A Lost Principle in Art. 65 



few years ago, discovered that it was filled with the most 

 wonderful refinements. The columns, which appeared to be 

 erect, leaned in slightly. The platform on which the temple 

 was built, instead of being flat, was delicately curved. A 

 delicate rhythm was given through the whole of the spacing of 

 the columns. There were a number of other refinements. A 

 sense of touch was given to the whole building, and every line 

 of it was considered with a view to its effect. 



The curves were first discovered by an Englishman named 

 Pennythorn, and the general idea was that the curved line was 

 to give a greater appearance of strength. Since Penrose's time 

 it had been discovered that every Greek temple had its refine- 

 ments, and Goodyear's discoveries went to show that not only 

 did Egyptians and Greeks employ those refinements, but that 

 they passed on to Roman and came down to mediaeval times. 

 The principle was called assymmetry, and he thought they 

 would find that the principle of symmetry was death and the 

 principle of assymmetry life. 



Repetition was part of a tendency in the world towards 

 uniformity, and there could be no manifestation of power 

 except there was difference, and unless there was something 

 vital and human in art there could be not relation between art 

 and them. In those commercial days, when they turned out 

 prints mechanically, commercial men had actually found it 

 necessary to devise machines with eccentricities to try and 

 imitate the life that was not in them. 



In conclusion, he wanted to say let them not imagine this 

 was an artistic age. They had for the present done with art. 

 It died about 1600. But let them not imagine that by 

 crowding their rooms by a whole lot of manufactured art that 

 they were adding to the pleasure of life. Let them have plain 

 and comfortable rooms, and let them purchase at least if they 

 could one work of art. 



The Chairman thought that, except in a few cases, they 

 could not call the architecture of Belfast art. It was 

 rather of the nature of a hereditary utilitarianism. 



