File:The beautiful necessity; seven essays on theosophy and architecture (1910) (14780121932).jpg

Identifier: cu31924008627949 (find matches)
Title: The beautiful necessity; seven essays on theosophy and architecture
Year: 1910 (1910s)
Authors: Bragdon, Claude Fayette, 1866-1946
Subjects: Architecture Theosophy
Publisher: Rochester, N. Y., The Manas press
Contributing Library: Cornell University Library
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

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THE, LAST JUPPtRi, CE/NTER, THE) MADONNA DEb «ACCO, BYONLY (RiiTORfD) BY tAVINCI ANDUtA Dbb JARTTO 55 54 sentiment and affectationof the times, but alsoin the abandonment bythe artists of thoseobscurely geometricalarrangements and group-ings which, in the worksof the greatest masters,so satisfy the eye andhaunt the memory ofthe beholder (Illustra-tions 55, 56). Sculpture, even morethan painting, is basedon geometry. The colos-si of Egypt, the bas-reliefs of Assyria, thefigured pediments andmetopes of the templesof Greece, the carvedtombs of Ravenna, theDelia Robbia lunettes,the sculptured tympaniof Gothic church portals, LATENT GEOMETRY 63
Text Appearing After Image:
GEOMETRICAL bASlS OF THE S15T1NE CEILING PAINTINGJ all alike lend themselves in greater or less degreeto a geometrical synopsis (Illustration 57).Whenever sculpture suffered divorce fromarchitecture, the geometrical element becameless prominent, doubtless because of all the artsarchitecture is the most clearly and closelyrelated to geometry. Indeed, it may be said thatarchitecture is geometry made visible, in thesamfe sense that music is number made audible.A building is an aggregation of the commonestgeometrical forms: parallelograms, prisms, pyr-amids, and cones,—the cylinder appearing inthe column, and the hemisphere in the dome.The plans, likewise, of the worlds famous build-ings, reduced to their simplest expression, are discovered to resolve them-selves into a few simple geometrical figures (Illustration 58). But architecture is geometrical in another and a higher sense than this.Emerson says: The pleasure a palace or a temple gives the eye is that anorder and a method has bee

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