Page:Pictorial beauty on the screen.djvu/107

 have to read through his very interesting book entitled "Art" to get some notion of what he means by that term. Miss Ethel D. Puffer, in her book "The Psychology of Beauty," has developed the very illuminating theory that the effect of beauty on the human mind is both to stimulate and give repose. And we shall adopt her theory for a while as a basis for a brief discussion of rhythm and balance in cinematic forms.

The terms "stimulation and repose," are, of course, contrary. The feelings which they describe are in conflict. Yet this inner conflict between stimulation and repose always takes place when a person is faced with great beauty of art or nature. Any one of us can testify to that from experience. When listening to music, when reading a poem, when watching a play, when gazing at a temple, at a statue, or a painting, we have felt something strangely stirring and at the same time soothing, something both kindling and cooling, an inspiration to do great deeds, and at the same time a desire to rest for the while in satisfied contemplation.

Applying this theory to pictorial composition on the screen, we may say that the quality of balance in line, pattern, and tone suggests repose, while pulsating rhythm stimulates us to activity. This application at least has the merit of giving us something definite to discuss.

Looking at the mechanical aspects of balance in a picture we shall see that it can easily be analyzed. There is the balance of quantity which may be seen by comparing the right half of the picture with the left half, or the upper half with the lower half. Bal