Professor Charles Eliot Norton addressed the Camera Club last night on "Turner's Composition in Landscapes." He said in part:

Photographic work differs from the painter's in that the painter resorts to his own inner imaginative creation and moulds his production in every detail in accordance with it, while the camera worker can only what beauty he may find in nature. There is an element of selection in each case. The painter selects from the landscape only those elements that correspond to his imaginative ideal, while the photographer selects such a view as is in itself best arranged. The one selects all the details at will, the other such parts of nature as are best composed. Thus it is plain that the photographer labors at a great disadvantage because nature never composes as well as the artist who dares to transfer imaginative ideals to other's minds.

Three elements enter Turner's works in a marked way. First, his works are rythmatic. This is shown in the repetition of a certain set of lines at various points throughout a picture--a line in a castle echoing a line in a cottage; one on a bridge, another in a fence. These rhythms afford the observer pleasure in echoing or reinforcing some important idea. Secondly, Turner shows love for human interest. Everywhere he enlivens his already intensely charming landscapes by appropriately placed and logically related human figures. And thus his landscape with human interest has an unusual power *sthetically. Lastly, Turner always takes special delight in contrasting the ruin of the rich with the permanence of the poor--the battered, weatherbeaten castle is contrasted to the busy, still persisting peasants' homes.