In the preceding chapters we have been studying _formal_, or _conventional_, composition. We have seen how the artists arrange their groups of figures and the position and gestures of each figure according to a rule or formula or convention, the basis of which is a geometric plan, on which they build up a balance of repetitions and contrasts. And we have noted that these formal compositions are artificial arrangements; that the figures are not grouped as you might expect them to be in real life, nor in positions that men and women usually assume. And these formal compositions we have seen were also called, _classic_; the last example being the _classic landscape_ in which nature has been made to look more grand by the addition of features of classic architecture.