Page:Pictorial beauty on the screen.djvu/135

 clear. Every group of two or more visible things, and nearly every visible thing in itself, must of necessity be looked upon as a pattern, either pleasing or displeasing to the eye. Therefore every motion picture that has been, or can be, thrown upon the screen describes a pattern, fixed, moving, or changing. If the direction and rate of these motions and changes can be controlled, there is hope for beauty on the screen; if they cannot be controlled, there is no help but accident.

A peculiar type of visible motion is that which we have elsewhere called "moving texture." Examples in nature are the changing texture of falling snow, the stately coiling of clouds, and the majestic weaving of ice floes in a river. In the movies the effect of moving texture is produced whenever the elements of the subject are so many and so small that we view them rather as a surface than as a design or pattern. It may be seen, not only in subjects from nature, but also in such things as a mob of people or a closely packed herd of cattle viewed from a high position. Mr. Griffith has a good eye and taste for the composition of moving textures, and has furnished interesting examples in nearly all of his larger productions.

Now let us see how far we have gone. We have defined four different types of pictorial motion, namely, the moving spot, the moving line, the moving pattern, and the moving texture. They may appear singly or grouped. For example, in a picture of the old-fashioned water wheel we have a combination of the moving line of the stream with the moving pattern of the wheel. And in a picture of a small motor boat, seen from afar, speeding over a lake the