LadySilverMage - I wasn't really meaning to criticise you personally for only wanting positive comments, though it probably reads like that. I do get the impression that there are certainly some who don't regard any comments other than fulsome praise as acceptable, which is why I generally comment very infrequently (not just here, at other sites also). So pitching in to your picture above was an example of the Gilbert & Sullivan song: "This is what I never do - this! and this! and this! and this!" I think it's not so much the vertical lines, which do have the diagonal of the cloth as contrast, as you say, not to mention the strong horizontals at the bottom of the picture. I think the remark about the dead centre figure is more apposite, though heaven knows that's not normally a problem. Maybe it's the centred figure combined with the pillars at the extreme edges and the unrelieved black in between that makes me uneasy. I dunno - I'm not a critic! :)