1 66 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



merely beautiful; it is also strongly expressive. This is so partly be- 

 cause when we are given the right suggestion for our feelings by the 

 subject and by the great physical and spiritual power of the Creator 

 and the rushing host of heaven, our sense of these things and of the 

 mood they suggest is vastly increased by the inrush of life we experience 

 from the harmony. Many a painter has used the same color scheme for 

 a Nativity and a Crucifixion. But in this fresco of Michael Angelo's 

 the lines have a tremendous sweep; we do not merely judge them 

 appropriate ; as our eye swings through them, meeting successive shocks 

 from the cross movements, our nervous reaction is similar to that which 

 we have in watching a stormy surf on the rocks. The expressiveness 

 of lines and colors in a picture is in the awakening of physical reaction 

 similar to that accompanying the moods of real life. More; if we 

 accept the modern theory that the feeling of reflex physical reaction con- 

 stitutes emotion, we must find this method of expression even more 

 direct than that of statement, which has to pass through our intellect 

 before we feel it. The physical causation of emotion is a separate prin- 

 ciple from that of harmony, though the two are interactive. 



In Nos. I. and II. I have tried to show that the most universal en- 

 joyment of pictures is in the enhancement of life felt in a heightened 

 power of vision when we see any object presented with compelling clar- 

 ity; that a general element in our experience of narrative pictures is 

 simply an enlargement of this principle to the mental perception of 

 persons and their actions; that a further extension is found in the 

 increased spiritual vision given us in the portrayal of character; and 

 again in the relation of characters and events in dramatic painting. 

 The principle of harmony is based on the same evolutionary fact — the 

 sense of abundant life resulting from enhanced perception. It is a 

 powerful factor in leading mankind beyond the mechanical vision of 

 logic into the unfathomable relations of the universe. 



