harmonious balance of lines, and light and shade, several objects are attained. The first and simplest result is the production of pictorial effect, which satisfies the eye without reference to the meaning or intention of the picture. But a higher purpose is also served. The preservation of harmony necessarily involves the idea of subordination, or a consideration of the relative importance of all the parts of the picture, the principal objects being made prominent, and the minor objects made auxiliary to that prominence by the arrangement of lines and masses of light and shade. By a proper distribution and balance of these, the principal objects in the picture will be brought prominently forward, and those of less consequence will retire from the eye, and will support or act as a foil to the chief objects of interest. As the quaint old writer on art, Lairesse, recommends, Let the king or prince have the first place, and next his retinue or other proper persons; if there be yet another party to be introduced of lesser moment than these, and yet essential to thecomposition, put them in the shade without more ado. In. short, the grand fundamental laws of composition may be summed up very briefly. They are unity, balance, and the ...