LANDSCAPE COMPOSITION 97 



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 ^ a ^ ance 

 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 simi- 

 larly-placed object or part on the other side ; this kind of balance is 

 called symmetrical balance. (See Plate I.) Symmetry, like sym- 

 metrical 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 ^^ ance 

 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 unsym- 

 metrical or occult balance. (See Plates 4 and 23.) 



The distinction between symmetrical and occult balance is im- 

 portant because on it depends most of the compositional difference 

 between formal and so-called informal design, between the composi- 

 tional 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.) 



We find from experience that the perception of repetition, sequence, Intensification 

 and balance in landscape composition causes us an immediate pleasure, / ^ mot ^ on 

 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- Balance 



