Sixteen Experimental Investigations from the Harvard Psychological Laboratory, Hugo Münsterberg [top fiction books of all time TXT] 📗

in the picture—it

is the amount and not the direction of excitement that is counted; and

secondly, that even if it were not so, the suggested movement along a

line is felt as ‘weight’ at a particular point.

 

From this point of view the justification of the metaphor of

mechanical balance is quite clear. Given two lines, the most pleasing

arrangement makes the larger near the center, and the smaller far from

it. This is balanced because the spontaneous impulse of attention to

the near, large line, equals in amount the involuntary expenditure of

attention to apprehend the small farther one. And this expenditure of

motor impulses is pleasing, because it is the type of motor impulses

most in harmony with our own physical organism.

 

We may thus think of a space to be composed as a kind of target, in

which certain spots or territories count more or less, both according

to their distance from the center and according to what fills them.

Every element of a picture, in whatever way it gains power to excite

motor impulses, is felt as expressing that power in the flat pattern.

A noble vista is understood and enjoyed as a vista, but it is

counted in the motor equation, our ‘balance,’ as a spot of so much

intrinsic value at such and such a distance from the center. The

skilful artist will fill his target in the way to give the maximum of

motor impulses with the perfection of balance between them.

 

IV. SYMMETRY IN PICTURES.

 

A. The Balancing Factors.

 

The experimental treatment of suggestions as to the elements in

pictorial composition has furnished an hypothesis for the basis of our

pleasure in a well-composed picture, and for the particular function

of each of the several elements. This hypothesis may be expressed as

follows: (1) The basis of æsthetic pleasure in composition is a

balance of motor impulses on the part of the spectator; (2) this

balance of motor impulses is brought about by means of the elements,

through the power which they possess of drawing the attention with

more or less strength towards a certain field. But to the experimental

working out of an hypothesis must succeed a verification, in its

application to the masterpieces of civilized art. We have, then, to

ask whether there is in all great pictures a balance, i.e., an equal

distribution of attention on the two sides of the central line

suggested by the frame of the picture. It might be, for instance, that

a picture of pleasing composition would show, when analyzed, all the

attractions for attention on one side; which would go far to impugn

either our hypothesis of balance as the basis of pleasure, or our

attribution of particular functions to the elements. But as this

second matter may be considered to have been sufficiently determined

by the results of the preceding section, the first question only

remains: Is there a balance of attention in a good picture—or rather,

in the particular good pictures known to the student of art?

 

This question could only be answered by the examination of a large

number of pictures of accepted merit, and it was also desirable that

they should be studied in a form which lent itself to the easy

comparison of one picture with another. These conditions seemed to be

best fulfilled by the collection of reproductions in black and white

known as the Classischer Bilderschatz, published by F. Bruckmann, at

Munich, which contains over a thousand pictures arranged in schools.

Of these a thousand were taken—substantially the first thousand

issued, after the frescoes, triptych doors, panels, etc., which are

evidently parts of a larger whole, had been laid aside. In the

following discussion the pictures will be designated, when they are

not further described, by the numbers which they bear in this

collection.

 

The equations in the following discussion are based on a system of

exact measurement, corresponding to that followed in the experimental

section. This numerical treatment is presupposed in all the general

attributions of balance in the analysis of single pictures. The method

of measurement was given by the conditions of viewing pictures, which

are framed and thus isolated from surrounding influences, and

referred, as compositions, to the middle line suggested by this

emphasized frame. An adjustable frame of millimeter paper, divided in

half vertically by a white silk thread, was fitted over the picture to

be measured, and measurements were made to left and to right of this

thread-line and, as required, vertically, by reference to the

millimeter frame divisions.

 

The main question, of course, to be answered by a statistical

examination of these thousand pictures refers to the existence of

balance, but many other problems of symmetry are also seen to be

closely involved; the relative frequency of the elements in pictures

of different types, and the result of their employment in producing

certain emotional effects, also the general types of space arrangement

as a whole, the feeling-tone belonging to them, and the relation

between content and shape. The first question will not be treated in

this paper in the statistical fulness which was necessary to establish

my conclusions in the investigation itself, inasmuch as the tables

were very extensive. But examples of the tables, together with the

full results, will be given, and a sufficient amount of detailed

discussion to show my methods. The two other subjects, the use of the

elements and the types of composition, will be briefly treated. I

expect in other publications to go more closely into statistical

detail on these matters than is possible in a merely experimental

thesis.

 

In the beginning of the proposed statistical analysis a natural

objection must first be forestalled: it will be said, and truly, that

color also has its effect in bringing about balance, and that a set of

black and white reproductions, therefore, ignores an important

element. To this it may be answered, first, that as a matter of fact

the color scheme is, as it were, superimposed upon the space-shape,

and with a balance of its own, all the elements being interdependent;

and secondly, that the black and white does render the intensity

contrasts of the colors very well, giving as light and dark, and thus

as interesting (= attractive) and the reverse, those factors in the

scheme which are most closely related to the complex of motor

impulses. After having compared, in European galleries, the originals

of very many of these reproductions with the equation of balance

worked out from the black and white, the writer has seldom found an

essential correction needed.

 

The pictures were first classified by subjects. This may seem less

logical than a division by types of arrangement. But it really, for a

majority, amounted to the same thing, as the historical masterpieces

of art mostly follow conventional arrangements; thus the altarpieces,

portraits, genre pictures, etc., were mostly after two or three

models, and this classification was of great convenience from every

other point of view. The preliminary classification was as follows:

(1) Religious, Allegorical and Mythical Pictures; (2) Portraits; (3)

Genre; (4) Landscape. The historical pictures were so extremely few

that they were included in the religious, as were also all the

allegorical pictures containing Biblical persons. Some pictures, of

which Watteau’s are representative, which hovered between genre and

landscape, were finally classified according as they seemed to owe

their interest to the figures or to the scenery. A preliminary

classification of space arrangements, still with reference to content,

showed three large general types: (1) A single subject or group in the

middle; (2) the same somewhat on one side, with subordinate elements

occupying the rest of the space; (3) two objects or groups each

occupying a well-defined center. These were designated as Single

Center, Single and Subordinate Center, and Double Center pictures, or

S.C., S. & S., and D.C. They are in proportions of S.C. 79 per cent.,

S. & S. 5 percent., D.C. 16 per cent. The D.C. type is evidently

already explicitly balanced as regards shape and intrinsic interest,

and is hence of comparative unimportance to our problem. The S.C. will

show a balance, if at all, in more or less accessory factors; S. & S.,

broadly, between interest and other factors. As logically more

important, this last group will be treated more fully. The full

classification of the thousand pictures by subjects is as follows:

 

S.C. D.C. S.S.

Altarpieces 78 70 7 1

Madonna & Child 47 47 0 0

Holy Family 67 40 14 13

Adorations 19 19 0 0

Crucifixions 23 21 0 2

Descents f. Cross 27 26 0 1

Annunciations 21 0 21 0

Misc. Religious 162 93 55 14

Allegorical 46 36 6 4

Genre 93 63 19 11

Landscape 88 65 22 1

Portrait Groups 64 42 17 5

Relig. Single Fig. 28 28 0 0

Alleg. Single Fig. 12 12 0 0

Portrait Single Fig. 207 207 0 0

Genre Single Fig. 18 18 0 0

 

Altarpieces.

 

The pictures of the first group, consisting of the Madonna and

Infant Christ surrounded by worshippers, and briefly designated as

Altarpieces, are good for detailed study because they present a simple

type, and it will be easy to show whether the variations from symmetry

are in the direction of balance or not. A few examples will make this

clear. The Madonna in the S.C. pictures is invariably seated holding

the Christ.

 

In the following descriptions M. will denote Madonna, C. Child, Cn.

central line. The elements, Size or Mass, Direction of Motion or

Attention, Direction of Line, Vista, and Interest, will be set down as

Ms., D., L., V., and I. A couple of examples will show the method of

describing and of drawing a conclusion as to balance.

 

1. 969. Lorenzo Lotto, Madonna with St. Bernard and St. Onofrius. C.

is on one side turning to the same; M. leans far to the other; hence

interest in C., and direction of C.‘s attention are over against Mass

of M. and direction of M.‘s attention; i.e., I. + D. = Ms. + D., and

so far, balance. The surrounding saints are insignificant, and we may

make the equation I. = Ms.

 

2. 368. Raffaelino di Francesco, Madonna Enthroned. The C. is on

Right facing front, M. turns away Left, hence interest in C. is over

against direction of M.‘s attention. Moreover, all the saints but one

turn Left, and of two small vistas behind the throne, the one on the

Left is deeper. The superior interest we feel in C. is thus balanced

by the tendency of attention to the opposite side, and we have I. = D.

+ V.

 

It is clear that the broad characteristics of the composition can be

symmetrically expressed, so that a classification of the 70 S.C.

altarpieces can be made on a basis of these constant elements, in the

order of decreasing balance. Thus: Class 1, below, in which the C. is

one side of the central line, turned away from the center, the M.

turned to the other, balances in these broad lines, or I. + D. = D.;

while in (9), I. + D. + D. = (x), the constant elements work all on

one side.

 

CLASSIFICATION OF ALTARPIECES.

 

1 C. one side turned to same, M. to other 11

2 ” ” ” other, ” ” 8

3 ” ” ” front, ” ” 2

4 ” ” ” other, M. front. 9

5 ” ” ” facing M. 6

6 ” ” ” front, M. front. 7

7 ” ” ” ” M. turned to same. 6

8 ” ” ” to same M. turned front. 7

9 ” ” ” ” M. ” to same, 14

10 ” in middle, turned front. 0

 

Thus the constant elements, understanding always that C.