The Beautiful Necessity Part 6

It would be a profitless task to formulate exact rules of architectural proportion based upon the laws of musical harmony. The two arts are too different from each other for that, and moreover the last appeal must always be to the eye, and not to a mathematical formula, just as in music the last appeal is to the ear. Laws there are, but they discover themselves to the artist as he proceeds, and are for the most part incommunicable. Rules and formulae are useful and valuable not as a subst.i.tute for inspiration, but as a guide: not as wings, but as a tail. In this connection perhaps all that is necessary for the architectural designer to bear in mind is that important ratios of length and breadth, height and width, to be "musical" should be expressed by quant.i.tively small numbers, and that if possible they should obey some simple law of numerical progression. From this basic simplicity complexity will follow, but it will be an ordered and harmonious complexity, like that of a tree, or of a symphony.

[Ill.u.s.tration 91: THE PALAZZO VERZI AT VERONA (LOWER PORTION ONLY).

A COMPOSITION FOUNDED ON THE EQUAL AND REGULAR DIVISION OF s.p.a.cE, AS MUSIC IS FOUNDED ON THE EQUAL AND REGULAR DIVISION OF TIME.]

[Ill.u.s.tration 92: ARCHITECTURE AS RHYTHM. A DIVISION OF s.p.a.cE CORRESPONDING TO 3/4 AND 4/4 TIME.]

In the same way that a musical composition implies the division of time into equal and regular beats, so a work of architecture should have for its basis some unit of s.p.a.ce. This unit should be nowhere too obvious and may be varied within certain limits, just as musical time is r.e.t.a.r.ded or accelerated. The underlying rhythm and symmetry will thus give value and distinction to such variation. Vasari tells how Brunelleschi. Bramante and Leonardo da Vinci used to work on paper ruled in squares, describing it as a "truly ingenious thing, and of great utility in the work of design." By this means they developed proportions according to a definite scheme. They set to work with a division of s.p.a.ce a.n.a.logous to the musician's division of time.

The examples given herewith indicate how close a parallel may exist between music and architecture in this matter of rhythm (Ill.u.s.trations 91-93).

[Ill.u.s.tration 93]

It is a demonstrable fact that musical sounds weave invisible patterns in the air. Architecture, correspondingly, in one of its aspects, is geometric pattern made fixed and enduring. What could be more essentially musical for example than the sea arcade of the Venetian Ducal Palace? The sand forms traced by sound-waves on a musically vibrating steel plate might easily suggest architectural ornament did not the differences of scale and of material tend to confuse the mind.

The architect should occupy himself with ident.i.ties, not differences.

If he will but bear in mind that architecture is pattern in s.p.a.ce, just as music is pattern in time, he will come to perceive the essential ident.i.ty between, say, a Greek rosette and a Gothic rose-window; an arcade and an egg and dart moulding (Ill.u.s.tration 94).

All architectural forms and arrangements which give enduring pleasure are in their essence musical. Every well composed facade makes harmony in three dimensions; every good roof-line sings a melody against the sky.

[Ill.u.s.tration 94: ARCHITECTURE AS PATTERN]

CONCLUSION

In taking leave of the reader at the end of this excursion together among the by-ways of a beautiful art, the author must needs add a final word or two touching upon the purpose and scope of these essays.

Architecture (like everything else) has two aspects: it may be viewed from the standpoint of utility, that is, as construction; or from the standpoint of expressiveness, that is, as decoration. No attempt has been made here to deal with its first aspect, and of the second (which is again twofold), only the universal, not the particular expressiveness has been sought. The literature of architecture is rich in works dealing with the utilitarian and constructive side of the art: indeed, it may be said that to this side that literature is almost exclusively devoted. This being so, it has seemed worth while to attempt to show the reverse of the medal, even though it be "tails"

instead of "heads."

It will be noted that the inductive method has not, in these pages, been honored by a due observance. It would have been easy to have treated the subject inductively, ama.s.sing facts and drawing conclusions, but to have done so the author would have been false to the very principle about which the work came into being. With the acceptance of the Ancient Wisdom, the inductive method becomes no longer necessary. Facts are not useful in order to establish a hypothesis, they are used rather to elucidate a known and accepted truth. When theosophical ideas shall have permeated the thought of mankind, this work, if it survives at all, will be chiefly--perhaps solely--remarkable by reason of the fact that it was among the first in which the attempt was made again to unify science, art and religion, as they were unified in those ancient times and among those ancient peoples when the Wisdom swayed the hearts and minds of men.