166 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECT'S JOURNAL. 



[May, 



down, therefore, his harmonic proportion, in which Blondel, Ouvrard and 

 others have followed. The notion of musical proportions is common, and 

 has occupied many ingenious minds already versed in that art. Describing 

 St. Peter's, Byron, in this feeling, observes 



Vastness which grows, but grows to harmonize, 

 All musical in its immensities. 



Alherti was the first also to establish the rules of arithmetical and geome- 

 trical proportions (lib. ix. b. 3, 4, 5, 6), applied to all the varieties of areas 

 and capacities. He is followed by Palladio in the arithmetical and geome- 

 trical rules, lib. i. c. 23. 



It is a comfortable conclusion to the practical architect that the empirical 

 rules of Vitruvius, the harmonic, the geometrical and arithmetical rules of 

 Alberti and his followers, agree in the main, so that either may be adopted 

 without material deviation from correctness; but the neglect of these rules, 

 in which lie that bidden charm that every one must be sensible of when 

 examining a finely proportioned room, has been common of late years, as if 

 the principle were of no value; the zealous student therefore should care- 

 fully note that consent of t lie ancients and the most illustrious masters of 

 the moderns, here set forth ; and he will soon learn devoutly to repeat the 

 denunciation of the Hindu Vitruvius (Ram Raz, Asiatic Society, 1834, p. 15), 

 " Woe to them who dwell in a house not built according to the proportions 

 of symmetry." 



It is true, that the climate of this country and our habits do not often 

 permit the finer Italian proportions; thus the arithmetical rule of proportion, 

 common with our greatest masters, in our best mansions, 36 by 1'4, should 

 give us 30 feet high to the vault, but we commonly limit it to 18 feet. To 

 correct the defect of lowness, so frequent with us, the illusions of perspec- 

 tive painting, after the admirable Pozzo, may well apply ; but even the ar- 

 rangement of the trabeation and plaster enrichments, offer to the ingenious 

 architect, versed in perspective, many resources for the increase of the ap- 

 parent height, and for the attainment of an artificial proportion. But a 

 manufacturing people are prone to carpets, rugs, curtains, gilded frames, and 

 mahogany furniture, while the low ceiling is a sheet of paper stretched like 

 a drum, at most of a neutral tint, of indurated fog, with a gilt moulding: 

 while the artistic Italian opens a window of perspective in his ceiling, 

 through which a canopy of poetry and distance delights the eye, and de- 

 ceives the understanding; but the floor is paved with tiles. 



Again, in our modern churches, a ceiling, 60 by 80, has often been fear- 

 lessly stretched in one unbroken surface of plaster, in defiance of the fine 

 examples of Charles's and Queen Anne's churches, in which a cove, after the 

 Italian manner, has the eft'eet of reducing the ceiling, and of rectifying the 

 proportion in the simplest and most graceful manner. The student should 

 well reflect on this important field for architectural skill and effect. lie 

 maybe a good builder and cheap, but he can have no pretensions as an artist 

 who throws away his time and his character in such condescensions as this 

 mechanical employment of his talent implies. 



The rules hitherto referred to, have the beautiful for their object. Beauty 

 in architecture depends, ither causes, especially on the exact and 



graceful proportions of the parts and of the whole. But the sublime de- 

 pends upon other causes, in which ndes cannot prescribe ; to the latter not 

 only the rules of the former do not apply, but they are destructive of it. If 

 the beautiful resides in the proportionate, it would appear that the sublime 

 often resides in the disproportionate. The principles and the rules of beauty 

 and sublimity are distinct. If we stand under au arch of London Bridge, 

 the vaulted soffitc, so vast and extended, sustained from such distant abut- 

 ments, produces a kind of sublime; no doubt aided by its comparative low- 

 ness. The Pantheon is inscribed in a cube, its height equal to its diameter ; 

 no one standing under its prodigious cupola has ever denied its sublimity. 

 But when that same Pantheon is raised into the air (in equal dimension) at 

 St. Peter's, it may have become beautiful, but has lost its quality of sublime. 

 When Byron apostrophizes the Pantheon, he feels the peculiarity of its 

 merit : — 



Simple, erect, severe, austere, sublime, 

 Shriue of all saints, and temple of all gods, 

 From Jove to Jesus, spared and blest by Time. 

 Looking tranquility ! 



As the dome of the Pantheon is raised at St. Peter's into a proportionate 

 height, at the expense of its sublime, so the nave (nearly twice as wide as 

 that of St. Paul's Cathedral), also raised proportionately, loses all effect of 

 magnitude ; and the common and universal observation is, that as respects 

 this important effect the architect has laboured in vain ; and the work stands 

 self-condemned. 



The noble poet coincides with the received opinion, and is obliged to 

 supply by poetical moonshine that dignity and interest which it was his ob- 

 ject to give to the Vatican. He says — 



Er.ter, its grandeur overwhelms you not, 

 And why ? it is not lessened ; but thy mind, 

 Expanded by the genius of the spot, 

 Has grown colossal ; and can only find 

 A lit abode wherein appear enshrined, 

 Thy hopes of immortality ! 



Sometimes this failure has been attributed to its proportion, which (from 

 its justness, it is said) takes from its magnitude; a criticism at once the 

 most severe and just that can be. In fact, no increase of a proportionate 

 object will ever give it magnitude and the sublime ; these depend on extra- 

 ordinary relation and excess of parts and proportions. 



Some years ago a French giant, upwards of nine feet high, exhibited him- 

 self in London, but so just were his proportions that no one would give credit 

 to his dimension, till they stood beside him ; he was therefore accounted a 

 kind of fraud, and the exhibition failed. But had he been disproportioned, 

 his head small, his shoulders high, and his members excessive, he might have 

 succeeded, even had he been a foot shorter. Had the nave of St. Peter's, 

 77 feet wide, been 00 feet high only, instead of 145 ; or if we were to sup- 

 pose a stage raised mid-height and place ourselves upon it, we should be 

 sensible of its vast latitude, and the effect of magnitude would have been 

 produced as under a bridge. The Barriere de l'Etoile, from the same rea- 

 sons, though as large as the front of Notre Dame — the arch itself 4S by 95, 

 equal to the height of the nave, but of ordinary proportions and great sim- 

 plicity of parts and members — loses its effect ; the arc monstre is glorious to 

 the rirande armp'e. but not to the arts of their day ; and is infinitely less ar- 

 tificial in its combination that the arches of St. Martin and St. Antoine, de- 

 signed by the accomplished Blondel. 



If, then, the architect cau obtain latitude, he should seek to carry out its 

 effect by quadrate and comparatively low proportions ; but if he adds alti- 

 tude to his latitude, he loses his expense and pains, and he may find too late 

 that half his dimension might have attained the same effect ; since proper- 

 magnitude defeats itself. 



But as extreme latitude gives the sublime, so does its opposite extreme of 

 altitude : in Cologne and Beauvais, the naves of which are three and a half 

 diameters in height, though scarcely more than half the actual width of St. 

 Peter's nave — limited, therefore, in their dimension to the usual cathedral 

 width, yet nearly double the usual proportion — the sublime is completely 

 attained ; and disproportion again appears to be the efficient cause. 



But the optical consideration of the visual angle in which these several 

 proportions present themselves is exceedingly important. Thus to the spec- 

 tator of the dome of the Pantheon, the visual angle is 9.V : , while the same 

 dome raised into the air at St. Peter's is only 30". In the nave of St. Pe- 

 ter's, the visual angle is 48°, that of St. Paul's Cathedral is 37*, while the 

 vault of Cologne is only 22°, Since then the effect of magnitude is mea- 

 sured by the number of degrees in the visual angle, the architect will advert 

 to this consideration as of extreme interest. 



We come, then, to the important conclusion, that the sublime and the 

 beautiful are to be found in the proper adjustment of proportions, rather 

 than in dimensions ; and we may infer, that no increase of scale to the beau- 

 tiful will ever make it the sublime. 



But the sublime is of rare occurrence : the use, however, to which these 

 reflections may be turned by the practical architect, under limited means, is 

 remarkably illustrated in the Casino at Chiswick, where the very circum- 

 scribed area of the rooms is compensated by their extraordinary height, and 

 the accomplished Lord Burlington has given a nobility to very small apart- 

 ments which no one could believe on seeing the plan alone, without visiting 

 nt work. 



Magnitude is the great object and result of design, and this quality is only 

 to be attained by the fine adjustment of relative proportions in magnitude 

 and order. Architecture consists in magnitude and order (says Aristotle), 

 to yap ko\w tn neycBtt koi ra{ei eori. (Poet. p. xi. s. 4.) The works of 

 man, compared with those of nature, display our insignificance. The pyra- 

 mid-, -een in the clear sky of Egypt, or St. Peter's at Rome, are proverbially 

 disappointing to the first gaze of the beholder: it is only after he has insti- 

 tuted comparisons and admeasurements that he becomes sensible of the 

 greatness of these human efforts — and his memory will supply him with 

 many instances in which objects of very inferior dimensions have surpassed 

 them in impression of magnitude upon his mind. It is plain, therefore, that 

 art alone can produce the full effect of magnitude, and to this the architect 

 should direct all his skill : the ancients will be found consummate masters 

 in this as well as in ev : ery other department of our art. It is, indeed, a fine 

 art which enables the accomplished artist to raise ideas of magnitude and 

 grandeur of composition on a piece of paper no bigger than your hand ; 

 while a less able one shall cover a vast canvas without executing any compa- 

 rable notions. Worthy of all inquiry and solicitude is such an art, for it is 

 the whole art of design and proportion. Pliny cites a statue of Hercules, so 

 small that it might In- lifted by the hand, which, however, conveyed more 

 grandeur, magnitude, and strength to the mind of the observer, than a Co- 

 lossus would have done. How great must have been the science of the 

 master ! and if, with such small means, he could affect the miud with these 

 impressions, how great the economy of cost and material to the employer ! 



Burke, whose notions, however, of proportion are vague and erroneous, 

 says admirably on this point (sec. x.) — " A true artist should put a generous 

 deceit on the spectators, and effect the noblest designs by easy methods. 

 Designs which are vast only by their dimensions, are always the sign of a 

 common and low imagination." 



In the last lecture it was attempted to show that magnitude, breadth, and 

 proportion of parts were best found in inequalities ; but the consideration of 

 magnitude, as respects composition of the whole, seems to depend on other 

 principles: first, it appears that, to make a great whole, there must be many 

 parts ; secondly, to appreciate that whole, the point from which it is per- 

 mitted to be seen should be eusynoptic, namely, so contrived as to fill the 



