Page:Landscape Painting by Birge Harrison.djvu/129

COMPOSITION principal object of interest in the exact centre of the canvas. How far above or how far below, the centre the horizon should be placed, will of course depend upon the character of the motive and its various units. Unless there is some very convincing reason for the high horizon, however, all experience points to the lower division as best. A vast sky always lends nobility to a picture; while the suppression or nearly total elimination of the sky tends to convert the canvas into a sort of transcendent still-life. This is the case with the water pictures of Thaulow. They are the very apotheosis of still-life, it is true, but they are held within the still-life class by the fact that they are a representation of near-by objects, that they make no appeal to the infinite—translate no mood or effect. The low horizon line is peculiarly [93]