Page:Pictorial beauty on the screen.djvu/124

 a play of colors from hue to hue and from tint to shade. In ordinary photography there may be a similar play from deep black to intense white through all the intervening values. It is all a question of lighting and choice of subjects for the light to fall upon. The painter has an advantage over the photographer because he does not have to record light and shadow exactly as they are on the subject. He can soften his shadows or paint them out completely. He can alter his tones and values at will, even after the painting is practically finished. As an offset to this the cinema composer has, of course, the power of presenting movement, fugues and passages of light and shadow. And, by the use of the newest apparatus for lighting, and by careful attention to the color values and textures of sets, costumes, etc., he can also produce many of the rhythmical effects of gradation in fixed tones which we are accustomed to look for in painting.

As time goes on we shall more and more often find pictorial moments on the screen which exhibit as fine a rhythm of fixed tones and masses as, for example, Van Dyck's "Portrait of Charles I," facing page 163. If you draw a straight line across this picture in almost any direction, it will mark a great variety of graded values, a lovely shifting of light and shadow, with no sharp contrasts except those which serve to attract the spectator's attention to the head of the king. There is perfect harmony of composition here. The tones are in a rhythmical design, yet it is a rhythm which keeps the emphasis on the focal interest and preserves the balance throughout the painting.

Two or three men, a horse, and a bit of landscape is no uncommon subject in photoplays. We have rea