Laws of Beauty 
the ground upwards : an end attained by 
various devices; in the Riccardi palace, 
by diminishing the rustication of the ashlar 
in successive stories; in the Farnese, by 
reducing the sizes of the angle quoins ; in 
an Egyptian pylon, by simply battering 
the wall; and 
in a Gothic 
cathedral, by a 
kind of segrega¬ 
tion not unlike 
that to which 
a tree is sub¬ 
jected,— the 
strong, plain 
base, corre¬ 
sponding to the 
trunk, and the 
multitude of 
delicate pinna¬ 
cles and crockets 
to the outermost 
twigs and 
branches. 
Such are a few 
of the more 
obvious princi¬ 
ples of natural 
beauty. First is 
the law of unity; 
then, since the 
unit is perceived 
to be twofold, 
the law of polarity: but this duality is 
always in a state of flux, the two com¬ 
bining to produce a third ; hence the law 
of trinity, and of multiplicity in unity. 
From this follows naturally the law of 
consonance,—of repetition with variation, 
and its opposite and complement, diversity 
in monotony, and—since all is waxing or 
waning—the law of rhythmic change. 
It would be absurd to contend that the 
object of a work of architecture is to obey 
and illustrate 
these laws. A 
work of archi- 
tecture is 
intended to 
fulfill certain 
definite practical 
conditions in an 
admirable way, 
and in fulfill¬ 
ing, express 
these condi¬ 
tions. T h e 
architect who 
is also an artist, 
however, will do 
this and some¬ 
thing beyond. 
Working un¬ 
consciously 
and naturally, 
his work will 
obey and illus¬ 
trate natural 
laws; and to 
the extent that 
it does so, it 
will be a work 
of art, for art is the method of nature 
carried into those higher regions of 
thought and feeling which man alone 
inhabits. 
Claude Bragdon. 
144 
