orce should be modified
by opposed lines or measures, on one or both sides. In these four examples
good composition has been effected in proportion as such balance is
indicated; in the first by dog and palm, in the second by flower-pot, in
the third by the light on the stubble and cloud in left hand corner, and
in the last by the rocks and open sea.

A further search among the accompanying illustrations would reveal it in
the sweeping line of cuirassiers, _1807_ balanced by the group about
Napoleon, the line of the hulk and the light of the sky in _"__Her Last
Moorings,__"_ the central curved line in _"__The Body of Patroclus__"_ the
diagonal line through the arm of _Ariadne_ into the forearm of Bacchus.

APPARENT OR FORMAL BALANCE.

Raphael is a covenient point at which to commence a study of composition.
His style was influenced by three considerations: warning by the pitfalls
of composition into which his predecessors had fallen; confidence that the
absolutely formal balance was safe; and lack of experience to know that
anything else was as good. To these may be added the environment for
which most of his works were produced. His was an architectural plan of
arrangement, and this well suited both the dignity of his subject and the
chaste conceptions of a well poised mind.

Raphael, therefore, stands as the chief exponent of _informal
composition._ His plan was to place the figure of greatest importance in
the centre. This should have its support in balancing figures on either
side; an attempt then often observable was to weaken this set formality by
other objects wherein, though measure responded to measure, there was a
slight change in kind or degree, the whole arrangement resembling that of
an army in battle array; with its centre, flanks and skirmishers. The
balance of equal measures--seen in his "Sistine Madonna," is conspicuous in
most ecclesiastical pictures of that period, notably the "Last Supper of
Leonardo" in which two groups of three persons each are posed on either
side of the pivotal figure.

This has become the standard arrangement for all classical balanced
composition in pictorial decoration. The doubling of objects on either
side of a central figure not only gives to it importance, but contributes
to the composition that quietude, symmetry and solemnity so compatible
with religious feeling or decorative requirement. The objection to this
plan of balance is that it divides the pictur