Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 56.djvu/709

Rh instance, in the view (Fig. 6) the pedestal marked bon is good, because the body of the pedestal is the principal object and it is clearly seen that the moldings at the base and at the top are subordinate and merely ornamental, while the pedestal marked mauvais is decidedly bad, because more vertical space is given to the moldings than to the shaft, confusing outline, weakening the shaft, and destroying the sense of strong and steady support.

Readers may at once make use of the information already acquired by seeing how these rules apply to their own lamps, candlesticks, pieces of furniture, etc.

The next view (Fig. 7) shows incidentally how much better it is under all circumstances to mark with fillets and lines the changes



from one curve to another, for you certainly see how much more substantial character and beauty has B than A.

Finally, let it be said, and said emphatically, that though there are profiles which require the use of the compass to draw them, and though all architectural details must be worked out with mathematical accuracy, those profiles and outlines are the most beautiful where it is evident that artistic skill governing a free hand has controlled and where mechanical assistance is so subordinate as to be overlooked.

There is very little to be said about surfaces or forms of two