single mood or atmosphere in which all participate, creating an
enveloping harmony despite the tension and action. And other
illustrations of combinations of types will come to the mind of every
reader.

Each form of unity has its difficulties and dangers, which must be
avoided if perfection is to be attained. In harmony there may be too
much identity and too little difference or variety, with the result
that the whole becomes tedious and uninteresting. This is the fault
of rigid symmetry and of all other simple geometrical types of
composition, which, for this reason, have lost their old popularity
in the decorative and pictorial arts. In balance, on the other hand,
the danger is that there may be too great a variety, too strong an
opposition; the elements tend to fly apart, threatening the integrity
of the whole. For it is not sufficient that wholeness exist in a work
of art; it must also be felt. For example, in Pre-Raphaelite paintings
and in most of the Secession work of our own day, the color contrasts
are too strong; there is no impression of visual unity. In the dramatic
type of unity there are two chief dangers--that the evolution be
tortuous, so that we lose our way in its bypaths and mazes; or, on the
other hand, that the end be reached too simply and quickly; in the one
case, we lose heart for the journey because of the obstacles; in the
other, we lose interest and are bored for want of incidents.

We come now to the second great principle of aesthetic structure--
Dominance.[Footnote: Cf. Lipps: _Aesthetik_, Bd. I, S. 53, Viertes
Kapitel] In an aesthetic whole the elements are seldom all on a level;
some are superior, others subordinate. The unity is mediated through
one or more accented elements, through which the whole comes to emphatic
expression. The attention is not evenly distributed among the parts,