The Beautiful Necessity | Page 9

their combination forms the sacred syllable Om (_Aum_). In
painting they are warm colors, and cold: the pole of the first being in
red, the color of fire, which excites; and of the second in blue, the color
of water, which calms; in the Arts of design they are lines straight (like
fire), and flowing (like water); masses light (like the day), and dark
(like night). In architecture they are the column, or vertical member,
which resists the force of gravity; and the lintel, or horizontal member,
which succumbs to it; they are vertical lines, which are aspiring,
effortful; and horizontal lines, which are restful to the eye and mind.
It is desirable to have an instant and keen realization of this sex quality,
and to make this easier some sort of classification and analysis must be
attempted. Those things which are allied to and partake of the nature of
time are masculine, and those which are allied to and partake of the
nature of space are feminine: as motion, and matter; mind, and body;
etc. The English words "masculine" and "feminine" are too intimately
associated with the idea of physical sex properly to designate the terms
of this polarity. In Japanese philosophy and art (derived from the
Chinese) the two are called In and Yo (In, feminine; Yo, masculine);
and these little words, being free from the limitations of their English
correlatives, will be found convenient, Yo to designate that which is
simple, direct, primary, active, positive; and In, that which is complex,
indirect, derivative, passive, negative. Things hard, straight, fixed,
vertical, are Yo; things soft, curved, horizontal, fluctuating, are In--and
so on.
[Illustration 6: WILD CHERRY; MAPLE LEAF]
[Illustration 7: CALLAS IN YO]
In passing it may be said that the superiority of the line, mass, and color
composition of Japanese prints and kakemonos to that exhibited in the
vastly more pretentious easel pictures of modern Occidental artists--a
superiority now generally acknowledged by connoisseurs--is largely
due to the conscious following, on the part of the Japanese, of this
principle of sex-complementaries.
Nowhere are In and Yo more simply and adequately imaged than in the
vegetable kingdom. The trunk of a tree is Yo, its foliage, In; and in

each stem and leaf the two are repeated. A calla, consisting of a single
straight and rigid spadix embraced by a soft and tenderly curved spathe,
affords an almost perfect expression of the characteristic differences
between Yo and In and their reciprocal relation to each other. The two
are not often combined in such simplicity and perfection in a single
form. The straight, vertical reeds which so often grow in still, shallow
water, find their complement in the curved lily-pads which lie
horizontally on its surface. Trees such as pine and hemlock, which are
excurrent--those in which the branches start successively (i.e., after the
manner of time) from a straight and vertical central stem--are Yo; trees
such as the elm and willow, which are deliquescent--those in which the
trunk dissolves as it were simultaneously (after the manner of space)
into its branches--are In. All tree forms lie in or between these two
extremes, and leaves are susceptible of a similar classification. It will
be seen to be a classification according to time and space, for the
characteristic of time is succession, and of space, _simultaneousness_:
the first is expressed symbolically by elements arranged with relation to
axial lines; the second, by elements arranged with relation to focal
points (Illustrations 6,7).
The student should train himself to recognize In and Yo in all their
Protean presentments throughout nature--in the cloud upon the
mountain, the wave against the cliff, in the tracery of trees against the
sky--that he may the more readily recognize them in his chosen art,
whatever that art may be. If it happens to be painting, he will endeavor
to discern this law of duality in the composition of every masterpiece,
recognizing an instinctive obedience to it in that favorite device of the
great Renaissance masters of making an architectural setting for their
groups of figures, and he will delight to trace the law in all its
ramifications of contrast between complementaries in line, color, and
mass (Illustration 8).
[Illustration 8: THE LAW OF POLARITY CLEOPATRA MELTING
THE PEARL. BY TIEPOLO]
With reference to architecture, it is true, generally speaking, that
architectural forms have been developed through necessity, the function
seeking and finding its appropriate form. For example, the buttress of a
Gothic cathedral was developed by the necessity of resisting the thrust
of the interior vaulting without encroaching upon the nave; the main

lines of a buttress conform to the direction of the thrust, and the
pinnacle with which it terminates is a logical shape for the masonry
necessary to hold the top in position (Illustration 9). Research along
these