Page:An Encyclopædia of Cottage, Farm, and Villa Architecture and Furniture.djvu/1138

 llli COTTAGE, FARM, AND VILLA ARCHITECTURE. Only on one side, by those ledges, or " settings back," which become necessary when it diminishes as it ascends, is expressive of strength ; and the excess of the length and breadth of a building, relatively to its height, is indicative of stability. The value of these kinds of expression is found by contrasting them with whatever, in the elevation of a building, is indicative of weakness, temporary duration, or deformed construction. The reader will easily be able to supply, from his own observations or experience, innumerable instances of the same kind as those here given ; the tendency of all which is to prove, that the expression of fitness of construction for the end in view, is a beauty in Architecture as positive, as that of the expression of fitness for the end in view itself. Chap. IIL Of the Expression of Architectural Style. 2201. Tlie Expression of Architectural Sti/le, as may be inferred from the two preceding chapters, is not an essential beauty in a building. An edifice may be useful, strong, and durable, botli in reality and in expression, without having any otlier beauties than those of use and truth; that is, of fitness for the end in view, and of expression of the end in view ; or, in familiar language, of being suitable to the use for which it was designed, and of appearing to be wliat it is. The object of Architecture, as an art of taste, is to add to the beauties of use and truth other beauties, the creation of which is its peculiar pro- vince. The beauties of use and truth address themselves chiefly to the reason ; those of Architecture, as an art of taste, address thenxselves jointly to the reason and to the imagin- ation. All the arts of ta-ste produce their eifect upon the m.ind through the senses. Thus, music affects us by sounds, painting by colours, and poetry and oratory by words. Architecture and sculpture operate almost exclusively by forms ; and they differ chiefly in this respect, that sculpture has for its object the production of the imitations of natural forms, while Architecture operates by combinations of fornis entirely artificial. 2202. The Beauty of Architectural Forms arises from two causes : the expression of certain qualities which result from combinations of those forms, such as unity, variety, symmetry, &c. ; and the expression of certain forms and details which have been con- secrated to Architecture by long-continued use. The first may be called the univei-sal and inherent beauties of all architectural styles ; and the second, the historical or accidental beauties of particular styles. The first kind of beauty is altogether inde- pendent of any style of Architecture which has hitherto existed, or which may here- after exist ; its eifect resulting entirely from organic impressions, and associations of a general nature : the second depends on the addition, to the first class of beauties, of the associations connected with the known forms and details of the different styles of Architecture hitherto in use, or which may hereafter come into use, in this and in other countries. Sect. I. Of the universal and inherent Beauties of Architectural Composition. 2203. The Production of a Whole is the first object in every composition ; because the mind can only comprehend with ease and satisfaction one object at a time. If two objects of different natures, in the same scene or view, present equal claims to attention, we can derive pleasure from neither, unless we have the power of abstracting the mind fi-om one of them, and directing the attention wholly to the other. 2204. Unity. Hence it is that unity is the fundamental principle of all compositions whatever. If the reader will turn to the designs given in this work, and examine them one by one, without the slightest reference to their fitness for dwellings, or to their arclii- tectural stvle, he will find that a principal cause of the pleasure which he derives from observing them arises from their expression of unity. He will find that thek general arrangement indicates a imity of mind and of system ; that the prevailing forms, in any one design that strikes him ;is beautiful, are of the same kind ; that the shapes and sizes of the openings arc similar ; and that the prevailing or most conspicuous lines are chiefly in one direction, and either perpendicular or horizontal. So much, indeed, is this the case, that we will venture to assert, if the reader finds the lines of some of the masses in any one design exceeding in a vertical direction, and those in other masses of the same design exceeding in a horizontal direction, that design will not give him much plciisure. Hence it is that a Grecian church with the long horizontal and depressed lines of its architraves and cornices, and a lofty spire at one end with its preponderance of perpendicular lines, never pleases so well as a Gothic church and spire, where the principal lines of the buttresses, and even those of the steep roof, all tend upwards, in unity with those of the spire. Hence, also, the reason why a portico to a cii'cular building never forms such a