Page:Pictorial beauty on the screen.djvu/169

 *play we get only the strong clash between their movements, and we feel no pleasure when shifting our gaze from one to the other.

Perhaps the picture might have been a success if the dancer's ground had been a bank sufficiently high to mask the severe effect of the surf, yet permitting a view of the incoming waves, and if the stately variety in the movement of the sea had been taken as a key to a sympathetic movement of the dancer. We might then get a harmonious, alternating flow of the two movements, our eyes might play easily from one to the other, and the total pictorial effect might arouse the emotion of rhythm.

In a similar way any of the movements of nature, such as the effect of wind on cloud, or tree, or field of grain; the fall or flow of water; the flight of bird or characteristic movement of beast, movements which, once admitted to the scene, cannot easily be controlled, might be taken as keys in which to play those movements which can be controlled.

Some practical-minded person may suggest that instead of worrying about the composition of "unnecessary" motions, it would be better to omit them. But such a person overlooks the natural human desire for richness in art. We are so constituted that we crave lively emotional activity. We love rich variety, and at the same time we enjoy our ease. When we listen to the music of a pianist we are not satisfied if he plays with only one finger, even though he might thus play the melody correctly, because the melody alone is not rich enough. We want that melody against all its background of music. We want those musical sounds so beautifully related to each other that their