39 
HOW TO ENJOY A GOOD PICTURE. 
(Illustrated by the Lantern). 
By BEN H. MULLEN, M.A. November 30 th, 1915. 
Mr. Mullen prefaced his lecture by saying that pictures live 
and endure by their excellent qualities of form and colour 
rather than by their subjects, although it is well known that 
the average person is more interested in the latter than in 
anything else associated with a picture. The essential 
qualities of a picture are form or the qualities of line, colour, 
the distribution of light and shadow, and the ordered and 
harmonious disposition of form and colour. 
Alluding to the numerous and complex laws of composition 
the lecturer quoting Ruskin, said that there are multitudes of 
such laws that could not be defined although associated with 
the deepest powers of the art of painting. “ The best part 
of every good work is always inexplicable ; it is good because 
it is good. But though you cannot explain the pictures, 
you may always render yourself more and more sensitive 
to their higher qualities by the discipline which you generally 
give your character.” 
Lightly touching upon the origin of the painter’s art, the 
lecturer reminded his audience that form preceded colour 
and an illustration was shewn of a reindeer drawn by a palaeo- 
lithic cave-dweller. As to colour it theoretically includes 
form, the outline of form being the meeting place of different 
colours in the field of vision. Colour is also associated with 
light and shade for each shade of each colour is a light in regard 
to the shades that are lower in the scale and a shade to those 
that are higher. The lecturer then dealt briefly with the 
qualities by which all good pictures must be judged. They 
include composition, harmony, tone values, atmospheric 
envelopment, design, perspective, and balance. He pointed 
out that all such elements for criticism were infinitely diver- 
sified by the technical skill of the artist, by his personal 
refinement and aesthetic culture, by his character and educa- 
tion, by his perception and power of interpreting truth and 
beauty, and by the dexterity of his hand. 
