694 



POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



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dimensions. The principal requirement is that outlines should be 

 agreeable and must be well defined. In fact, the two qualities tire 

 inseparable, for a well-defined outline is agreeable and a badly 

 defined one is sure to be disagreeable. By well-defined is meant 

 that its particular shape should easily appear and be clearly dis- 

 tinguishable. For instance, a square should appear with sides dis- 

 tinctly equal; a circle should have but one center. In an archi- 

 tectural opening either arch or entablature should prevail, and the 

 character of the arch should be evident. In the examples pre- 

 sented (Fig. 8) in the view these 

 principles are violated. The first 

 figure is so clearly a square that at 

 first, and before you have examined 

 it closely, you think it is a square. 

 It leaves an indefinite and conse- 

 quently disagreeable impression. The 

 same criticism applies to the second 

 object, apparently a mirror. The 

 glass is round, but the frame is so 

 irregular that the impress of the cir- 

 cle is destroyed, and there is left an 

 undecided and therefore uncomfort- 

 able sensation. In the third example 

 the arch is so poorly defined and so 

 weak, while the entablature above it 

 is so strong and so prominent, that 

 the result is a composition that fails 

 to give pleasure, because no distinct 

 idea is conveyed. In the last exam- 

 ])le the outlines of the arch are so in- 

 definite that its character is indistinguishable. You can not "see 

 which prevails, the rotmd arch or the pointed arch. 



The same principles apply to smaller objects and to details, 

 as seen in the next view (Fig. 9). To the left the date plate on 

 top is bad in comparison with the one beneath it, because its 

 direction is not so well marked and its corner projections are 

 too large. In the lambrequins on the right, those are good in 

 which the general direction is properly marked, and in which 

 subdivisions are kept properly subordinated. Lambrequins have 

 so entirely gone out of use nowadays that it is difficult to re- 

 call the time M'hen they were regarded as indispensable parts of 

 furniture. 



There is one other point to which your attention should be 

 called — that is, stability. If an object be intended to stand, its 



Fig. 12. 



