LANDSCAPE COMPOSITION 99 



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 t^Landsca-bc 

 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 in- 

 stance, 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 Draw- 

 ing XXV, opp. p. 196.) i 



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, 



