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SECT. V.

DRAWINGS NECESSARY IN COMPOSITION.

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2490a. For the thorough comprehension of a projected edifice, at least three drawings are necessary, the plan, the section, and the clevation. The first is a horizontal section of it, the second the vertical section, which shows the building as if it were cut in half, that half nearest the spectator being removed from its plan, so as to permit the inner parts to become visible, and the third is the geometrical appearance of the front represented as if viewed from an infinite distance, in which no convergence of the lines would be seen. 24906. In making a design, it is always better to put the general idea together on a single sheet of paper, and consequently, in most cases, on a small scale. This, in afterwards making the drawings, is, as may be necessary, increased in size. The three parts being drawn under one another, as shown in fig. 895a., wherein the middle diagram is the plan, the lower one the section, and the upper one the elevation. By thus beginning on a single sheet, in which the whole is before the eye, the corresponding lines are more readily transferred from one part to another. Having drawn through the middle of the paper the vertical AA, cut at right angles by the horizontal line BB, draw the required centres or axes of the walls CC and DD, and supposing the building is to be square, with the same opening of the compasses set out the axes of the return walls EE and FF. Having determined the thickness of the walls, one half may be set out on each side the axes, as in ee, ff, cc, and dd, and then the lines showing the thick- C nesses of the walls may be drawn. The width of openings in the walls may be next set out, half on each side the axes BB and AA, first drawn towards bb and aa, and the lines drawn to their places. Having thus proceeded, we shall discover that not only has the plan been drawn, but at the same time a considerable portion of the section and elevation. To distinguish the voids from the solids, the latter should be coloured or hatched, and then the next step will be as follows:Parallel to the principal axis BB, draw the ground lines GG and GG. From these lines the heights of the building, its cornice and openings, may be set up in the section and elevation; and afterwards, the height of the roof and projection of the cornice having been determined, they may be set out and drawn. In the section, as in the plan, it is usual either to colour or hatch the solid parts, as we have done in the figure.

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2490c. Simple as the above process may be, it contains the whole elementary part of the mechanical process necessary for making a design. It might have been conducted on a more complicated mass, but had we done so, it would not have been so well understood, and we therefore deprecate any observations on the simpleness of our process by those who have been brought to know these things by practice and experience. We do not, however, feel we should discharge our duty before closing this section, without a censure on the attempt to convert drawings of geometrical elevations and sections into picturesque representations, because such practice is not only injurious to the art, but is dishonest, and has a tendency to mislead the architect's employer; and we are sorry to say that it is not unfrequently done with such a view. We denounce it, and without hesitation aver that the casting of shadows on a design is only admissible for the purpose of showing the relative depths of projecting parts; and when so admitted, the medium should be confined to Indian ink or sepia, and thrown in merely in masses, the apertures being just slightly filled in with the same

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Fig. 859a.

SECT. VI.

WORKING DRAWINGS.

2491. Working drawings are those made of the parts at large for executing the works, which could not be well done from drawings on a small scale, wherein the small parts would not be either sufficiently defined, or could not be figured so as to enable the workman to set out his work with accuracy. They are generally in outline, except the sectional parts, which are frequently tinted to bring the profiles more readily before the eye.

2491a. It is obvious that though drawings made to a twelfth or a twenty-fourth part of their real size may well enough supply the wants of the workman where there is no complication in the distribution and arrangement, and where there is a simple treatment of regular forms, of right angles and the like; yet in all cases wherein we have to deal with the minor details of architecture, and in construction, where the variety of forms used is infinite from the variety of the circumstances, nothing short of drawings of the full, or at the least of half, the size will safely guide the workman.

24916. The art of making working drawings, which must have been well understood at all periods of the practice of architecture, involves a thorough knowledge of projection, or descriptive geometry, and consists in expressing by lines all that occurs for the development of every part of the details of a building, in plan, elevation, and profile, each part being placed for the use of the workman with clearness and precision. All the rules by which working drawings are wrought are dependent on the matter in this work already communicated to the reader, excepting only those details of the orders, and some other matters, which will be found in Book III. But we shall here, nevertheless, briefly replace before him the leading principles whereon working drawings are to be prepared. And first, he is to recollect that solids are only represented by the faces opposite to the eye; secondly, that the surfaces by which solids are enclosed are of two sorts, that is, rectilinear or curvilinear. Those bodies in which these properties are combined may be divided into three sorts: 1. Those which are bounded by plane surfaces, such as prisms, pyramids, and generally all straight work. 2. Those in which there is a mixture of straight and curved lines, as cylinders, cones, or portions of them, voussoirs of vaulting, and the like; and 3. Those solids wherein a double flexure occurs, as in the sphere, spheroid, and in many cases of voussoirs.

2491c. We should, however, unnecessarily use our limited space by further entering on these matters, on which enough has been said in previous sections. The plain truth is, that working drawings are to be so made for the use of the artificer as to embody on a scale, to prevent any mistake, all the information which this work has already given on construction, and that which follows in the more refined view of architecture as a fine art.

2491d. In works whose magnitude is not of the first class, the drawing of every part, both in construction and in those which involve the work as one of art, should be given of the full size whereof it is proposed to be executed. Where the building is large, as also the parts, this may be dispensed with; but then it becomes (the detail being drawn on a smaller but fully intelligible scale) the duty of the architect to see that the drawings he furnishes are faithfully drawn out to the full size by the artificer on proper moulds. Often it is useful-never, indeed, otherwise-to offer up, as it is called, small portions of mouldings on the different parts of a building, to ascertain what the effect may be likely to be at the heights fixed for their real places. In these matters he should leave no means untried to satisfy himself of the effect which his first drawings in small is likely to produce when executed.

2491e. We have presumed that the architect is so far educated as to have acquired a full knowledge of all that rules can teach, and that, strictly speaking, he has proportioned his work in conformity with them. Still, in real practice, there are constantly so many circumstances which concur in making it almost necessary to depart from established rules, such as surrounding buildings, where it is of importance to give predominance to a part for the purpose of making it a feature, that the expedient of trying a portion of the proposed detail in the place it is actually to occupy, is a matter that we would advise every architect to adopt after he has made and studied the working drawings whereof we treat. 2491f. We have not alluded to the matters of carpentry and joinery, in which it is often necessary to give the artificer information by means of working drawings; but the methods of trussing in carpentry, and of framing in joinery, often require working drawings. What has already been exhibited under those heads (2031, et seq.) will prevent his being left uninstructed, and will, moreover, have afforded such information as to prepare him, by the exercise of his own ingenuity, for such cases as may not have been specially given in the examples herein contained. We therefore here close our observations under this section by an intimation to the student, that the proper preparation of working drawings for the use of the artificer tests his acquaintance with the theory and practice of the art, and is of the utmost importance to the pocket of the employer, which it is his duty as a gentleman incessantly to protect.

BOOK III.

PRACTICE OF ARCHITEcture.

CHAP. I.

GRECIAN AND ITALIAN ARCHITECTURE.

SECT. I.

BEAUTY IN ARCHITECTURE.

2492. THE existence of architecture as a fine art is dependent on expression, or the faculty of representing, by means of lines, words, or other media, the inventions which the architect conceives suitable to the end proposed. That end is twofold; to be useful, and to connect the use with a pleasurable sensation in the spectator of the invention. In eloquence and poetry the end is to instruct, and such is the object of the higher and historical classes of painting; but architecture, though the elder of the arts, cannot claim the rank due to painting and poetry, albeit its end is so much more useful and necessary to mankind. In the sciences the end is utility and instruction, but in them the latter is not of that high moral importance, however useful, which allows them for a moment to come into competition with the great arts of painting, poetry, and eloquence. It will be seen that we here make no allusion to the lower branches of portrait and landscape painting, but to that great moral and religious end which fired the mind of Michael Angelo in the Sistine Chapel, and of Raffaelle Sanzio in the Stanze of the Vatican and in the Cartoons. Above the lower branches of painting just mentioned, the art whereof we treat occupies an exalted station. In it though the chief end is to produce an useful result, yet the expression on which it depends, in common with the other great arts, brings each within the scope of those laws which govern generally the fine arts whose object is beauty. Beauty, whatever difference of opinion may exist on the means necessary to produce it, is by all admitted to be the result of every perfection whereof an object is susceptible, such perfections being altogether dependent on the agreeable proportions subsistent between the several parts, and those between the several parts and the whole. The power or faculty of inventing is called genius. By it the mind is capable of conceiving and of expressing its conceptions. Taste, which is capable of being acquired, is the natural sensation of a mind refined by art. It guides genius in discerning, embracing, and producing beauty. Here we may for a moment pause to inquire what may be considered a standard of taste, and that cannot be better done than in the words used on the subject by Hume (Essay xxiii.): "The great variety of tastes," says that author, "as well as of opinion, which prevails in the world, is too obvious not to have fallen under every one's observation. Men of the most confined knowledge are able to remark a difference of taste in the narrow circle of their acquaintance, even where the persons have been educated under the same government and have early imbibed the same prejudices. But those who can enlarge their view to contemplate distant nations and remote ages are still more surprised at the great inconsistence and contrariety. We are apt to call barbarous whatever departs widely from our own taste and apprehension, but soon find the epithet of reproach retorted on us, and the highest arrogance and self-conceit is at last startled on observing an equal assurance on all sides, and scruples, amidst such a contest of sentiment, to pronounce positively in its own favour." True as are the observations of this philosopher in respect of a standard of taste, we shall nevertheless attempt to guide the reader to some notion of a standard of taste in architecture.

2493. There has lately grown into use in the arts a silly pedantic term under the name of Esthetics, founded on the Greek word 'AnTids, one which means having the power of perception by means of the senses; said to be the science whereby the first principles in all the arts are derived, from the effect which certain combinations have on the mind as connected with nature and reason: it is, however, one of the metaphysical and useless additions

to nomenclature in the arts, in which the German writers abound, and in its application to architecture of least value; because in that art form is from construction so limited by necessity, that sentiment can scarcely be said to be further connected with the art than is necessary for keeping the subordinate parts of the same character as the greater ones under which they are combined; and, further, for thereby avoiding incongruities.

2494. It is well known that all art in relation to nature is subject to those laws by which nature herself is governed, and if we were certain that those rules of art which resulted from reason were necessarily and actually connected with sensation, there would be no difficulty in framing a code of laws whereon the principles of any art might be firmly founded. "Principles in art," as well defined by Payne Knight, "are no other than the trains of ideas which arise in the mind of the artist out of a just and adequate consideration of all those local, temporary, or accidental circumstances upon which their propriety or impropriety, their congruity or incongruity, wholly depend." By way of illustrating the observation just made, we will merely allude to that maxim in architecture which inculcates the propriety of placing openings over openings and piers over piers, disallowing, in other words, the placing a pier over an opening without the exhibition of such preparation below as shall satisfy the mind that security has been consulted. There can be no doubt that a departure from the maxim creates an unpleasant sensation in the mind, which would seem to be immediately and intimately connected with the laws of reason; but there is great difficulty in satisfying one's self of the precise manner in which this operates on the mind, without a recurrence to the primitive types in architecture, and thence pursuing the inquiry. But in the other arts the types are found in nature herself, and hence in them no difficulty occurs in the establishment of laws, because we have that same nature whereto reference may be made. We shall have to return to this subject in the section on the Orders of Architecture, to which we must refer the reader, instead of pursuing the subject here.

2495. Throughout nature beauty seems to follow the adoption of forms suitable to the expression of the end. In the human form there is no part, considered in respect to the end for which it was formed by the great Creator, that in the eye of the artist, or rather, in this case the better judge, the anatomist, is not admirably calculated for the function it has to discharge; and without the accurate representation of those parts in discharge of their several functions, no artist by means of mere expression, in the ordinary meaning of that word, can hope for celebrity. This arises from an inadequate representation having the appearance of incompetency to discharge the given functions; or, in other words, they appear unfit to answer the end.

2496. We are thus led to the consideration of fitness, which, after all, will be found to be the basis of all proportion, if not proportion itself. Alison, in his Essay on Taste, says, "I apprehend that the beauty of proportion in forms is to be ascribed to this cause," (fitness) "and that certain proportions affect us with the emotion of beauty, not from any original capacity in such qualities to excite this emotion, but from their being expressive to us of the fitness of the parts to the end designed." Hogarth, who well understood the subject, concurs with Alison in considering that the emotion of pleasure which proportion affords does not resemble the pleasure of sensation, but rather that feeling of satisfaction arising from means properly adapted to their end. In his Analysis of Beauty that great painter places the question in its best and truest light, when, speaking of chairs and tables, or other common objects of furniture, he considers them merely as fitted from their proportions to the end they have to serve. In the same manner, says Alison, "the effect of disproportion seems to me to bear no resemblance to that immediate painful sensation which we feel from any disagreeable sound or smell, but to resemble that kind of dissatisfaction which we feel when means are unfitted to their end. Thus the disproportion of a chair or table does not affect us with a simple sensation of pain, but with a very observable emotion of dissatisfaction or discontent, from the unsuitableness of their construction for the purposes the objects are intended to serve. Of the truth of this every man must judge from his own experience." We cannot refrain from continuing our extracts from this most intelligent author. "The habit," he says, "which we have in a great many familiar cases of immediately conceiving this fitness from the mere appearance of the form, leads us to imagine, as it is expressed in common language, that we determine proportion by the eye, and this quality of fitness is so immediately expressed by the material form, that we are sensible of little difference between such judgments and a mere determination of sense; yet every man must have observed that in those cases where either the object is not familiar to us or the construction intricate our judgment is by no means speedy, and that we never discover the proportion until we previously discover the principle of the machine or the means by which the end is produced."

2497. The nature of the terms in which we converse shows the dependence of proportion on fitness, for it is the sign of the quality. The natural answer of a person asked why the proportion of any building or machine pleased him, would be, because the object by such proportion was fit or proper for its end. Indeed, proportion is but a synonyme of fitness,

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2498. There is, however, between proportion and fitness, a distinction drawn by our author, which must be noticed. "Fitness expresses the relation of the whole of the means to the end; proportion, the proper relation of a part or parts to their end." But the distinction is too refined to be of importance in our consideration; for the due proportion of parts is simply that particular form and dimension which from experience has been found best suited to the object in view. Proportion," therefore continues Alison, "is to be considered as applicable only to forms composed of parts, and to express the relation of propriety between any part or parts and the end they are destined to serve."

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2499. Forms are susceptible of many divisions, and consequently proportions; but these are only subordinate to the great end of the whole. Thus, for instance, in the constantly varying forms of fashion, say in a chair or table, the merely ornamental parts may bear no relation to the general fitness of the form, but they must be so contrived as to avoid unpleasant sensation, and not to interfere with the general fitness. If we do not understand the nature of its fitness, we cannot judge of the proportion properly. "No man," says Alison, "ever presumes to speak of the proportions of a machine of the use of which he is ignorant." When, however, we become acquainted with the use or purpose of a particular class of forms, we at the same time acquire a knowledge which brings under our view and acquaintance a larger circle of agreeable proportions than the rest of the world understand; and those parts which by others are regarded with indifference, we contemplate with pleasure, from our superior knowledge of their fitness for the end designed. The proportions of an object must not in strength be carried beyond what is required for fitness, for in that case they will degenerate into clumsiness, whilst elegance, on the contrary, is the result of the nicest adjustment of proportion.

2500. Fitness cannot exist in any architectural object without equilibrium in all the parts as well as the whole. The most complete and perfect notion that can be conceived of stability, which is the result of equilibrium, may be derived from the contemplation of an horizontal straight line; whilst, on the contrary, of instability nothing seems more expressive than a vertical straight line. These being, then, assumed as the extremes of stability and instability, by carrying out the gradations between the two extremes, we may, extending in two parts the vertical line, obtain various forms, more or less expressive of stability as they approach or recede from the horizontal line. In fig. 860. we have, standing on the same base, the general form of the lofty Gothic spire; the pleasing, solid, and enduring form of the Egyptian pyramid; and that of the flat Grecian pediment: which last, though in its inclination adjusted on different grounds, which have been examined in Book II. Chap. III. subsect. 2027, et seq., is an eminent instance of stability. The spire, from its height and small base, seems to possess but a tottering equilibrium compared with the others.

Fig. 860.

2501. Stability is obviously dependent on the laws of gravitation, on which, under the division of statics, not only the architect, but the painter and sculptor, should bestow considerable attention. We cannot for a moment suppose it will be disputed that at least one of the causes of the beauty of the pyramid is a satisfactory impression on the mind of the state of rest or stability it possesses. Rest, repose, stability, balance, all meaning nearly the same thing, are then the very essential ingredients in fitness; and therefore, in architectural subjects, instability, or the appearance of it, is fatal to beauty. Illustrations of this exist in the famous Asinelli and Garisendi towers at Bologna, and at Pisa in the celebrated leaning Campanile.

2502. It may be objected to what we have written, that fitness alone will not account for the pleasure which arises in the contemplation of what are called the orders of architecture, and Alison seems very much to doubt whether there be not some other cause of beauty. It will, however, be our business to show how the ancients, their inventors, considered principally their fitness; and upon these grounds to show, moreover, how the proportions in ancient examples varied, and may be still further varied, without infringing upon the principles which guided them in the original invention. Payne Knight has well observed, "that the fundamental error of imitators in all the arts is, that they servilely copy the effects which they see produced, instead of supplying and adopting the principles which guided the original artists in producing them; wherefore they disregard all those local, temporary, or accidental circumstances upon which their propriety or impropriety, their congruity or incongruity, wholly depend." "Grecian temples, Gothic abbeys, and feudal castles were all well adapted to their respective uses, circumstances, and situations; the distribution of the parts subservient to the purposes of the whole; and the ornaments and decorations suited to the character of the parts, and to the manners, habits, and employments of the persons who were to occupy them: but the house of an English noble

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