ts--a help not lightly to be discarded.

But all artifice in art must be concealed, #a picture obviously composed
is badly composed#. In a good composition it is as though the parts had
been carefully placed in rhythmic relation and then the picture jarred a
little, so that everything is slightly shifted out of place, thus
introducing our "dither" or play of life between the parts. Of course no
mechanical jogging will introduce the vital quality referred to, which
must come from the vitality of the artist's intuition; although I have
heard of photographers jogging the camera in an endeavour to introduce
some artistic "play" in its mechanical renderings. But one must say
something to show how in all good composition the mechanical principles
at the basis of the matter are subordinate to a vital principle on which
the life in the work depends.

This concealment of all artifice, this artlessness and spontaneity of
appearance, is one of the greatest qualities in a composition, any
analysis of which is futile. It is what occasionally gives to the work
of the unlettered genius so great a charm. But the artist in whom the
true spark has not been quenched by worldly success or other enervating
influence, keeps the secret of this freshness right on, the culture of
his student days being used only to give it splendour of expression, but
never to stifle or suppress its native charm.

XV

BALANCE

There seems to be a strife between opposing forces at the basis of all
things, a strife in which a perfect balance is never attained, or life
would cease. The worlds are kept on their courses by such opposing
forces, the perfect equilibrium never being found, and so the vitalising
movement is kept up. States are held together on the same principle, no
State seeming able to preserve a balance for long; new forces arise, the
balance is upset, and the State totters until a new equilibrium has been
found. It would seem, however, to be the aim of life to strive after
balance, any violent deviation from which is accompanied by calamity.

And in art we have the same play of opposing factors, straight lines and
curves, light and dark, warm and cold colour oppose each other. Were the
balance between them perfect, the result would be dull and dead. But if
the balance is very much out, the eye is disturbed and the effect too
disquieting. It will naturally be in pictures that aim at repose that
this balance will be most perfect. In more