In one of the greatest of Rembrandt’s portrait groups, “The Syndics,” he was faced with the problem of placing six figures. Four are seated at the far side of a table looking towards us ; the fifth, on the near side, rises and looks at us. His head, higher than those of the row of four, breaks this line of formality; but the depth and perspective of the picture is not achieved until a figure standing in the background is added. This produces—from the foreground figure, through one of the seated figures—the transitional line which pulls the composition forwards and backwards and makes a circular composition of what was originally a line sweeping across the entire canvas. H.R. Poore

Pictorial Composition An Introduction Henry Rankin Poore

A successful #LinearGrouping. The eye might easily be led across and out; however, the line of transition pauses first at the standing figure and then at the less-defined man in the rear. Thus, we are led across and back in an elliptical line of movement.

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