ll portfolio of his charcoal reproductions or a few
photographs of his pictures should be a part of the print collection of
every artist. No better designer of small groups ever lived.

With the amount of good art now coming from the camera it is strange that
no groups of note have been produced.(12) In the field of _pure
portraiture_ the attempt may as well be abandoned. The photographer can
at best but mitigate conditions. The picture group can only apply when
sacrifice and subordination are possible.

A study of famous groups will settle this and other points mentioned,
beyond question. In the religious group, where the idea of adoration was
paramount, the principal figure was usually, though not always, given
place in the upper part of the picture toward which by gestures, leading
lines or directed vision our attention is drawn at once. Note the figures
which sacrifice to this effect in the "Transfiguration," "The Immaculate
Conception," "The Sistine Madonna," "The Virgin Enthroned," "The Adoration
of the Magi," and in fact all of the world famous compositions of the old
religious art.

[The Decorative and Pictorial Group; Allegory of Spring--Botticelli
(Separated concepts expressing separate ideas); Dutch Fisher Folk--F. V.
S. (Separated concepts of one idea); The Cossack's Reply--Repin (Unity
through a cumulative idea)]

In one of the most famous of modern groups _"__The Cossacks Reply to the
Sultan of Turkey,__"_ by the greatest of Russian painters Elias Repine,
the force given to the hilarious frenzy of the group by the occasional
figure in repose is easily apparent.

The answer to a summons for surrender is being penned upon a rude table
around which press close the barbaric leaders of the forces gathered in
the distance. Some are lolling on wine casks, others indifferently gaze
at the fingers of the clerk as he carefully pens the document, others
smoke silently, one is looking out of the picture as though unconcerned.
Yet life and movement are instinct in every part, for though the action is
consigned to but a few,--these form a series of small climaxes through the
entire circumference of the group and we feel in another moment that the
passive expressions will in their turn be exchanged for the mad ribaldry
of laughter which has seized their brethren. The group is a triumph for
several aesthetic realities produced and heightened by contrast and
subordination.

The prin