wn. In
its several stages it showed always the most critical weighing of the
part, and a consummate dodging of the difficulties.

When finally exhibited, however, the wall had given way to a simple shadow
and a pool of water. The attempt to carry the eye over a cross-line in the
foreground had been a long and conclusive one, and its final abandonment
an admonition on this point. A barrier across the middle distance is
almost as objectionable. In the subject of a river embankment the eye
comes abruptly against its upper line, which is an accented one, and from
this dives off into the fathomless space of the sky, no intermediate
object giving a hint of anything existing between that and the horizon.

In order to use such a subject it would be necessary to oppose the
horizontal of the bank by an item that would overlap and extend above it,
as a hay wagon with a figure on top of it or the sail of a boat, and if
possible to continue this transitional feeling in the sky by such cloud
forms as would carry the eye up. Attraction in the sky would create a
depth for penetration which the embankment blocked.

[The Path of the Surf--Photo (Triangles Occuring in the leading line); The
Shepherdess--Millet (Composition Exhibiting a Double Exit)]

The _"__Path of the Surf__"_ is a splendid leading line ending most
beautifully in a curve.

Many readers will recall the notable picture by Mr. Picknell, now
deceased, of a white road in Picardie. Here all the lines converged at
the horizon. The perspective was so true as to become fascinating, a
problem of very ordinary deception. More subtle is Turner's "Approach to
Venice," see _Fundamental Forms,_ in which the lines are substituted by
spots--the gondolas--which, in like manner, bear us to the subject. The
graceful arch of the sky also presses us toward the subject.

One may readily use the placement of the spots and substitute cattle
instead of gondolas and woods for the spired city; or groups of figures,
sheep, rocks, etc. The composition is fundamental, and will accommodate
many subjects.

GETTING OUT OF THE PICTURE

This is important because necessary. It is much better to pass out than to
back out. Pictures show many awkward methods of exit. In some there are
too many chances to leave; in others there are none. Pictures in which
there is no opportunity for visual peripatetics require no such provision.
In the portrait we confront a personality, and some p