Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 83.djvu/160

156 are in the foreground, and the surfaces are thrown into the distance by the perspective, the picture creates a motor impression and is admired by those with a motor dominance.

Colored surfaces stop the movement of the eyes and give relief to those with weak muscular adjustments. Lines keep up the muscular tension and give pleasure to those who because of strong eye muscles really enjoy eye tension. The movement and strain force the thought from the line into the indefinite background. "We think of what we do not see instead of the surfaces in sight. This gives the basis of clear thought and of idealism.

The love of color masses may therefore be considered like ornate word expressions, an indication of physical defect. Such people have weak eyes and a shortage, not a surplus, of character. Movement aids motor dominance. An arrest of movement divides up the attention and gives to the disjustive elements of personality a chance for expression. The repressed elements in a motor personality are sex and fear. Surfaces are pleasurable that excite sex feelings or repress sensations of fear. The dominant surface associations are therefore related to either sex or safety. Rich, deep colors have a sex association, while regularity of outline gives a sense of security. Design might be defined as the art of making timid people feel safe. This end is accomplished by the endless repetition of some elementary figure. If on approaching a building the observer sees a mass of accurate details, he assumes that the floors have been carefully constructed and that the elevator has been recently inspected. Domes always give the same sense of relief. A building with no visible roof gives to timid people a feeling of instability. Regular fences likewise arouse a feeling of safety. Banks seem to remove the fear of their depositors by supplying a multitude of bars and posts, ostensibly to protect the deposits; but any observant person realizes that the real protection lies in the vaults and not in these shams.

As I was walking by Columbia University with one of its professors, he said, "Look at that fence. Is not it beautiful?" "Yes," I replied, "the chickens are safe. But you should remember that farmers now guard their property from sneak thieves by barb wire. Some generations hence your successor will be making the same exclamation you are making, as he gazes at the imitation barb-wire fence which will then surround Columbia." Was he artistic, or was I?

The same question of natural artistic appreciation arises when a person from a flat country compares his ideas of beauty with the inhabitant of a mountainous region. I was reared in a part of the "West so flat that measurements were needed to find which way the water would run. There were no domed hills to evoke the feeling of safety, or wooded backgrounds to furnish protection from the unknown beyond. The sweep of the eye reached to eternity; parallel lines came together in the dim distance. Such a picture—all lines and no surfaces—makes