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THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECTS JOURNAL. 



[April 



nine ; but if made large, you might then discern which was an eagle and 

 which a crow. 



Vitruvius, lib. vi. c. 11, and lib. iii. c. Ill, refers to optical effects. 

 Proportion is the third principle set forth by Vitruvius, the most difficult 

 and the most precious to the architect, and no less a golden rule in his art 

 than in that of the arithmetician. Symmetry, which is the fourth principle 

 or our author, is, by a vulgarism, often mistaken for proportion ; but the 

 etymology defines its meaning, as correspondence or parity of parts on either 

 side a centre ; at most it may signify proportion of aliquot parts. No part 

 of architecture has occupied the speculations of the ingenious more than 

 proportion, and those who have not found the analogy of the human form, 

 as set forth by Vitruvius from the Greeks, sufficient, have endeavoured to 

 find a more certain analogy in the laws of musical sounds : Blondel, Ouvrard 

 and others, may be consulted on this point. 



To the artist observer of the proportions and forms of animal nature, the 

 Creek analogy seems to develop the science of proportion in the comparison 

 of animals of the same genus, but of various species, sufficiently to show 

 that beauty resides in inequalities ; the measure of those inequalities is, in- 

 deed, not so easily defined ; but the establishment of the fact may help the 

 architect to some valuable conclusions. 



Thus, if we divide the human profile, the forehead, the nose, the upper 

 lip, and- the chin, into equal parts, we have ugliness : the profile of the 

 Apollo presents these parts in inequalities, and upon the nice variety of these 

 beauty depends. 



The satyrus, or baboon, is ugly, compared with the man : amongst many 

 'jther reasons, for this, especially to the architect, that his proportions ap- 

 proach equalities. The baboon is six heads high ; his arms equal the entire 

 length of his body and legs ; the subdivisions of the arm, the hand, the 

 fore-arm, and os humeri, are nearly equal; so also the foot, the leg, and the 

 thigh. If these proportions are compared with the human form divine, in 

 which they are all in different and unequal lengths, the cause of beauty will 

 be at once apparent. The human figure is eight heads high, and is inscribed 

 by Vitruvius in a square, whereas the baboon is inscribed in a figure of less 

 beauty, namely, a parallelogram of six by eleven, such is the length of his 

 arms. Thus, again, if we inquire why the ass is so inferior to the horse, we 

 shall find the same answers. The one is little more than two heads to the 

 shoulder, while the horse is 21 ; the ears of the ass approach equality with 

 the head or neck. The scapula to the os humeri, in the ass, four to five, in 

 the horse is four to six ; the metacarpus to the radius three to five in the 

 ass, is 2\ to five in the horse. 



The Professor exhibited drawings in illustration of these remarks, and 

 stated, that the same relations applied to vegetable nature, and that beauty 

 there, also, would be found to reside in inequalities ; and he proceeded to 

 show, that orthographic equalities in the vertical features of architecture, 

 both in the divisions of floors and orders, and in details, were always evi- 

 dences of the decline of taste. In Greek profile it would be found uni- 

 versally, that the inequalities constituted their charm; in the Roman they 

 were not so nicely observed ; in the Byzantine, the plain and moulded sur- 

 faces approached equalities. So in Gothic architecture, the period of the 

 thirteenth was far superior to any other in this respect ; of which the tran- 

 sept of Beverley Minster, and the order of Salisbury Cathedral were beau- 

 tiful illustrations. So in every other architecture, and informs of all kinds. 

 In fact, from the lung anil the short, the dactyle and spondee, hexameter 

 and pentameter, sapphics and iambics, the very term evpviiua (proportion), 

 Si by the Greeks, was di 

 Under the fifth head, Consistency, lib. i. e. 2, Vitruvius tells us. that cir- 

 :nce, custom, or fitness, and nature are to guide its. Temples to Ju- 

 Ccelus, the sun and moon, are to lie hypethral, because these divinities 

 are known to us by their continual presence night and day. Doric temples 

 I to be erected to Minerva, Mars, and Hercules, on account of their mas- 

 line character; Corinthian is proper to Venus, Flora, Proserpine, 8tc | 

 mic, as the medium order, is applicable to Juno, Diana, and Bacchus; all 

 these, says he, bear an analoni/ to the dispositions of the deities. 



Again, in lib. iii. c. 1, he says, " the design of temples depends on sym- 

 • try. the rules of which architects should be most careful to observe; 

 symmetry arises from proportion, which the Greeks call avaXoym.'' He 

 then proceeds to describe the proportions of the human figure in detail, and 

 remarks its correspondence with the geometrical figures, the square and the 

 circle; even the measures used in buildings, the digit, the palm, the foot, the 

 cubit, called by the Greeks TtAeios, pro\e the analogy of architecture (con- 

 tinues he) with the human proportions. 



In lib. iv. c. 1, Vitruvius describes the origin of the Doric, Ionic, and Corin- 

 thian orders, as derived from the proportions of the man, the matron, and 

 the damsel, by analogy; and although these analogies have been regarded 

 by some as fanciful, their resthetical propriety is more intelligible to the 

 artist, than their definition by language to the logical reader. For instance, 

 the ancient Doric, from five to six diameters in height, though low in its 

 proportions, assumes a dignity in its concentrated strength and solidity, its 

 rapid diminution, and its wide-spreading cap, which no one who has viewed 

 it at Pcestum and at Corinth can ever forget. 



When Homer describes Priam as identifying the Grecian leaders from the 

 walls of Troy, he is made to inquire of Helen — 



What's he whose arms lie scattered on the plain ; 

 Broad in his breast, his shoulders larger spread, 

 Though great Atrides overtops his head ? 



Had Homer (always a painter) confined his description to the stoutness 

 and the shortness of Ulysses, we should have been at a loss for his heroic 

 dignity; he might have been a tub or an alderman, but the " broad shoulders 

 and spreading breast" imply the rapid diminution of the waist, and the 

 same healthful and vigorous character through every limb ; and Ulvsses 

 stands before us in all the energy of the Grecian hero — 



Though some of larger stature tread the green, 

 None match his grandeur and exalted mien .' 



no such peculiarity is attributed to " the great Atrides ;" the tall is not com- 

 patible with this rapid diminution : whenever these qualities, therefore, are 

 affected, as in the Parthenon, the temple of Nemea, or in the Roman Doric, 

 the upper diameter bears a larger proportion to the lower. So in the matro- 

 nal or the medium proportion, the gradation of form is much smaller; and 

 in the juvenile Apollo or the young damsel, the diminution of the limbs is 

 still less observable; and the Ionic or the Corinthian are proportioned ac- 

 cordingly. In the details the same analogy is observed ; the mouth, the eye, 

 and the features of the Hercules are as susceptible of delicacy as the Doric 

 echinus is of its small fillets and its fine contour. 



The matronal or medium demands a sober ornament, and the Corinthian 

 all the young elegance which the acanthus and the graceful Lesbian profile 

 can communicate. 



Thus the tall, the short, and the slender, are all types of proportion in 

 their proper places ; their eiccss makes them the awkward and ungainly, the 

 clumsy and shapeless, and the thin or meagre ; and there is no other course 

 by which they can be rightly embodied, than by the careful and intelligent 

 observation of those types, as exhibited in the works of nature — in the ani- 

 mal and vegetable kingdoms. 



In this respect taste, like wit, consists in discovering resemblances and 

 unexpected congruities. 



The history of the works of genius illustrates abundantly the reference to 

 analogy in the science as well as in the art of architecture. Smeaton, in his 

 work on the Light-House at Eddystone, after describing the former ones, 

 and showing their defects, proceeds to explain his original conception of 

 that celebrated work. "On this occasion," says Smeaton, "the natural 

 figure of the waist or bole of a large spreading oak presented itself to my 

 imagination. Its top, when full of leaves, is subject to a very great impulse 

 from the agitation of violent winds; yet partly by its elasticity, and partly 

 by the natural strength arising from its figure, it resists them all, even for 

 ages. It is rare that we hear of such a tree being torn up by the roots. 

 Let us now consider its particular figure. Connected with its roots, which 

 lie hid below ground, it rises from the surface thereof with a large swelling 

 base, which at the height of one diameter is generally reduced by an 

 elegant curve, concave to the eye, to a diameter less by at least one- 

 third, and sometimes to half, of its original base. From thence its 

 taper diminishing more slow, its sides by degrees come into a perpendicular, 

 and for some height form a cylinder. Now, we can hardly doubt but that 

 every section of the tree is nearly of an equal strength in proportion to what 

 it has to resist; and were wc to lop off its principal boughs, and expose it 

 in that state to a rapid current of water, we should liud it as much capable 

 of resisting the action of the heavier fluid, when divested of the greatest 

 part of its clothing, as it was that of the lighter when all its spreading orna- 

 ments were exposed to the fury of the wind. And hence we may derive an 

 idea of what the proper shape of a column of the greatest stability ought to 

 be, to resist the action of e\ternal violence, where the quantity of matter is 

 given whereof it is to be composed." 



Sir C. Wren has given another tine example of this kind of analogy. In 

 the vast practice which the fifty churches of this metropolis and the exami- 

 nation of all the authorities which he had occasion to consult had given him, 

 he reflected that the hollow spire which he had seen or built in so many va- 

 rieties was after all but an infirm structure; and be sought that model which 

 should enable him to impart to it the utmost solidity and duration. Simple 

 was the original from which he adopted his idea. He found that the deli- 

 cate shell called turretella, though extremely long, and liable to fracture 

 from its base to its apex, by the action of the water amidst the rocks, was 

 rendered impregnable by the central column, or newel, round which the 

 spiral turned. Therefore, in his spire of St. Bride's, he establishes the 

 columella in the centre, round which he forms a spiral staircase to the top, 

 issuing on stages of arched apertures : thus giving us (if not the most beau- 

 tiful) certainly the most remarkable and enduring of any spire hitherto 

 erected. 



One more instance equally remarkable may be given. When Brunelleschi 

 was charged with the erection of the dome of Sta. Maria, at Florence, of 

 nearly equal diameter with that of the Pantheon, but at more than twice its 

 height from the pavement, upon a base raised on piers, and by no means of 

 the strength and cohesion of the original model, the Pantheon, it was appa- 

 rent that in giving it the same solidity, the weight would be insupportable 

 on such a foundation. How was this object to be accomplished . ; Brunel- 

 leschi was an observer of all nature's productions, and he reflected that the 

 bones of animals, especially of birds, possessed solidity without weight, by 

 the double crust and hollow within. But above all, he remarked that the 

 dome which completes the architecture of the human form divine wa6 con- 

 structed with a double plate, connected by the light and fibrous, but firm 

 walls of the hollow cancelli, so that strength and lightness were combined 

 in the utmost degree. Brunelleschi followed this model in his dome of Sta. 



