touch of color may be, though not larger than the smallest pin's head, if one part of it is not darker than the rest, it is a bad touch."

The case of the decorative designer is quite different; he is not representing color, but is presenting it. As Rood says: "An ornamented surface is essentially not a representation of a beautiful absent object, but is the beautiful object itself." It is very proper for the decorator to use all the pure color he wants to. He may, if he pleases, use flat ungraded washes; he need not attend to perspective, and he may distort and conventionalize his forms almost without limit, provided his ultimate purpose is fulfilled, of making an intrinsically beautiful arrangement of colors. Red forget-me-nots and blue roses are proper if, in the artist's design, they are needed. Design, then, is the field in which color for its own sake finds freest recognition, while in representative painting the colors used are sometimes little more than symbols of the colors which are meant.

READING REFERENCES

CHEVREUL: "The Principles of Harmony and Contrast of Colors.".

ROOD: "Text-book of Color."

ALLEN: "The Color Sense."

COHN: "Experimentelle Untersuchungen über die Gefühlsbetonung d. Farben." Phil. Stud. x.

KIRSCHMANN: "Psychologisch-ästhetische Bedeutung des Lichtund-Farbencontrastes." Phil. Stud. VII.

PIERCE: "Esthetics of Simple Forms." Psy. Rev. I.

BAKER: Experiments on the Esthetics of Light and Color," Toronto Studies, I.

1 "Text-book of Color."

CHOWN: Experiments on the Esthetics of Light and Color," Toronto Studies, I.

BARBER: Combinations of Colors with Tints and with Shades," Toronto Studies, 11.

PUFFER: "Studies in Symmetry," Harvard Studies, I.

"Psy. of Beauty," ch. IV.

VAN DYKE: “Art for Art's Sake," Lectures 2 and 3.

CHAPTER IX

THE CHARACTER OF SIMPLE LINES AND FORMS

MATHEMATICALLY a line has no substance or quality, only length and direction; but for artistic purposes it may have a more substantial status, and its quality becomes an important branch of study. In sketching, the quality of a line as broad or narrow, dark or light, rough or smooth-may be made to indicate the texture of the object portrayed. A fine gray line gives delicacy of texture, a fine black line, precision and hardness. Broad rough lines may denote homeliness and solidity; they are appropriate, for example, in genre sketches where the coarse dress and wooden shoes of peasants, or where a thatched cottage or barnyard fence appears. Broad black lines have a character of distinctness and independence, etc.

Of greater importance than the quality of line is the direction of line and its character, as straight or curved. The principal point to be brought out in the following paragraphs is that even the most simple abstract line, no matter how free it appears from the representation of any specific thing, may have an emotional effect and meaning of its own.

Vertical Lines. "Straightness" and "uprightness" have come to be synonyms for moral reliability. The explanation of this fact, and of the feeling tone which is aroused by vertical lines, depends in part upon ideational asso

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161

ciations, and in part upon the motor reactions which the view of such lines directly stimulates. Among the ideational elements connected with upright lines are the images of towers and pillars. The tower was formerly a stronghold and position of advantage in time of war, and the pillar was the most obvious feature of support in architectural construction; hence the tower and pillar came to be symbols or metaphors for strength and trustworthiness. Again there is a conventional connection between the erect attitude of the human figure and the consciousness of courage and worth. Sometimes the association of vertical lines with the human form suggests the attenuated frame of the ascetic, or else the tense containment of the athlete drawn up for action. Another important association with the vertical is found in religious worship; for here there is nearly always a spatial relationship implied between the god and the worshiper. The gods are usually thought of as dwelling above, and the worshiper literally "looks up" to them. Thus the mood of reverence and of spiritual "exaltation" is connected with an upward line. These reflections suggest a few of the associations which go to determine our feeling for the vertical. As for the direct motor response to a vertical line, it consists in the movement of the eyes up and down and in the imitative tendency of the whole body by which we perform incipiently the act of drawing ourselves up into a tall narrow form. This is normally an attitude of attention, but, though rigorous, it is neither unbalanced nor awkward. The feeling of this bodily attitude determines, or rather is,

1 Cf. a quotation from Puffer on p. 166.

our feeling for the line itself. In a later paragraph we shall mention some of the theories which are based on experiences like this.

There is a severe controlled grace in certain upright lines, which to some tastes may be more pleasing than the grace of curves. It is true that the lavish use of verticals would give stiffness to an artist's style, but their judicious employment gives firmness, simplicity and life. In architecture the great verticals of Giotto's tower come to mind. Among statues the one of "Teucer" drawing his bow is one of the most rigorously vertical. In painting Böcklin has given great dignity and distinction to his "Toteninsel" by the use of the long vertical lines. Burne-Jones often gets from verticals an architectural effect and an ascetic tone in his pictures.

Horizontal Lines. The horizontal is the line of quiescence and repose, the suggestion of lying down, and the consequent suggestion of quiet and of relaxation being particularly strong. The horizon of the sea and of the plains brings always the thought of distance. Long stretches of level ground bring to us, in some moods, a sense of the patience and lowliness of the earth. This last is a case of pathetic fallacy, but pathetic fallacy may help us to know our own emotions in the presence of the phenomena of nature. There is, in addition to these ideational elements, something hypnotic in a long monotony of level line. There is nothing in it to lead the eye upward or down, nothing to vary what seems the easiest of all eye-movements, the sliding from side to side. The spell of such lines is powerfully illustrated in some of Burne-Jones's pictures. In the "Sleeping Beauty" series