Page:An Encyclopædia of Cottage, Farm, and Villa Architecture and Furniture.djvu/1140

 1110 COTTAGE, FARM, AND VILLA ARCHITECTURE. regularity gradually emerging, and to discover, among the apparent chaos, some uniform principle which reconciles the whole. To reduce a number of apparently dissimilar par- ticulars under one general law of resemblance, as it is one of the strongest evidences of wisdom and design, so it is also productive of one of the strongest emotions of beauty which design can produce." (Essays, &e., vol. ii. p. 68.) Something of this kind of beauty may be felt on approaching an extensive villa in the Gothic style, with numerous towers and projections : seen in distant perspective, blended with trees, it appears a mass of parts which the mind cannot reduce into any order ; in advancing towards it, some of these parts appear larger than others, and the smaller seem to be grouped around them ; but, on arriving at the front of the building, the whole assumes a symmetrical disposition, and the mind and the eye become alike satisfied. 2207. Symmetry, Uniformity, and Begularity are terms which are considered by many as constituting the principal beauties of arcliitectural productions. The reason is, that every one can recognise by these properties, in any object whatever, the evidence of de- sign, and the idea of a whole. The rudest mind sees the evidence of design in a house with a door in the centre of the front, having a window on each side of it. This is symmetry ; and it conveys the idea of unity, or a whole, because every thing that is to be found on one side of the door is to be found also on the other. The prevalence of one form for all the general masses, and of one form for all the doors and windows of a building, is what is called unifonuity or similarity ; and this gives pleasure for the same reason as symmetry ; viz., that it gives evidence of design, and indicates the idea of a whole. The regular recurrence of any form at certain distances is also an evidence of design, and gives pleasure for the same reason ; viz., that of assisting the mind in com- prehending what is before it. These beauties are also more easily produced, and com- prehended, than many others ; and are, therefore, very properly, of universal application. The opposite extremes, into which they are apt to degenerate, are, dissimilarity in form and irregularity in disposition. 2208. Irregularity, when not carried so far as to produce confusion, is, liowever, desii'able, as it joins to the beauty of uniformity the beauties of variety and of intri- cacy. " In general," observes Alison, " regular figures are more beautiful than irregular ones ; and regular figures of a greater number of parts are more beautiful than the same figures of a smaller number of parts : they cease only to be beautiful when the number of their parts is so great as to produce confusion, and, consequently, to obscure the expression of design. It is the same principle which seems to produce the beauty of intricacy." (Essays, &c., vol. ii. p. 67.) See, on this subject, the remarks in § 119. 2209. Simplicity may be considered a negative quality in objects, since it does not imply any thing produced, but merely the absence of something else ; that is, of com- plexity. The value of simplicity chiefly consists in its facilitating the comprehension of a whole ; but, by contrast, it may become a positive beauty. In situations where all the buildings are of several stories, and elaborately finished, a shed or a cottage, with plain walls and a plain projecting roof, will be hailed as an object of simple beauty, from the repose which it aflbrds to the eye, as contrasted with the excitement produced by the variety and intricacy of the more finished edifices by which it is surrounded. Simplicity, ■however, as Wood observes, " may be carried to an extreme, and persons of the best and piu'est taste will differ as to the precise degree of it required." Mr. Hosking, the author of the verj' excellent article on Architecture, in the seventh edition of the Encyclo- pcEclia Britannica, mentions simplicity as one of the fundamental elements of beauty in Architecture. Simplicity in form and outline he considers above all things essential,. and he illustrates his opinion by reference to various existing examples. It appears to us, however, that he has, in some cases, made use of the word simplicity, where the term unity would have been more appropriate. For example, he says, " few can admire the external effect of the Pantheon in Rome, or of the Colosseum in London, though certain features in both may be indisputably good. To these may be added the church in Langham Place, London. The complication of straight and circular in the com- position of these buildings, and their consequent irregular forms and discordant outlines, totally destroy both simplicity and harmony." We entirely agree with this criticism ; but we think that the want of harmony is not produced l)y the absence of simplicity, but by the want of unity of form. At all events, this would be oir mode of expressing what we consider wanting in such a case ; and we have thought it necessary to state this here, to show that two critics may entirely agree in their opinion of a work, and yet differ in the use of terms for expressing that opinion. As a farther example of want of simplicity, Mr. Hosking refers to the more simple form of the Egyptian obelisk, as compared with the monumental column ; and in this use of the term simplicity we wholly concur. Not so, however, in comparing the monument on Fish Street Hill with the shot tower at Waterloo Bridge. " They are both of cylindrical form," Mr. Hosking observes ; " but the one is crowned by a square abacus, and the other by a bold cornice,