S
-15
TE
NK 1505
.D3
1872











برنامه ها
-
-
-
-
-



THE
NCIPLES OP FORM
IN
ORNAMENTAL ART.
BY
CHARLES MARTEL, pseud.
Thomas Ielf.
AUTHOR OF "THE PRINCIPLES OF COLOURING IN PAINTING.”
FOURTH EDITION.
Ars probat artificem.
356
LONDON:
VINSOR AND NEWTON, 38, RATHBONE PLACE,
anufacturing Artists' Colourmen, by Special Appointment, to Her Majesty,
and their Royal Highnesses the Prince and Princess of Wales.


PREFACE.
a scientific basis, and any attempt to elucidate them
without it, can only lead the student to confusion
and disappointment.
So far as the very limited space at command has
permitted, the following pages will be found to contain
a summary of the most important canons of Ornamental
· Art in connection with Form and its treatment, in
· Architectonics, and in the Ceramic Art. These sub-
jects are chosen for their primary importance in
Ornamentation, and the community of principles exist-
ing among the various arts permits their application to
the Technic arts generally: to all works, requiring or
admitting of embellishment. It has not been thought
necessary to enter upon the question of Colour, as that
subject has been fully discussed in a scientific manner,
by M. E. Chevreul, to whose work the student is
referred.
A book on so vast and comprehensive a subject as
Ornamentation, admits of an infinite amount of illus-
tration. Ornamental Art is best illustrated, not by
engravings, but in the original works upon which it
has been applied. The student will find abundant
illustrations of the most instructive character in the
treasures of art contained in the British Museum, in
the Ceramic collection at the Geological Museum in
Jermyn Street, and at the South Kensington Museum,
All that relates to Architectonics receives most valuable
illustration from the materials of the Courts of the
Crystal Palace at Sydenham,


EXPLANATION OF FRONTISPIECE.
GENERIC FORMS.
A. Straight Line and Cube.
Z. Curved Line and Sphere
PRIMARY FORMS.
Straight Lines.
B. 1. Cylinder.
B. 2. Conoid.
B. 3. Clavoid.
Curved Lines.
C. 1. Spheroid.
C. 2. Ovoid.
C. 3. Ogivoid.
MIXED FORMS.
Participating of the Cylinder and the Sphere, the curves being directed
inwards.
D. 1. Canopian.
E. 1. Phocian.
D. 2. Napiform.
E. 2. Lacrimiform.
D. 3. Turbiniform.
E. 3. Pyriform.


EXPLANATION OF FRONTISPIECE.
MIXED FORMS,
Participating of the Cylinder and the Sphere, the curves being inclined
outwards.
F. 1. Corolla widening from the upper third.
F. 2. Corolla widening from the lower third.
F. 3. Corolla widening from the upper third and narrowing from the
lower third.
CRATEROIDS,
Having a Breadth of two to five times their Height.
G. 1. Segmentary Crateroid.
G. 2. Crateroid of five heights. Canopian.
G. 3. Crateroid of three to four heights. Campanuliform.
DISCOIDS,
Having a Breadth of at least five times the Height.
H. 1. Segmentary Discoid.
H. 2. Canopian Discoid. Torus of the Doric Capital.
H. 3. Tectiform Discoid. Covers, Feet of Vases, &c.
STEMS,
Having a Height of more than three times the Diameter.
J. 1. Stem widening from the upper third.
J. 2. Stem widening from the lower third.
J. 3. Stem with double curve. Campanuliform of double curvature.


INTRODUCTION.
A love of ornament seems inherent to man’s nature;
the character of his ornamentation is mainly dependent
on the amount of civilization and refinement he enjoys.
In the savage state he tattoos his skin, deforms his
features, paints his body, and decks it with flowers, fea-
thers, shells, &c. He next extends this ornamentation
to his weapons and utensils : his calabash and tomahawk
are tattood like his body: the ornamentation of the
New Zealander and the South-Sea islanders, with other
savages displays great taste and skill.
In the pastoral state, the shepherd, while tending his
flocks and herds, seeks to beguile the weary hours by
ornamenting the staff of his crook with carvings sym-
metrically disposed, and pleasing to the sight, by which
he expresses his instinctive feeling for ornamentation,
subsequently extended to other things. Ornamentation
is superadded to utility.
The denizen of the valley kneads the clay, and models
an utensil; he dries it in the sun, or bakes it in the fire,
and fetches water in it from the distant spring. In the
first essays of his intelligence and activity, the forms he
produces will probably be imitated directly from the
models supplied by nature, such as the shell or the gourd.


14
INTRODUCTION.
But soon his artistic faculty is developed; he adopts
certain proportions of height and breadth; he mingles
the curved line with the straight in suitable propor-
tions, adds handles, and lo! a Vase is produced. The
utility of the utensil for its destined purpose remains,
the alterations introduced have not impaired its unity,
and a work of Art is the result.
In genial climes, the dwelling man originally provided
for himself was of minor importance; he constructed it
simply and rudely of wood : but on the temples dedicated
to his Gods, constructed of the more enduring stone,
he lavished all his skill and taste.
The roof that sheltered his family rested upon pillars
formed of the trunks of trees: in the temple, these pillars
become columns. Marble replaces wood : bronze in
sheets is substituted for the bark or tiles which covered
the rafters. On the stones of the temple, he carved in
relief, processions, dances, victories, &c., the admira-
tion of future ages. Then arose Sculpture, the new
product of a new art.
The house was a shelter, a simple fact-the temple,
the work of a higher intelligence, is a work of Art.
Architecture unites with Sculpture as theory with
practice. To Architecture all the arts of imitation
and ornamentation are allied.
The Ceramic, or potter's art, (from the Greek Ceramos,
clay), receives its name from a quarter of Athens where
Corcebus invented and established the art of working
in clay. A street in Athens was called Ceramos,
from the name of Ceramus, son of Bacchus andAriadne.
Besides Athens, the cities of Corinth, Ægina, and


INTRODUCTION.
15
Samos, celebrated for their architecture, were equally
renowned in the remotest times for ceramic productions.
Before the time when Demosthenes ruled the Athe-
nians by his divine eloquence, before Phidias created
his immortal types of perfect beauty, or his rival
Apelles had attained to the pinnacle of art environed
by a glory more durable even than his works, there
existed at Athens a feeling of devout admiration, and
perhaps of gratitude, for the ancient art of the potter.
The portion of Athens we have named was the first
school of taste, the primitive sanctuary where abstract
form unceasingly elaborated and studied under the eyes
of an inquisitive and free people, was revealed to the
first architects. It is the Ceramic art that inspired the
authors of those antique structures, which, renewed at a
later date with the marbles of Mount Pentelus, became
temples worthy of the Gods to whom they were dedi-
cated.
The souvenirs of these primitive times are effaced :
the Greeks, vanquished by the Romans, transmitted, of
all their arcana, only the sight of their works. After
so many ages have passed away, these precious remains
appear to us like the tables of a mysterious law, which
succeeding generations believe they understand because
they measure the structures. We are told—such and
such are the proportions of a Greek order, there is our
guide, such is the law : but we are not told from whence
the law-giver derived his measures : from whence came to
him so pure, so perfect a taste, or from what source
he derived the feeling and sentiment displayed in his
works.


INTRODUCTION.
17
It appertains to the artist to discover this germ, and
fructify it by ingenious developments. But whatever
be the invention, the purity of the contours or the rich-
ness of the ornaments, it is to general laws that every
work of this nature we would compose must be sub-
mitted.
So far froin considering utility as foreign to æsthetics,
we must make it the basis, the exponent so to speak, of
works of art.
Thus, a vase, whether it be of gold, silver, marble,
ivory, clay, or glass, must have the power of containing,
otherwise it is only a deceitful appearance, a work
without object. A vase, even if it is never utilized,
must be capable of being useful. An edifice without an
object, one into which we cannot enter, that is useful
neither to the living nor to the dead, fails in the chief
of architectural conditions.
Equilibrium and stability are also laws of beauty and
durability. Solidity is a principle of art; strength does
not exclude elegance, it is not even incompatible with
lightness, from which results a kind of beauty.
The harmony of the different parts of a whole, and
the suitableness of its proportions are sometimes the
effect of a happy accident, but always a necessary result
of certain laws, which it is the object of these pages to
unfold, and then apply the principles of analogy to the
works of those great architects who, without models, con-
structed edifices which we can now only measure and
copy.


20
PRINCIPLES OF ORNAMENTATION.
imagination, taste and fancy open to man the most
beautiful and most difficult career, that of creation.
The most remarkable Inventional ornaments of
antiquity are meanders, plaitings, astragals, flutings,
waves, labyrinths, &c.
We may also regard as ornaments, modillions, dentels,
guttæ, triglyphs, and mutules, the fine effect of which has
no connection with imitation, from which it is commonly
supposed they are derived. The Greeks ornamented the
antefixæ of their temples with a very capricious variety of
palm-leaf which strictly belongs to inventional ornament.
The Byzantine epoch is no less rich; the ornamenta-
tion of the archevolts presents us with the undulating
chevroned torus; with foliated and flowered columns,
which are banded, contorted, and chiselled with a
thousand fancies. Diamond points, chequers, nail-
heads, bezants, nebulæ, serrations, stars, &c., replace,
in this architecture, the Greek and Roman modillions
and dentels. The strange enlacings of the churches of
Norway, at Urnes, Find, Hitterdall, Borgund; the
sculptures of the cloister of Arles, of the baptistry and
the white marble pulpit at Pisa, although far apart, are
none the less of the same nature. In other climes, in
Mexico, in Yucatan, we find the ruins of mysterious cities
of which no history exists. “In the midst of these ruins,
monuments of an incalculable antiquity are covered
with sculptured ornaments of most bizarre invention.
The remains which bear the names of Uxmal and
Labnah, are a mass of inventional ornaments.
The beautiful ornamental mosaics of the churches of
Sicily and Italy belong to the Byzantine era.


24
PRINCIPLES OF ORNAMENTATION.
of Grinling Gibbons (a Dutchman), but he belongs to
the past rather than to the present, which possesses a
rival in Wallis of Louth.
III. MIXED ORNAMENT.
The ornament par excellence is the Inventional. Imi-
tation of nature constitutes an ornament, the title of
which sufficiently expresses its origin. By means of cer-
tain fictions, lines and inventions, which fashion nature
by combining imitation and invention, we produce mixed
ornament, and no axion is more true than that of Theo-
philus: “However well the lines of demarcation be traced,
something capricious always escapes the category.”
The echinus of the Corinthian cornice is a very
simple type of the mixed ornament: a well imitated egg
alternates with a dart and two purely inventional
curves. The ornamentation of a frieze also, may, at
the option of the sculptor, cease to be imitation of
foliage without ceasing to be a beautiful ornament;
human figures, animals, birds, may be added, and so
compose what we call mixed ornament.
In this manner, with the addition of some carving,
arabesque ornaments may be mingled with natural
leaves to form a mixed ornamentation. Byzantine
capitals often exhibit the example of birds mixed with
enlacements which form a mixed ornament.
If, to gothic tracery we join angels, flights into Egypt,
scenes from the crusades, processions, &c. a mixed orna-
ment full of charms will result. The sculptures of many
of our own and of continental cathedrals afford examples
Finally, we may rank among mixed ornaments a part


COMPOSITE ORNAMENT.
-25
of the so-called Renaissance inventions, but which in
their principal models are derived from the Baths of Titus
and the arabesques of Raphael. In this elegant kind of
open-work, human figures, birds, chimeras, &c., mixed
with foliage, exhibit purely fantastic convolutions.
In ornamentation fancy is liberty.
Provided this liberty be maintained with good taste,
and do not degenerate into absurdity, fancy is the first
qualification of the ornamentist.
If in a piece of architecture or in a ceramic work we
superpose different classes of ornaments, the result is a
composite ornamentation.
IV. COMPOSITE ORNAMENT.
One of the finest examples extant of this kind of orna-
ment is the Maison Carré in the city of Nîmes, built in
the time of the Romans, by Greek architects, who, niasters
of eurythmy, were the depositaries of the purest tradi-
tions of analogical proportion. The flutings and lions'
heads, the annulets and aquatic leaves, the modillions
ornamented with foliage and geometric dentels, the ovoli
and principal ornaments of the frieze unite in the most
eurythmic combinations to the splendour of a whole,
which may be submitted as the most perfect model of
composite ornament extant. The capitals of the columns
at Nîmes were worthy of the homage of the Greeks of
Phigalia and Corinth.
The ornamentation of the Ceramic art is generally
composite: some lines of inventional ornament are de-
veloped on the edges, necks, collars, and shoulders of a


LAW OF SUITABILITY.
31
Generally, the architrave formed by the inclined lines
of the roof, is an admirable crowning to the portico; it
derives a portion of its value from the expression which
it gives to the edifice, in indicating not only the façades,
but also the middle of these façades.
If the architrave raises itself too much at its summit,
approaching the equilateral triangle in shape, it loses its
expression; an architrave is so much the more beautiful,
as the lines of the side differ more palpably from those
of the base, up to a determinate point, where the
pyramidal effect ceases.
The law of suitability alone can account for the beauty
resulting from depressing the architrave. In cold climates
the feeling of comfort leads man to prefer high pitched
roofs, which quickly carry off the rain and snow; never-
theless, this vivid feeling is combatted by the evident
beauty resulting from lowering the architrave; so power-
ful is the influence of suitability in producing beauty.
To distinguish the anterior from the posterior façade,
the Greeks placed acroteria on the former; such as
statues, sphinxes, bucklers, &c.
It is in virtue of the law of suitability, that in the
ceramic art, a flattened spheroid is more agreeable than
the sphere ; for the same reason, a regular ellipsoid or
oval, will please less than an ovoid ; if this truth was
not proved by a thousand examples in human works, it
would be by the works of the Creator, by the contours
of a handsome face.
We exclude the geometrical cube from beautiful forms,
because it has no expression. We consider the square an
ungrateful form destitute of expression, which should be


SPHEROIDS.
49
the subject of conoids, the clavoidal form is but little
employed in architecture. The laws of stability ex-
clude it in the exterior construction of edifices.
The ensemble of the Corinthian capital may be con-
sidered as a chiselled clavoid ; the mason delivered to
the sculptor a regular clavoid; the sculptor brings out
the capital, executes the details, but the principal
salients border on the contour of the primary clavoid.
The torus of the capitals of the portico of Thoricus,
that of the temples of Sunium and of Eleusis, is a
clavoidal disc.
We may also rank among the number of clavoids the
corbelling of some edifices of antiquity and of the
Middle Ages. Those of Hadrian's Tomb or the Castle
of St. Angelo at Rome, certain gates at Avignon, the
Tower of Beaucaire, &c.
It has been stated, that the key of the vault is the re-
presentation, par excellence, of the clavoid. It often
figures in relief on semi-circular arches. The Egyptians,
Greeks, and Romans attached a just importance to the
key of the vault, and to its ornamentation. This im-
portance the Greeks called Hurmonia. The Romans
placed on it, in their triumphal arches, a statuette of
victory, or of a conqueror.
IV. SPHEROIDS.
The sphere and spheroid are primary forms. Like
the cube and the square, the sphere belongs more to
geometry than to the beautiful formıs of art.
In the same manner that the straight line is the


50
PRIMARY FORMS.
shortest road from one point to another, the sphere is
the form which contains the greatest quantity of matter
within the smallest possible extent of surface. This
consideration has a certain importance in Ceramic art,
from which utility is not excluded.
The sphere is, in every respect, the emblem of the
most complete curve. The execution of a sphere, in
sculpture, is a work of extreme difficulty. All that
can be said of the form of domes, arcades, spherical
vaults, all that we can describe of the intelligence,
taste, and feeling necessary to the outline of the regular
hemispherical curve, so much employed in architecture,
is contained in a single precept:-Take a compass.
It is true that the section of the sphere, or rather, the
roundness in a horizontal direction, is an elementary
condition of all the ceramic forms made on the potter's
wheel. Therefore, this condition comes not in question,
as we have considered form only as profile and in eleva-
tion. For here the wheel perforins the office of com-
pass; instead of turning around the object to describe
it, we turn the object itself under mechanical pressure,
from whence results a circular form, foreign to taste or
feeling, and of abnormal intelligence.
The sphere may combine with other elements in a
composite vase ; its developments can only take the
name of proportions relatively to the various elements
of the composition in which the sphere is employed.
The flattened spheroid (Frontispiece), having an
aspect which distinguishes its breadth from its height,
is in some of the conditions which bring it within the
category of intelligent forms. It is the same with the


OGIVOID.
ellipsoid, which is distinguished from the sphere by
different relations of height and breadth. Yet these
spheroids of limited fitness, present few resources in
fine ceramic compositions.
A circle inscribed in a square, modifies its sterility
by the effect of contrast. From a similar feeling,
architects surmount a ball upon an isolated column
with an elongated cone. The acute form of the cone
stimulates, and the straight lines which form it, correct
the nullity of the geometric block. The straight lines
and the right angles of a cross being combined with
the sphere, produce an effect of contrast still more
satisfactory, and compose, as to art, an emblem of
universality of forms; an emblem that is placed in the
hands of kings as a symbol of their power, and also of
the universality of the Christian religion.
V. OGIVOID.
The ogivoid is to the sphere what the conoid is to the
cylinder. It is a spheroid, smaller at its summit than
at its base; it is the egg, with the small end uppermost.
The ogivoid is as important in Christian architecture,
as the conoid (column) is in Grecian architecture.
An ogival (Gothic) window presents the profile of an
ogivoid with cylindroidal base; in the same manner as
the gates of Mycenæ, or the propylæ of Eleusis, re-
present the lines of a conoid.
An ogival window will have the finest proportions, if
the part we name cylindroid has a height of three times
its diameter. It will also be well proportioned, if it has
E 2


54
PRIMARY FORMS.
diameter at the summit, relatively to the base. The one
is the cone reversed, the other the egg reversed—the
small end downwards; we might also call it reversed
ogivoid, which we no more approve of than reversed
ovoid for ogivoid.
The ovoid is one of the forms most employed in the
Ceramic art of the Greeks. The ruins of Nola, Vulci,
Tharros, Polentia, Milo, Samos, &c., have opened to us
the most ancient products of Greece and Etruria. Tombs
filled with ceramic offerings, the last testimony of the
affection and recognition of the living for the dead, of a
parent, child, friend, benefactor, or inaster, have been
brought to light. Vases of the most varied forms have
been exhumed. We may perceive that the ovoidal form,
with large mouth, was, if not the most used, at least
the most regarded, since it was reserved for the
highest honours, and for the finest works of the ancient
potters.
Among the Athenians, the Panathenian vase, filled
with the oil of the sacred olive, and awarded to the
victors in the solemn games, was ovoid, with straight
neck, of well proportioned length, and discoid mouth.
Its elongated ovoid rested upon a foot formed of two
discs of unequal diameter and thickness. The verses of
Pindar, as well as the Greek medals, have immortalized
the Panathenian vase.
A general observation results from the examination
of collections of antique vases, and from this observa-
tion we deduce a precept useful to Ceramic art. Among
ovoids, some have large mouths, others straight necks.
We may remark that generally, the larger the mouth,


56
PRIMARY FORMS.
truly beautiful, whatever may be the beauty of its con-
tour, and of its ornaments. If the neck is twice as
high as the vase, a good abnormal effect may result.
If the body is twice, or three times as high as the neck,
the law of proportion is satisfied, taking into considera-
tion the principle above stated.
The ovoid, as we regard it, is a form exclusively
Ceramic; it has no significance in architectural con-
structions. The domes of St. Peter's at Rome, of St.
Paul's at London, of the Panthéon at Paris, generally
regarded as ovoids, are sublime ogivoids.
As an ornament in architecture, the ovoid, under the
name of egg, is frequently and usefully employed in
entablatures and eurythmic compositions; it corres-
ponds agreeably with the modillions and dentels, which
it embellishes by contrast. Considered alone, the egg
ornament also produces a good effect by the interposi-
tion of slender lines and acute forms. The eggs of the
Temple of Concord are intermixed with points. In the
Temple of Jupiter Tonans, the arrrow-point contrasts
with the curve of the egg. Finally, we see that the
ovoid has been chosen by the Creator for the form of a
young and beautiful face. This consideration, which is
a law of general beauty, explains the success of the
ovoid vase and the beauty of the egg, for man esteems
above everything the contours which reproduce his own
image.


60
MIXED FORMS.
things from the Egyptians, 'but the latter, in their
turn, owe much to Indian traditions.
The design representing the Cano-
FIG. 3.
pian form, A, and the Phocian form, B
(these two mixed forms par excellence),
superimposed, will render apparent,
much better than a long discourse, the
influence of the contours of the human
form upon our predilections and judg-
ments in producing Ceramic forins of
abstract form and beauty.
These forms have been indicated
(Frontispiece, D 1, E 1), as the types
of the mixed form; the first, A, having
given rise to the contours of the Doric
capital of the most beautiful Greek
temples, was consecrated by Phidias,
either in the torus of the Parthenon,.
or in the portion of the frieze where
we see four amphoræ, found in the
ruins on the north of this temple. The
second, B, has produced the capitals of
the temples of Elephanta, of Karnac,
and also a form of the most ancient supports of the
Indian temples. This design, A B, far from being the
result of subtle research, or of slight analogy, represents,
in an analytical point of view, a profound and important
observation. As to the truth of these analogies, they
will be demonstrated to the reader who attentively
examines the Egyptian antiquities collected in the
British Museum and elsewhere.
aliwa


62
COROLLÆ, CAMPANULÆ, AND STEMS.
art, shines with all the beauty of a field flower, and
alone, without ornament, without any addition what-
ever, forms an elegant vase.
When the curvature of the sides commences at the
lower third (Frontispiece, F 2), the form, approaching
more that of a clavoid, without ceasing to be beautiful,
requires less height relatively to the diameter, and now
the want of a base begins to appear evident. This
second corolla is that which forms the sides of the
composite vase called the Medician.
Lastly, when the cylindroid is inflected outwards, com-
mencing with the upper third, and inwards, commencing
with the lower third (Frontispiece F3), this mixed form,
which is that of a bell, is called campanula. It resembles
the flower of the lily of the valley; but stability requires
that the campanula should have a base, or a foot.
Considered by architects as an integral part of the
Corinthian capital, the campanula goes back to the
epoch at which Callimachus lived; and, as a ceramic
work, having preceded the capital of Callimachus, its
origin is lost in the darkness of ages.
We may regard the stems, or elongated corollæ, in
Ceramic art, as members of a composite work, or as ex-
ceptions which fancy can oppose to the rigorous prin-
ciples of art, but which good sense and good taste admit
only when provided with members which ensure their
stability. The intimate union of the straight line with
the curved line in the same contour, is the principle
which must preside in tracing corollæ, campanulæ, and
stems.


68
MOULDINGS.
but its effect will especially depend upon the law of
proportions (p. 28), by means of which a mass governs
the details which are subordinated to it in volume, in
light, and in importance.
This law being unknown or misunderstood, a suc-
cessful moulding is the result of accident; and in almost
every edifice, we perceive the uncertainty that prevails
in this particular.
FIG. 6.
If we analyse the profile
of this torus, which is only
a simple circular moulding,
we find a straight line B A
governing by its extent the
curves B C and A, which
are attached in unequal
quantities, in place of a
quarter circle as used by the
Romans and the Italians
Vignola, Palladio, and Sca-
mozza, and in place of the
PROFILE OF THE CAPITAL OF THE mouldings of the carpenters
of all times; we see the intelligent application of
the finest and profoundest arcana of the science of
forms; the mixture, in certain quantities of plane and
curved surfaces in the same contour.
Let us examine a moulding among a thousand, that
of a structure dating from the finest period in Ancient
Art, in order to demonstrate the little use made of the
compass by the great masters of architecture.
The rounded parts E D of this moulding, are re-
markable in this-their contours, as those of the
COLUMNS AT ELEUSIS.


LAWS OF ORNAMENTATION.
tions results from the complication of the relative parts,
from the contact of the different members composing
the whole. Strength and weakness, order and dis-
order, symmetry and non-symmetry, cross, bind, and
unite to form unity from variety.
The beauty of an ornament, of a theorem in geo-
metry, of a dramatic, oratorical, or musical composi-
tion, depend on the same law. The word complication
suggests the idea of order, of clear solution, and, at the
same time, of obscure combination; it indicates at once
the knotting and the unknotting; lastly, and always,
diversity and union. As to beauty, which acording to
Diderot, resides in “a word, an idea, a part of an
object,” to which we see nothing analogous in archi-
tecture, it corresponds to a primary or mixed form : it
has its particular law, which is the law of fitness.
Complication is also a phase of art, which is derived
from the sentiment Dedalus has expressed in the plan
of his labyrinth ; Solomon in his mysterious seal; the
Greeks in their interlaced meanders; the Byzantines,
the Moors, and the architects of our cathedrals, in
their most beautiful works. The interlacings, the
mosaics, the intersection of ribs and fillets, are the
results of complication.
Complication charms us, in presenting to our notice
the material formula of intelligence in labour; of in-
telligence combining without separating the different
or opposed parts of a whole.
Complication, considered as a work, and as a prin-
ciple, is a visible glorification of the human mind,
raised to divinity by the infinite perception of regular


REPETITION.
75
of a melody. We admire the beautiful arrangement of
the consecutive metopes, the regularity of their periodi-
cal movements, the proportion of the intervals, the
accuracy of the time, the perfect harmony of the
concerting parts—I say, concerting, for the object of
eurythmy is the uniting in a general concert the varied
members and ornaments of an edifice.
If we approach nearer, we perceive the mouldings
and their reliefs, the meanders which harmoniously
roll and unroll themselves, in spaces at learnedly cal-
culated distances; heads of growling lions, the salient
forms of which are spirited notes in the midst of crepi-
tant palm-leaves; the flutings of the columns appear
like the vibrations of the male voice; the capitals, by
their rounded form, convey to the mind an impression
of the lugubrious drum—they contrast, in their re-
sonance, with the large triple band of the architrave,
which extends like the line of a long recitative, and
combines the unequal tones of a monumental concert
in a unity.
Such effects are not due to a capricious imagination ;
they proceed from science-- from a law - from eurythmy.
They explain why music formed a part of the education
of an Athenian architect, the possessor of the secrets
discovered by Pythagoras.
III. REPETITION.
Repetition is justly considered as one of the principles
of ornamentation. A common-place object-a small
cube, for instance-being repeated, and formed into a


76
ALTERNATION AND INTERSECTION.
continuous series, produces an agreeable effect in a
moulding; such are dentels. A channel, a leaf, &c.,
being repeated, become architecturic ornaments, which
derive all their value from repetition. The Corinthian
order demonstrates this truth in its minutest details.
IV. ALTERNATION.
Repetition may be simple as just described, it may
also be alternating when, for example, the spaces
between the leaves of ivy on a moulding, are filled with
leaves of another kind, elongated, for instance, the
pointed form of which produces alternation : or when
square discs or rings are placed between elongated
pearls, or when the egg or ovolo is repeated alternately
with a leaf or dart.
Alternation is a formula of repetition, which has its
rule; this rule is, that the alternating parts must vary
in volume and in extent, as well as in form and in
design. Symmetry and variety, repetition and in-
equality are the rules, the principles of alternation.
V. INTERSECTION.
The Greeks, in the ornamentation of a moulding, had
recourse only to repetition or alternation: imitated by
the Romans, who, in their turn, are imitated by the
moderns, we must not be surprised that words are
wanting to express unknown facts. It then becomes
necessary to employ the word intersection, to designate
the extension of an eurythmic cadence, and the beats