ce. The line of the hill had cut this off from the foreground and
these attractive lines are as cords tying it on. From the light rock in
the lower centre the eye zigzags up to the line of hillside, cutting the
picture from one side to the other. Fortunately nature had supplied a
remedy here in the trees which divert this line. But this is insisted on
in the parallelism of the distant mountains. The artist, however, has the
last word. He has created a powerful diversion in the sky, bringing down
strong lines of light and a sense of illumination over the hill and into
the foreground. The subject, unpromising in its original lines, has thus
been redeemed. This sort of work is in advance of the public, but should
find its reward with the elect.

BALANCE BY GRADATION

Gradation will be mentioned in another connection but as a force in
balance it must be noticed here. It matters not whither the tone grades,
from light to dark or the reverse, the eye will be drawn to it very
powerfully because it suggests motion. Gradation is the perspective of
shade; and perspective we recognize as one of the dynamic forces in art.
When the vision is delivered over to a space which contains no detail and
nought but gradation, the original impulse of the line is continued.

[Hillside (Graded Light Upon Surfaces; Cloud Shadows); River Fog (Light
Graded by Atmospheric Density); The Chant (Gradation through Values of
Separated Objects)]

Gradation, as an agent of light, exhibits its loveliest effect and becomes
one of the most interesting and useful elements of picture construction.

As a force in balance it may frequently replace detail when added items
are unnecessary. In "Her Last Moorings" the heavy timbers, black and
positive in the right foreground, attract the eye and divide the interest.
The diversion from the hulk to the sky is easy and direct and forms the
natural axis. A substitution for the foreground item is a simple
gradation, balancing a like gradation in the sky.

The measure of light and dark when mixed is tonically the same as the gray
of the gradation--but its attraction is weakened.

BALANCE OF PRINCIPALITY OR ISOLATION

These qualities are not synonymous but so nearly so that they are
mentioned together. In discussing the principle of the steelyard it was
stated that a small item could balance a very large one whose position in
point of balance was closer to the fu