THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECT'S JOURNAL. 



January, 



are, in fact, less probable than those born of the ocean or the earth. 

 Between animal and vegetable life there is also a sufficient analogy 

 to attach some probability, or at least to afford an apology, for the 

 graceful combinations between these two kingdoms of nature, in- 

 vented by the ancients, and adopted to a very great extent in the 

 compositions before us; but, when we come to combine animal life 

 with unorganized matter, the probability ceases ; and if, as in the 

 case before us, the unorganized portion is something artificial, and 

 totally out of proportion besides, the combination becomes intolerable. 

 Thus we acquiesce in the metamorphoses of Ovid or the Arabian 

 Nights, as long as certain analogies are observed ; but the transfor- 

 mation of the ships of Eneas into sea nymphs, is, as one of our 

 greatest critics has observed, a violation of probability to which 

 nothing can reconcile us. 



No conventional form has been more abused than the terminus. 

 Intelligence and immobility are the attributes which the ancients in- 

 tended it to embody, but their apposite creation is totally different from 

 anomalous compositions like this, into which it has been tortured. 



The scroll in the half pilaster of this example is greatly superior to 

 that in No. 2. It is more simple in its composition, and the leaves 

 are broad and natural, and fill the space much more satisfactorily 

 than a multiplicity of wiry lines and flimsy objects, producing confu- 

 sion, and destructive of breadth of effect. 



In No. 5, we arrive at a superior composition ; for it must be re- 

 peated, we are examining the decoration of a single member of an 

 extensive whole, and that however beautiful each may be, unity is a 

 beauty in addition. No object in decoration has been so extensively 

 used as the scroll. The ancients do not appear to have been afflicted 

 with an unhappy craving for novelties, nor to have been haunted with 

 the apprehension that beautiful forms of composition would become 

 less beautiful by repetition. When the most appropriate forms in 

 architecture and decoration were once ascertained, they were contin- 

 ually repeated, but marked with a fresh character, and stamped with 

 originality by those refined and delicate touches which were all-suffi- 

 cient when they were properly appreciated. We need only refer to 

 the temples of the ancients, to see how pertinaciously they adhered 

 to an established principle, and to the varieties in the proportions of 

 the Doric order, or the character of the Corinthian capital, varieties 

 which we may be assured were nei- 

 ther capricious nor accidental, to see 

 how studiously they availed them- 

 selves of all the resources of art in 

 its details. In the same manner with 

 regard to the ever-recurring form of 

 the scroll, as long as the foliage and 

 ramifications of nature are unex- 

 hausted, so long will it be capable 

 of assuming an original character in 

 the hands of the skilful artist. A 

 striking illustration of this position 

 may be drawn from the arabesques 

 in the palace of Caprarola, where 

 the pilasters of the Loggie are de- 

 corated with scrolls, all similar in 

 composition, but each formed of a 

 different species of natural foliage, 

 without the intermixture of any- 

 thing conventional, except the regu- 

 larity of the convolutions. I regret 

 that I can show but three of these 

 beautiful scrolls, and those very 

 slightly represented. They are com- 

 posed of the olive, (Fig. 4,) the 

 vine, (Fig. 5,) and the convolvulus, 

 (Fig. 6.) The latter being rather 

 thin in proportion to the others, is 

 enriched with birds. 



Fig. 4. 



Fig ■>. 



For the magnificent scroll before us we are indebted to the antique. 

 It is an imitation of the well known marble in the Villa Medici, but 

 the artist has made it his own by the skill with which he has adapted 

 it to his purpose both in proportion and colour (see Plate I, Fig. 2.) 

 I would particularly call your attention to the animals, the squirrels, 

 the mice, the lizards, the snake, the grasshopper, and the snail, dis- 

 persed about the branches, so well calculated to fill the spaces they 

 occupy, and at the same time producing a variety which would have 

 been wanting, bad the foliage only been extended with that object. 

 To the scroll in the half pilaster, it is to be objected, that it is a re- 

 petition in small, of that in the principal compartment; but if ex- 

 amined separately, it will be found full of instruction, from the union 

 it displays of natural objects with conventional forms. The spiral 

 line of the antique scroll, is evidently drawn from the natural course 

 of climbing plants. It is conventional in its openness and regularity. 

 The involucra of plants furnish the hint for the base from which the 

 antique scroll is made to spring, and the spathes of the liliaceous 

 tribe for the sheaths, of a conventional repetition of which, the an- 

 cient sculptured scrolls principally consist. Thus far for the general 

 elements of the antique scroll, which the artist has implicitly followed 

 in the example before us ; but he has enriched his composition 

 without disturbing its unity, by making every sheath produce a dif- 

 ferent branch, drawn immediately from nature. The birds present 

 an equal variety, and are occupied according to their natural habits, 

 in feeding on the berries and buds, or on the variety of insects which 

 are also introduced. The arabesques in the side panels are to be 

 particularly noticed in this example. A motivo, however slight, is 

 always to be desired, and here we see a very graceful one, in the two 

 winged boys, who dip into a vase-like fountain. The winged bear , 



