ion. If, for
instance, they are opposed in sentiment as markedly as two fencers there
yet must be a union secured in the background. If placed in perspective,
perspective settles most of the difficulty.

[Unity and its Lack; The Lovers--Gussow; The Poulterers--Wallander ]

The accompanying pictures are examples at both ends of the scale. _"__The
Lovers,__"_ in construction, shows what all pictures demand, the
centripetal tendency. All the elements consist. As a picture it is
complete; another figure would spoil it for us and them. Not so the
"Poulterers"; persons could come and go in this picture without effecting
it. It is but a section at best. One can imagine a long row of pickers,
or we could cut it through the centre and have two good _studies._ There
is no union. The other contains principality, transition of line, balance
of light and shade, circular observation, opposition of color values and
the principle of sacrifice.

In Mr. Orchardson's _"__Mother and Child__"_ the first place is given to
the child in white; the background carries the middle tint and the mother
has been reserved in black. Greater sacrifice of one figure to another,
the mother to the child, is seen in Miss Kasebier's picture of a nude
infant held between the knees of the mother whose face is so abased as to
be unseen; or in John Sargent's portrait of a boy seated and gazing toward
us into space while his mother in the half-shadow of the background reads
aloud. The greatest contributing force to contrast is sacrifice. The
subject is known to be important by what is conceded to it.

The portrait of two gentlemen by Eastman Johnson is one of the most
successful attempts at bringing two figures of equal importance on to one
canvas. They are in conversation, the one talking and active, the other
listening and passive, and the necessary contrast is thus created.

In the combination of three units the objection of formal balance
disappears. If one be opposed by two, the force gained by the one through
isolation commensurates the two. In such arrangement the two may be
united by overlapping so that though the sense and idea of two be present
it is shown in one mass as a pictorial unit. This general disposition,
experience shows to be the best. Two other good forms are two separated
units joined by other items and opposed to one, or the three joined either
directly or by suggestion, the units balanced like a triangle by
opposit