6 4 



Jf/z April, 1903, 



Mr. J. Brown, F.R.S., President in the Chair. 



A LOST PRINCIPLE IN ART. 

 By George Coffey, M.A M.R.I.A. 



{Abstract^) 



Mr. George Coffey said the actual subject of the lecture was 

 really certain requirements, optical and artistic, which were 

 practised by old artists, and which had actually perished out of 

 art. Those discoveries, the great majority of them, were chiefly 

 due to Mr Goodyear, curator of Brooklyn Fine Art Institution, 

 who had made a toui in the North of Italy examining 

 mediaeval architecture, and he reported certain refinements. 

 He had met Mr. Goodyear in England, and was in the position 

 of being able to show them that evening a number of views of 

 those buildings, many of which would be seen on this side of 

 the Atlantic foi the first time. 



English architects had pooh-poohed those discoveries, but he 

 was glad to say, because he believed in those theories, that on 

 the Continent those views were rapidly extending, and in 

 America they were being put into practical operation, so that 

 he hid no doubt that in a very short time they would have 

 extended to this side of the water. They knew the ordinary 

 Greek temple. Taking the Parthenon, it had been supposed 

 that the columns were perpendicular, that lines which appeared 

 horizontal were horizontal, and that it was laid out mathe- 

 matically correct, and it had been assumed that the intervals 

 between the columns were equal. Mr. Penrose, who died a 



