24 



HORSES AND MOVEMENT 



ness behind the effects we have been discussing, why 

 should there not be an equal reasonableness behind his 

 own impressions ? That he can explain or find a reason 

 for them can be of no importance, so long as he can 

 " work from them with as much certainty as if they 

 were embodied upon paper." For instinct leads and 

 theory follows, as we see in the fact that the laws and 

 rules of all arts are formulated upon the discoveries of 

 each new true creator. 



To return, however, to our impressions of nature ; 

 among the more gross effects which we all notice and 

 accept are the lines made by the falling rain and the 

 disappearance of the spokes of a rapidly turning wheel. 

 But there are an infinite number of less obvious effects 

 and changes of appearance associated with movement 

 in nature of which certain artists mstinctively make use, 

 especially modern artists since the development of 

 impressionistic realism— such as indistinctness, confusion, 

 reduplication and even apparent deformation. 



We shall agree as to the confusion and indistinctness 

 due to movement in nature. And in art examples are 

 not hard to find. Millet in his " Woodman " makes the 

 hand that swings the chopper less distinct than the hand 

 that holds the faggot. We shall agree, too, I think, 

 about reduplication. Does not a cane in rapid vibration 



give a double image through being more distinct at either 

 limit of its oscillation ? Daumier in his " Mountebank " 

 beating a drum draws the drum-sticks with double 

 tips. 



As regards deformation, there may be some disagree- 

 ment, and yet it is a truth to nature that is instinctively 

 employed for expression in art. Difficult as it may be 

 to realize it in subtler instances, if we take the simple 

 case of the appearance of a circle created by an 

 object swung rapidly about a centre, we shall notice 

 that, as it acquires motion, it not only becomes less 

 distinct but is also elongated in the direction of its 

 flight. 



A very noticeable instance of deformation occurred 

 one evening at the circus, where an acrobat was juggling 

 with a number of sticks, which he made to turn rapidly 

 over and over as he tossed them in the air. The sticks, 

 though straight in themselves, appeared so curved that 

 anyone who had not seen them at rest before the per- 

 formance began would have denied that they could be 

 straight. This is but an extreme instance of what often 

 appears in the limbs of men and animals in motion. 

 Another instance was that of a photograph of a racing 

 motor-car. The photograph of the motor-car had been 

 taken with a shutter that was not rapid enough for such 



