constitutes the quietude of the religious picture. Thus it is
that the diagonal composition is particularly suited to portray
scenes of grandeur, and to induce a feeling of awe in the
spectator, because only here can the eye rove in one large sweep
from side to side of the picture, recalled by the mass and
interest of the side from which it moves. The swing of the
pendulum is here widest, so to speak, and all the feeling-tones
which belong to wide, free movement are called into play. If,
at the same time, the element of the deep vista is introduced,
we have the extreme of concentration combined with the extreme
of movement; and the result is a picture in the "grand style"
--comparable to high tragedy--in which all the feeling-tones
which wait on motor impulses are, as it were, while yet in the
same reciprocal relation, tuned to the highest pitch. Such a
picture is the "Finding of the Ring," Paris Bordone, in the
Venice Academy. All the mass and the interest and the suggestion
of the downward lines and of the magnificent perspective toward
the left, and the effect of the whole space composition is of
superb largeness of life and feeling. Compare Titian's
"Presentation of the Virgin," also the two great compositions
by Veronese, "Martyrdom of St. Mark," etc., in the Doge's Palace,
Venice, and "Esther before Ahaseurus," in the Uffizi, Florence.
In these last two, the mass, direction of interest, movement,
and attention are toward the left, while all the lines tend
diagonally to the right, where a vista is also suggested,--the
diagonal making a V just at the end. Here, too, the effect is
of magnificence and vigor.

If, then, the pyramid belongs to contemplation, the diagonal
to action, what ca be said of landscape? It is without action,