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PARK AND CEMETERY. 
WATER PICTURE IN KENSICO CEMETERY, NEW YORK. 
A Vista with Monumental Structures in Center. 
forms the important part. Strong vertical 
lines in contrast with equally strong hori- 
zontal lines, as a lone tall pine in a desert, 
illustrates the cross form. All the lines 
converging to one principal object typifies 
the radii form. The line of curvature is 
illustrated by the rivulet meandering 
through the main part of the picture, and 
the rectangle form by the distant landscape 
framed by a mass of foliage in the fore- 
ground and at the side. Balance is illus- 
trated to a certain extent in these sketches, 
too. 
You may find pictures in park cemeteries 
similar to any of the aforementioned forms, 
and you probably recall many views that 
approximate them. Actually, though, true 
pictures in nature are comparatively rare. 
The artist, Whistler, once said: “Nature 
is usually wrong; that is to say, the con- 
dition of things that shall bring about the 
perfection of harmony worthy a picture is 
rare and not common at all.” Many times, 
therefore, a landscape painter will add 
same feature to the canvps that does not 
exist in the scene, to get the right balance 
and composition. Supposing the scene to 
be in a park cemetery and the feature add- 
ed, a tree, a building, or perhaps a monu- 
ment, could we not make the scene a true 
picture from that point where the artist sat 
if we placed that tree, building or monu- 
ment in the same relative position that it 
occupied in the picture? If the artist de- 
pended on form for his composition we 
could; if he depended on coloring, perhaps 
not. 
There is no question, however, that we 
can get nearly true pictures in our park 
cemeteries, from certain viewpoints, by 
using the right methods ; and, of course, 
we may find many that already have all the 
for a later display might be presented with 
annuals or perennials. 
We now come to the so-called “True Pic- 
tures.” I call them “True Pictures” here 
for emphasis. To most of us a picture 
means anything from the most amateurish 
drawing or painting of a landscape to a 
photograph of the town baseball nine, but 
to the artist a picture is something differ- 
ent. To him a painting or photo is not a 
picture unless it obeys certain rules of 
composition and unless it shows a certain 
balance of units. Every unit has a definite 
value in the picture and the importance 
of the unit depends on its position. H. R. 
Poore in his book, “Pictorial Composition,” 
gives six fundamental forms of composi- 
tion, the triangle, the circle, the cross, 
radii, the line of curvature and the rec- 
tangle, and I have endeavored to reproduce 
on the blackboard his illustrations of these 
six forms. The triangle form is illus- 
trated by a long, straight road in perspec- 
tive, terminated in the picture by a row of 
hills. The circle form is illustrated by a THE UPPER RESERVOIR, LOOKING FROM UPPER DAM, MOUNTAIN VIEW 
... , .... , , . CEMETERY, OAKLAND, CAL. 
bit of scenery in which a pond or lake a Fine Example of the Distant View Type of Picture. 
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