[97]



PICTORIAL COMPOSITION

of the curtain be unrelieved, but the return of
the line to the subject in the ensemble of the
picture would be broken. This, therefore, be-
comes the keystone of the composition. Other
considerations besides its diversion from the cur-
tain are, its curtailing of wall space, and, by its
close placement to the curtain, its union there-
with as a balance for head and body — in bulk of
light and dark almost identical with them,
though less forcible in tonal value.
In Wiertz's group about the body of Patroolus,
though its contour is more decidedly circular
(and in the use of this term is always meant a line
returning on itself), it fails to prompt circular
observation to the same extent as the foregoing.
The eye seesaws back and forth along the lines
of the hammock arrangement of light, and we
are conscious of the extreme balance and the
careful parcelling out of the units of force.
With all its evident abandon the method is
painfully present, as though the artist, given so
much Greek, was careful to add the same amount
of Trojan, The level and plummet setting of the
group exactly within the sides of the frame, with
no suggestion of anything else existing in the
world, puts if into the class of formal decoration,
with which old masterdom abounds, and whence
Wiertz received the inspiration for most of his
great compositions.
