House & Garden 
LAWS OF BEAUTY. 1 
T HE preceding essay was devoted to the 
consideration of polarity in nature and 
art,—that “ inevitable duality ” which, attain¬ 
ing its supreme expression in the sexes, 
masculine and feminine, is everywhere sym¬ 
bolized in countless pairs of opposites : in 
nature by fire and water; in music by a 
chord of suspense,—a partial dissonance, and 
a chord of fulfillment,—a perfect consonance; 
in architecture by the column and the lintel, 
and so on. This conception should now be 
modified by another, namely: that in every 
duality a third is latent; 
that each sex is in process of 
becoming the other; and that 
this alternation engenders 
and is accomplished by means 
of a third term, or neuter, 
which partakes of the nature 
of them both, just as a child 
may resemble both its 
parents. Earth is the child 
of fire and water. In music, 
besides the chord of longing 
and striving, and the chord 
of calmness and satisfaction, 
there is a third, or resolving 
chord in which the two are 
reconciled. In architecture, 
the arch, which is both weight 
and support, and is neither 
vertical or horizontal, may 
be considered the neuter of 
which the column and the 
entablature are respectively 
masculine and feminine. 
The application of the 
column and entablature to an arch and impost 
construction, familiar in Roman and Renais¬ 
sance architecture, is a redundancy, and finds 
no justification in the reason, yet the sense of 
beauty is satisfied, because the arch forms a 
transition between the columns and the 
entablature and completes the trinity of 
vertical, horizontal and semicircular lines. 
Three is preeminently the number of 
architecture, because it is the number of 
space, which is three dimensional; and 
architecture of all the arts is most concerned 
with the expression of spatial relations. The 
division of a composition into three related 
parts is so universal that it would seem to 
be the result of an instinctive effort of the 
human mind. The twin pylons of an Egyp¬ 
tian temple, with the entrance between, for a 
third division, correspond to the two towers 
of a Gothic cathedral and the intervening 
screen wall of the nave. In the palaces of the 
Renaissance a threefold division, obtained 
vertically by means of quoins or pilasters, and 
horizontally by means of string-courses, was 
very common, as was also the division into a 
principal and two subordinate masses. The 
orders are divided threefold into pedestal or 
stylobate, column and entablature; and each 
is again divided, the first into 
plinth, die, and cornice ; the 
second into base, shaft, and 
capital; and the third into 
architrave, frieze, and cornice. 
I n nature, a thing is echoed 
or repeated, in all its parts : 
“ As is the small, so is the 
great.” Each leaf is a little 
tree,—the blossom is a modi¬ 
fied leaf ; every vertebrate is 
a system of spines. In the 
art of painting, this law is 
exemplified in the recurrence 
of certain lines and colors in 
different parts of the same 
picture, so arranged as to 
lead the eye up to some focal 
point, and thus enhance the 
effect of the whole. In 
music, it is illustrated in the 
return of the tonic to itself in 
the octave, and its partial 
return in the dominant; also, 
in a more extended sense, in the repetition of 
a major theme in the minor, or in the treble, 
and again in the bass, with modifications also 
of time and key. Such recurrences, such 
inner consonances, are common in architecture 
also. The channeled triglyphs of a Grecian 
Doric frieze echo the fluted columns below. 
The balustrade which crowns a colonnade is 
a repetition, in some sort, of the colonnade 
itself. The modillions of a Corinthian cornice 
are altered and elaborated dentils. Each 
i The fourth of Mr. Bragdon’s series of articles entitled :—“The 
Beautiful Necessity : being Essays upon Architectural Esthetics,” begun 
in the January number of House and Garden. 
THE LAW OF TRINITY 
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A ROMAN IONIC ARCADE DY 
VIGNOLEATHE COLUMN. THU 
ENTABLATURE AND THL ARCH 
CORRESPOND TO LINES VERT¬ 
ICAL, HORIZONTAL AND CURVED 
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