Progression

Balance

be properly subordinated to the unity of the movement in which they occur. If possible the interest introduced into the Rhythm should be progressive." *

"Besides the Sequences of Continuation and of Repetition which give us the sense of Harmony and the Sequences of Repetitions in Alternations which give us the sense of Harmony and also the sense of Rhythm, we have a third type of sequence in which we have the feeling of an orderly progress from one thing to another, either upon the principle of an arithmetical or of a geometrical progression. The sequences of this third type I shall call the Sequences of Progression.

"In Drawing and Painting these Sequences of Progression take the form of gradations leading from one tone to another, from one position, measure, shape or attitude to another, always by degrees. The changes are not only gradual but uniform in their character. They represent a certain difference or a certain multiplication. Because of the repetition or continuation of a certain change these sequences of gradation or progression have in them an element of Harmony which must be appreciated. [See Plate 30, and note the progression of the attention along the grass panel towards the pergola.] . . It is in Art as in Nature: the order of changes is not always seen in the effect or result but it is there all the same or should be there. The changes in themselves mean variety. The order of the changes means unity." †

When we look at a picture or a view there will be certain objects in it which more than others appeal to our attention, either because they directly attract the eye in a sensory way by their brightness, or contrast, or definiteness, or because they attract us by their appeal through association. In either case there will be a tendency to look directly at the object which thus claims our attention. In a composition of several objects the mind will be satisfied only when these different attractions are balanced about the center line of the composition.

Partly at least because of the greater ease with which the eyes and the head turn sideways rather than up and down, we are more keenly sensitive in compositions to equilibrium of attention about a vertical axis than about a horizontal or other axis. There is an associational reason also for our noticing particularly equilibriums of this kind, namely, that we are familiar in the world about us with a multitude of objects whose forms are balanced about a vertical axis on account of symmetry of growth and the action of gravitation. On these accounts.

the term "balance" as applied to landscape composition is best used to mean equilibrium of attraction of attention about a vertical axis

only.

This balance may consist in exact inverted repetition of everything Symmetrical on one side of the vertical axis by everything on the other side, so that Balance the attention attracted by any object or part of an object on one side is equalled by the attention attracted by an exactly similar and similarly-placed object or part on the other side; this kind of balance is called symmetrical balance. (See Plate 1.) Symmetry, like symmetrical balance, is inverted similarity of parts about an axis, but the term "symmetry" refers to physical similarity of parts in relation to an axis which may lie vertically or in any other direction. A flower pot standing on its base is an example of symmetrical balance; the same flower pot lying on its side, still symmetrical about a non-vertical axis, and still physically balanced, is no longer an example of symmetrical balance because the axes of symmetry and of balance no longer coincide. Balance may also consist in a disposition of objects not similar nor Occult similarly placed but still so chosen and arranged that the sum of the attractions on one side of the vertical axis is equaled by the sum of the attractions on the other side. This kind of balance is called unsymmetrical or occult balance. (See Plates 4 and 23.)

The distinction between symmetrical and occult balance is important because on it depends most of the compositional difference between formal and so-called informal design, between the compositional beauty of the house, the terrace, the geometrical garden, and the compositional beauty of the cliff, the brook valley, the woodland glade. Formal balance is quickly traceable to the relation of elements on which it depends. In occult balance we feel with satisfaction the stability of the composition, but only after contemplating or consciously analyzing it do we perceive the balanced relation in which the stability consists. (See the occult balance due to direction of line in Plate 17.)

Balance

We find from experience that the perception of repetition, sequence, Intensification and balance in landscape composition causes us an immediate pleasure, of Emotion from an amount of pleasure which seems insufficiently explained by the Repetition, repetition, sequence, and balance of muscular motion or tendency to Sequence, and muscular motion involved in their perception. But we should remem

H

Balance

Characteristics
of Objects in
Landscape
Composition

Shape

ber that the emotions associated with repetition, sequence, and balance are associated also with and often automatically expressed by repeated, sequential, or balanced muscular motions and positions of the whole body, and these in turn intensify the emotion that suggested them.' The delicately balanced nervous and muscular machinery of the body is thus in a way a reverberator for the increasing of the effect of these experiences.

In his actual work in design, the landscape architect is continually applying the principles of repetition, sequence, and balance in the choice and arrangement of his materials according to their characteristics, that is, according to their shape, color, and texture. In his perspective drawings and his rendered plans, he, like the painter, is dealing with compositions of lines and areas on a flat surface. These we shall discuss to some extent in the appendix to this book. In making his compositions in the objects in the outdoor world, the landscape architect is in a way handling a more complicated problem. He is modifying the position and characteristics of masses, of three-dimensional objects, to produce relations of repetition, sequence, and balance, pleasing as far as may be both in the various views that observers get of the composition as they move about in it, and in the composite idea of the constructed whole which they finally carry away. Moreover, the shape, color, and texture of the objects which the designer uses in his composition are modified in the outdoor world by effects of light and shade, of distance, of atmosphere and aërial perspective, effects which often play as dominant a rôle in the composition as do the more essential characteristics themselves.

We do not perceive shape so directly as we seem to perceive color. We learn the shape of a thing only by perceiving the relation of its parts. When we perceive a shape visually, the information which we get directly through the use of our eyes is information as to the extent of the object in two dimensions only, that is, information given us by the two-dimensional image which falls upon the retina. The actual three-dimensional shape of the object we are aware of only in so far as we can deduce it from this two-dimensional image by means of our visual and muscular and tactual memories of previous experiences. *Cf. Chapter II, p. 13-14.

We know from experience, for instance, that a shadow of a certain
shape on an object indicates that the object has a certain shape. We
know that a certain amount of convergence of the eyes in looking at an
object indicates that it is a certain distance away from us.
Our memory
of the time and labor that it took us to walk from the distant moun-
tain gives us a measure of its distance and so of its size. This fact,
that the perception of shape requires, as it were, an act of judgment on
the part of the observer, makes the use of shape in landscape com-
position a particularly subtle thing, because the visual aspect of the
shape of an object, dependent as it is on many modifying circumstances,
may be something quite different from the actual physical shape of
the object which might be determined, for instance, by touch or

measurement.

In a landscape composition, our attention will be attracted to an Individuality object because of its shape when that shape is easily recognizable, and through Shape in Landscape it may be recognizable for several reasons. The relation of the parts Composition which make up the shape may be so simple, so obvious, so readily understood, that the object so shaped appeals to us at once as a unified and separate entity. Or the shape may be one with which we are thoroughly familiar, and therefore it may attract our interest, because we are trained to see it, and because it has more associations in our mind. A shape may attract attention because of its unity through segregation from or contrast with the rest of the composition; for instance, a Lombardy poplar standing up among a group of willows, just as in a less degree a willow among a group of poplars. (See Plate 36, or the cypresses and stone pines in Drawing XIV, opp. p. 112.)

A shape will be orderly and may be beautiful according to the completeness of the relation of its parts in repetition or sequence or balance, and order or unity of shape so arising will, as we have said, give an object a more definite individuality and so a greater importance, a greater ability to attract attention in the composition. (See Drawing XXV, opp. p. 196.)

Shapes will have individuality in composition also as they attract attention to themselves according to ideas which they arouse in the mind. A shape may owe its interest to the fact that it expresses the work of man, as, for instance, a piece of topiary work (see Drawing VI,

Value of

opp. p. 48), or it may be the expression of the unhindered power of nature, as the typical growth of a tree. (See Plate 9.) The shape may have interest not for itself but from something which it symbolizes or represents, for instance, a letter or a symbol like a crown in topiary work, or a statue, in which part of the interest at least is aroused by the action or the person or animal represented.

Different shapes will have different emotional effects upon the observer as they suggest different postures of his own body with their accompanying emotions. A crouching or a cramped shape, for instance, will produce quite a different effect in the observer's mind from that produced by an aspiring or expanding shape, and any one sensitive to matters of this kind will be found, when he describes shapes, expressing their emotional effect upon him by making gestures or assuming attitudes similar to the shapes which he is describing.* (Compare the difference in attitude between the pine in Plate 12 and the cypresses in Drawing XIII, opposite.)

In landscape compositions, the shape relation of the various objects Shapes and their will largely influence the excellence of the composition entirely apart Arrangement in Composition from any considerations of what the objects themselves may be. The repetition of a pyramidal shape, for instance, here in a spruce tree, there in the gable of a house, and again in a distant mountain, may give a compositional unity to a landscape. (Compare the repetition of rounded shapes in Drawing XXV, opp. p. 196.) A sequence of shapes, perhaps first a stretch of river and then a narrow strip of meadow, and then a piece of road seen in sharp perspective, may carry the eye in a certain direction to the dominant object in the composition, or perhaps offset and balance a contrary sequential effect elsewhere in the field of view. A landscape composition may be balanced by the equality of interest attracted, for instance, by the definite and sharply outlined shape of a rock on one side of the picture and perhaps a less definite though larger form made by a mass of shrubbery on the other side of the composition. Of course it is rare that our attention is held by an object purely on account of its shape, though it often is attracted for this reason. Objects once perceived are likely to hold the attention rather for some associational interest; but the shape of objects in a * Cf. Chapter II, p. 14.