CHAPTER TWELVE: LOWER BEAUTIES
Introduction
Having
looked closely at Garbett's phenomenology of perception, it is now necessary to
return to what Garbett termed, the
greatest triumph of the inductive sciences: the proof of a relation between
sound and colour. How was this analogy established, and how does it relate to
the more traditional analogy between sound and harmonic proportions? Where does
he go from there? This chapter, which covers the subjects discussed in chapters
two and three of Garbett's Treatise,
is concerned with his re-interpretation and re-formulation of traditional
architectural values such as symmetry, rhythm, contrast, polychromy etc. in
terms of the underlying aesthetic
principles derived from eighteenth philosophy such as the principle of unity
amidst variety. It ends with a quick look at how these principles impact on his
re-invention of the concepts of the Sublime and the Picturesque.
Harmonic colour: Newton's Analogy between
sound and colour
The
science of colour, or chromatology, was, in the early in the nineteenth century
entirely dominated by Newton's discoveries as presented in his Opticks.[1]
Newton is also the source for the analogy between colour and sound which is the
subject of this paragraph. Newton's legacy, although stifling in its authority
during the eighteenth century, was slowly being loosened at the beginning of the
nineteenth by the innovative work of Johann Wolfgang Goethe, Sir David Brewster,
Thomas Young and Sir John Herschel.
[2]
The Newtonian analogy between colour and sound had been elaborated on by
various people such as the Scottish painter D. Ramsey Hay, who had arrived at it
through George Field.
[3]
Both of these based their science on that conducted by Brewster and Newton as
well as from the tangential work of Buffon.
[4]
Neither Field, Hay or, for that matter Garbett, mention the work of Thomas
Young. Young had been introduced to the science of optics through his interests
in acoustics. This interest led him to the elaborate on Newton's analogy between
the two senses eventually arriving at the re-establishment of the wave- or
undulatory theory of light. Thomas Young's work on light was used extensively by
John Herschel on whom Garbett relied heavily for his theory of colour.
[5]
The
argument defending the analogy between colour and sound is relatively simple:
.. as both light and
sound affect their respective organs by an inconceivably rapid repetition of
vibrations or pulsations, so, in both cases, it is found that the
pleasurableness of the sensation, whether of sound or colour, increases just in
proportion as these vibrations are more regular, isochronous, or
equal-timed.
[6]
The
immediate conclusion was obvious: Regular vibration = soothing whereas
irregular vibrations = irritable. From this simple equation Garbett was able to
derive his first law of harmonious
colouring:
...the more isochronous
the vibrations of any given colour may be, the more pleasing will it be in
itself, apart from fitness and association.
[7]
This
had been a conclusion arrived at by Frank Howard, whom we shall return to
presently. Garbett's first law of harmonious colouring would eventually turn
into the nauseating common-place which insists on all children's toys being
brightly coloured. This brightness was then supplemented by the instinctive
lust for variety as formulated in Garbett's third law of harmonious colouring:
variety of colouring is abstractly (without reference to fitness,
&c.) more pleasing than monotony, especially when the colours that adjoin
each other have their vibrations in the harmonic ratio of 4 to 5, that is when
they form contrasts..."[8]
Particular
significant here is the attempt to superimpose musical proportions onto
Herschel's measurements something that Hay had attempted without relying on
Herschel's empiricism. When it was published in 1838, Frank Howard's Colour as a Means of Art for Amateurs
had asserted that isochronous colours would be pleasing to the mind. Howard
believed that physical science, when it eventually got round to it, would
reveal that the duller tones of each colour would prove isochronous while the
gaudy and harsh tones would prove non-isochronous. In Howard's system of
colouring, the duller tones were equated with musical notes, while the harsher
colours were equated with mere noise.
The attractiveness of this
proposition did not escape Garbett although he saw its error:
The error probably arose
from the artist, absorbed in the higher excellencies of his art, mistaking a
mental for an ocular beauty. If he had observed the conduct of children, who
look only for the latter [ocular beauty], he would have perceived that it is the
crude positive colours which are the sweets of the eye, and that the tones are
its bitters, or, at least, its insipid ordinary food.
[9]
When
science did eventually get around to measuring the frequencies of colours it
provided Garbett with the necessary evidence to turn Howard's theory around:
Harmony of colour,
writes Garbett, is perfectly identical
with [the harmony of sounds], only on account of the comparatively limited
range of the eye's sensibility to vibration, as compared with the ear's (Sir
John Herschel considers the whole compass of the scale of visible colours to correspond
only to the interval called in music a minor sixth): it happens that in this
case there is only one harmonic ratio; that is to say, that, though a
given note in music may harmonise with many others, as the third fifth,
octave, twelfth, &c. above it and the same below it, a given colour in the
spectrum can only have one harmonic, viz. that vibration which in music
would be called the third (...) so that, between the vibrations of two
colours that harmonise, there is always the same ratio as between the two nearest
musical vibrations that harmonise, viz. the ratio of 4 to 5.[10]
And
this argument is backed by a row of columns in which Herschel's measurements of
colour vibrations are juxtaposed
according to the harmonic ration of 4:5. Thus a Pythagorean relation between
colour and sound is reinstated, leading directly to Garbett's third law of
harmonious colouring as quoted above.
Polychromy
Harmonious colouring
plays an important but negative role in Garbett's theory.
[11] He uses it primarily to dispel the myth that the correlation between a
sound and a length of string can underpin the theory of harmonic proportions.
(see below) In the actual use of colour in buildings Garbett's other two laws of
harmonious colouring (2 & 4) are more directly applicable. These are used to
promote the neo-classical attitudes of Reynolds summarised in the dictum that Nature does not colour
its large objects very brightly. Bright colour is the exception and not the
rule:
..in architecture, or at
least in all its grander forms, varied colouring should have as little place as
it has in the elephant, the oak or the mountain-chain.[12]
That observation
is the basis for the second and fourth law of harmonious colouring. The second
goes as follows:
..isochronous colours
(...) have a more exciting effect on the retina than those which are of the same
brightness but non-isochronous, the repose afforded by a change from the former
to the latter is also grateful; so that we should follow the example of nature's
works, throughout which the sober, mixed, or subdued tones are the rule, and the pure isochronous colours the exception: for it is a less evil to be
unable to find excitement, than to be unable to find repose.[13]
The fourth law
rehearses these arguments and comes to the conclusion:
That as variety is an
exciting quality, owing to the rapid changes which each point of the retina
undergoes, the change from variety to sameness of colour is required for repose;
so that here, again, we should imitate nature, in which sameness of colouring is the rule, and variety the exception; the former being found in all large and
grand objects, and broad surfaces, and the latter only in small and scattered
organisms.[14]
Elephants, great
stretches of land and mountains etc. are given one subdued tone by nature, with
at most some softly graded variations in colour, here and there brightened by
the sparkle of a flower or a smaller animal. Repose is an aesthetic criterion
which achieves a beauty by way of the feeling of rest it instils. It is a
quality where beauty comes nearest to the idea of well-being. The word rest
links beauty to a number of morally admirable states, such as happiness and
grandeur. In order to be grand a building must exude repose. Repose and by
extension the colour that induces repose obtains a moral power:
[in] mountains (..), if
covered with vegetation, there is a sort of utilitarian necessity for variety of
colour; and yet as soon as we retire to the distance requisite to see the whole,
or a portion large enough to be grand, the atmosphere interposes its blue veil,
and reduces the whole to sameness. What can more distinctly show that nature
will not suffer polychromy in her Doric works.[15]
To illustrate the
truth of this proposition we need only reach for our Caran D'Ache coloured
pencil-box, the cover of which contains the full range of his reasoning.
Garbett's rules for contemporary English architecture rested on the
well-reasoned balance between monotony and variety as put forward in his second
and fourth laws of harmonious colouring. With regard to his judgement on the
great debate about Greek polychromy, Garbett appeared decided on a purist's
stand largely inherited from Quatremère de Quincy. This stand was enriched with
a delightful ingredient from the great anti-Greek, Ruskin:
As for the painted
ornaments on the Parthenon, if they had been contemplated in the design, they
would certainly have been carved, or (if flatness were wanted) inlaid, and not
executed in so mean a manner.[16]
This passage is a
clear echo from Ruskin's Lamps of Beauty and Sacrifice which insist on similar
priorities in the application of decoration.
Garbett's purism is to some extent compromised by his attitude to the use
of colour in older buildings:
In a great and ancient
building whose polychromic decorations have been sobered down by ages of neglect
till hardly distinguishable, a singular majesty is acquired from this
circumstance.[17]
He is quick to add that
this is not due to the polychromy itself but to the age of the building. Even
so, this is the reasoning of a man weakened in his purist's resolve. It takes
two to tango after all, this singular majesty might be caused by age, but it
could not have arisen without the polychromy being there in the first place.
Once this statement had sown the seed of doubt with regard to his beloved Greek
temples, he could not resist protecting his rear guard by leaving the door ajar
on the issue of polychromy in Greek architecture. First he writes that if his
favourite Greek temples were painted it was not done by the builders but done
much later.[18] Then he concedes yet more ground:
If there were any
colouring on the Doric temples in times of Doric taste, it must have been
confined to a few members, and intended to enhance the general
monotony.[19]
This solution would not
have been altogether unacceptable to his master in this issue, Quatremère de
Quincy, who, as Robin Middleton points out, indicated a blue vault with gold
mouldings in his hand-coloured plate of his reconstruction of Phidias' Jupiter Olympien
even though the rest of the architecture, and especially the outside, retained
the mantle of blanched purity that Winckelmann, Goethe and other 18th-century
scholars had conferred on it.[20]
Form and the problem of ocular beauty
We now have to
concentrate on one of the great Quichotic windmills of architectural aesthetics,
namely, the problem of harmonic proportions. In Garbett's theory, the concept of
harmonic proportion stands or falls with the question as to whether there is
such a thing as an ocular beauty of form? Is form something that can be
dissociated from memory and association? Garbett did not think so. He would not
go as far as Francesco Milizia, who ridiculed the fruitless search by
François Blondel and Robert Morris for harmonic proportions and rejected the
mere possibility of an abstract beauty of form out of hand. Milizia argued that
a form by itself could not hurt the sense it addressed. That was the main
criterion by which the concept of an ocular or sensual beauty was allowed. On
that basis, form must be a beauty addressing itself to the mind alone. Garbett
insisted, however, that there were some form-related phenomena which could be
called ocular. One such ocular beauty is spacing.
Equal spacing
Equal spacing is
related to Garbett's concept of sensual beauty for the simple reason that it can
be shown to hurt the sense it addresses if the dose is wrong: too many sets of
equi-distant lines can hurt one's sense of sight. Ipso facto equal
spacing is essentially an ocular percept. Nevertheless Garbett's advocacy of
equal-spacing in architecture with regard to the placing of windows and so
forth, has an eminently intellectual ring to it, especially if a building may be
considered polite when its standardised elements such as windows are regularly
arranged.
Harmonic Proportion
The same does not apply
to proportion. The fact that two bits of string can produce harmonising notes
when plucked in quick succession, does not mean that those lengths of string
harmonise visually. That is Garbett's starting point. Colour, on the other hand,
bears a direct analogy to sound in that both are a question of vibrations.
Frequencies in colour and sound can both be contrasted harmonically. Lengths of
wall do not vibrate; forms and the outlines of houses cannot be plucked and
cannot, therefore, be reduced to a frequency related to a wave-length. This
rather obvious reason why harmonic proportions could be said not to work was, strangely
enough, not used by Garbett. His rejection of the idea that a harmony results
from harmonically contrasted proportions was instead based on the rather
inadequate argument of precision. Garbett echoed the detractors of harmonic
proportions saying that if the proportions of the breadth and height of a
building are ever so
slightly altered there is no difference in beauty. This may be true. But
what he leaves out is that the same is essentially true for sounds and colours,
be it on a much smaller scale. The wavelengths of colours and sounds can also
vary ever so
slightly without immediately sounding false, or changing colour
perceptibly.[21] Therefore, even if there was an argument to disprove or weaken the
theory of harmonic proportion it could not and cannot be that one.[22] His rejection of harmonic proportions is therefore dogmatic and
historical rather than properly inductive or empirical, failing to take full
account of his own premises. He does not however supply us with an alternative
system of proportions other than the inadequate one of empirical minima and the
vague statement that proportions have to be appropriate. Appropriateness is not
explained in terms of spatial volumes. Instead the argument bends away from
discussing individual volumes to discussing their relation in terms of
symmetry.
Symmetry and the art of reconstructing
ephemera
Garbett's demand for
outward symmetry in architecture derives from the ubiquitous appearance of
outward symmetry in the phenomena of the creation.[23] Ubiquity in nature makes any form of practical or indeed philosophical
justification for the application of symmetry to buildings superfluous; it is a
source of authority which can allow itself to go unquestioned in a book which
professes to derive its architectural principles from the study of nature.
Having said that, Garbett did indirectly provide further justifications
to back up his stand on symmetry. J.B. Papworth had attributed the oblong plan
of Grecian temples to desire on the part of the Greeks of avoiding all approach
to show.[24]
Garbett, paying tribute to the undoubted sense of modesty possessed by the
ancient Greeks as a people, came up with a less humble explanation taking
account, not of a state of mind but the needs of ritual. Although the cube was
the most perfect instance of contrast, he argued, and although the cube was
symbolic of perfection, it was necessary from a dramatic point of view, to
distinguish the entrance side of the temple from the others.[25] The entrance had to be in the centre of one of the two narrower sides,
so that the person entering the temple could embrace the largest area in one
glance, enabling him to pay tribute to the theatrical demands of the liturgy.
The entrance of a palace on the other hand, had to be in the centre of the long
side of the oblong so as to make all the apartments within the building readily
accessible. On the basis of this principle he rejected the temple of Palmyra as
no more than a piece
of barbaric pomp, being in fact a profanation: a temple with the aspirations
of a palace.[26]
A more direct argument for the use of outward symmetry was concerned with
movement and the psychological reconstruction of normality. This may sound
cryptic but is based on the truism that the eye is rarely in the position to
perceive exact symmetry. There are all sorts of conditions, such as for example,
the position of the eye in relation to the symmetrical object and the movement
of the eye in relation to the symmetrical object, or vice verse, that distort
perception. The example given by Garbett was of the contorted or moving human
body. When perceived directly, the moving or the contorted body is in a complete
mess, limbs akimbo. For some reason this does not disturb us. Therefore, it does
not matter if one cannot see symmetry directly, it is more important that one
can deduce its
presence. When we see a person in movement we do not perceive that person's
symmetry, we deduce its presence from the processing of sequential percepts and
comparing that with our experience. Bodily symmetry which can be so deduced
conforms to our expectations of health with which is meant
normality.[27]
Any permanent deviation from symmetry in nature, in those cases where
symmetry is de rigeur, may
be considered a deformity. Deformity was, until the twentieth century and the
violent nihilism of the modern movement, an irreducible form of ugliness. It's
ugliness needed no explanation because it was considered self-explanatory. On
that basis Garbett was able to conclude that a building had to be outwardly
symmetrical. Only ephemeral disturbances of movement, such as the play of light
and shadow, the effects of age and weathering and the position and movements of
the spectator were allowed to affect a building's symmetry to add to its
intellectual appeal.
Garbett's second
thesis with regard to the problem of symmetry posited that outward symmetry in
nature was always maintained whatever the internal arrangement of parts, or
organs. This was a highly original idea, strongly and succinctly argued:
internal symmetry, he wrote, is frequently wasteful and not organic! Garbett did
not take account of the fact that internal symmetry in nature is maintained
whenever there are coupled organs, such as the lobes of the brain, the kidneys,
lungs, etc. Taking that factor into consideration, internal symmetry is only
ever disturbed in cases where there are single organs to be dispersed about the
body, such as the liver, stomach, pancreas, intestines, heart, etc.
Nevertheless this rather refined analogy holds water, especially with
architecture. In buildings exact internal symmetry is only justifiable on
practical grounds, in cases where, for instance, marriage does not entail a
fusion of domestic rituals but merely their coupling; where the queen of France,
for example, is entitled to half the space offered in the palace and a separate
household. An obvious example of this is Versailles. Le Corbusier was,
incidentally, to use the same analogy with regard to internal symmetry in his
theory of urban planning. In contradistinction to Garbett, however, Le Corbusier
did not apply the full rigour of the analogy by insisting on external symmetry
as a complementary principle.[28]
Unity amidst Variety
Garbett's aesthetics is
pervaded by Hutchesonian philosophy. One principle penetrates every one of
Garbett's principles, that is the conviction that beauty is the perception of a
relation. In Garbett's system that relation implied a tension between opposites,
between, more specifically unity and variety, order and chaos. That tension, as in the case
of symmetry, did not need to be seen directly. It was more important to be able
deduce its veiled presence through a process involving the senses, the
imagination and the intellect. Garbett's arguments concerning the deducibility
of symmetry in fact illustrate Hutcheson's influence on him rather clearly in
that the deducibility of symmetry rather than its direct perception makes the
value of such a quality relative to all sorts of contingencies.[29]
In fact Garbett subordinates all his proximate principles of
architectural beauty to the principle of unity amidst variety. These include the
demands for equal-spaced repetition and bilateral symmetry which we have already
discussed, but also what he decides is a preference of curves to straight lines, the preference
of curves of contrary flexure, the preference of curves of varying curvature and
the demand for unity or consistency of character in the application of these
principles to building:
It is hardly possible to
state collectively these proximate principles, without being led a step higher,
to a generalisation, which reduces them all to a broader principle, though still
only a proximate one. This has commonly been stated as the combination of UNITY with
VARIETY. It is best explained, perhaps, in the words of Dr Hutcheson, who states
as an axiom, (with regard to mere formal beauty,) that where the uniformity is
equal, the beauty of forms is in proportion to their variety; and when their
variety is equal, their beauty is in proportion to their uniformity.[30]
Garbett maintained
the opposition of unity versus variety, as far as they cannot exist
together in regard to any one quality. But this did not mean that the artist
had to try to keep some happy medium between the two. Far from it. There could
be no compromise, the confrontation of the principle of unity with that of
variety had to be a reconciliation of extremes. Too much uniformity would
inevitably result in monotony. Too much variety, would conversely lead to
confusion. But the amount is relative as too much implied not an absolute amount
but surrender and domination.
Neither unity nor variety can ever be carried too far, if,
for every instance of the one, and instance of the other be also found. It is an
error to say that, in any composition, one of these qualities is in excess: it
can never be in absolute excess; it is the other quality which is in relative
deficiency.
A good example of an
architectural element where the principle of unity amidst variety was carried to
sublime heights is the ionic volute as opposed to the logarithmic spiral of
Archimedes. Another was the serial progression of St Brides' steeple.[31] In both of these the rate of change in direction and volume respectively
is
Contrast versus Gradation
A development of
the principle of unity amidst variety and a further symmetrical opposition in
Garbett's theory is the principle of Contrast versus Gradation which may be seen
as a central concept in his normative strategy.
Reynolds and earlier theorists, such as Hogarth, anticipate Garbett on
the subject of contrast as a compositional element in painting. As far as
architectural design is concerned Garbett certainly went furthest and was most
consistent in forcing their opposition into such a well-behaved law of
design.
Garbett defined contrast as a perfect similitude between two adjacent
objects in certain respects, accompanied by a wide difference in some other
respect.[32]
Resemblances he wrote, are quite as necessary as differences, and indeed must be
more numerous. There can be no contrast between two things that are altogether
different.[33]
Gradation is not
specifically defined by Garbett, apart from the implication that it forms a
direct opposite to contrast, but it can be taken to refer to the gradual passage
from one state two another. The difference between the two consisted for Garbett
in the degree of abruptness in which the change was effected. Contrast referred
to the abrupt dislocation dividing two similar entities, while gradation
described a single but variable entity, slowly undergoing metamorphosis. Because
of the abruptness of the change contrast expressed power. It had undergone force
and was on that basis able to express force. Gradation on the other hand was
itself the agent of slow change. That ease expressed malleability, even
delicacy.
A Greek example: flutes and columns
The Doric order
was, as far as Garbett was concerned, the perfect embodiment of the principle of
contrast. Every detail in the Doric order had been generated by the consistent
application of that principle. Columns, he argued, were fluted for no other
reason than to enhance the principle of contrast. Garbett scoffed at the idea of
fluting having been copied from women's clothing or the bark of trees. It was
obvious to him, not without a certain self-congratulatory impatience, that a
rounded smooth shaft would introduce an unbearable amount of gradation into the
Doric order:
Nothing could be so
contradictory in principle to everything else in the Doric order as the sleek
fatness of a completely rounded shaft, whose mass only gives it clumsiness
without the slightest expression of power. A Dorian entirely debarred from the
use of flutings would have made his columns square.[34]
A column had to be
round for the sake of convenience and because it imitates nature by being round.
The authority of nature is always irreducible and has therefore to be taken for
granted; nature is its own justification. The fact that Garbett did not try to
justify the greater convenience of a round column probably has something to do
with his impatience to get to the crux of the problem, which was to reduce the
unbearable levels of gradation in round shafted Doric columns and restore the
order as the epitome of contrast and restore the Greeks as the most rational of
formalists. Even a polygonal shaft consisting of twenty sides would not show
enough contrast of light and shade from one plane to the next when lit from one
point. Such a shaft would still show too much gradation to a Greek. This could
be reduced, however, if one were to exaggerate the shaft's polygonal character
by making each plane concave. Each plane would thus be transformed into a
right-angled nook, forming a beautiful example of contrast where the expression
of strength, repose and power is increased while that of clumsiness is
avoided.
Garbett did not believe that the entasis in columns was introduced by the
Greeks to procure the optical illusion of greater length.[35] Instead he favoured the view that the entasis was adopted to stop the
column appearing slightly concave. This would have helped to increase the
impression of squareness, and therefore of contrast. Not of the column itself,
but, significantly, of the intercolumn. On entering the temple, Garbett argued
that people experienced the void rather than the mass. Spherical perspective,
which works on the assumption that optical images are received on a spherical
surface, the retina, requires architects and designers to compensate for the
concavity of the retina. Garbett posited that the intercolumn was given an
exaggerated squareness by the fact that its sides were rendered slightly concave
by the entasis and that this exaggerated squareness was further emphasised by
the fact that the width at the top of the intercolumn was greater than the width
near the ground.[36]
The subordination of forms
The principle of
contrast versus gradation gave Garbett a framework to institute a taxonomy of
forms which would successfully force each class of form into a hierarchical
relationship to the other classes. This hierarchy could then determine
priorities in composition. The starting point for this system of classification
was Hogarth's Analysis of Beauty (1753).[37] The actual influence of Hogarth on Garbett was limited however. The line of beauty may
have stood for the epitome of fitness, variety, uniformity, simplicity,
intricacy, and quantity to Hogarth, to Garbett it was simply a curve of artificial contrary
flexure. The line of beauty had to take its proper place in a strict
hierarchy of forms, where each class was allocated its proper function within
the composition of a building.
Garbett's method of classification was partly derived from the theorist
Joseph Jopling who classified the different modes of joining two lines into four
orders.[38] The whole spectrum was however defined by the extremes of contrast
versus gradation, resulting in five basic divisions of form related to their
inherent expression. Power, as the result of the exclusive application of the
principle of contrast, occupied one end of the spectrum, while delicacy, as
dependent on the fluidity of gradation, occupied the other end.
The first category of forms concerned rectilinear and rectangular forms.
These submitted to the most extreme application of the principle of contrast
from which all curves, being instances of gradation, were excluded.
Perpendicularity represented the greatest possible difference between two
straight lines while the greatest difference between light and shade is the
difference between a plain surface and its verso when lit from one direction.
But, as Garbett observed, in such a situation only one plane could be observed
at a time. Therefore, the greatest visible contrast in light and shade could be achieved
by two planes standing at right angles to each other.
If contrast is characterised chiefly by right angles and straight lines,
then an obvious first step away from this extreme is the use of oblique angles,
which constitutes the second category. Having disposed of straight lines we come
to his theory of curvature. The curve showing least gradation is the simple
curve. After that there is a category for curves of a different equation meeting
and forming a flexure. This category includes Hogarth's line of beauty, for when
two curves of different mathematical equations meet there is, however small,
always an instance of contrast at their point of fission. This contrast is
avoided only in the last category where curves of the same equation meet to form
a line of flexure.
To sum up, we
have:
1. Rectilinear and rectangular forms;
2. Rectilinear but oblique angled forms;
3. Curvilinear forms without contrary flexures;
4. Curvilinear forms with artificial contrary flexures;
(Hogarth's line of beauty)
5. Curvilinear forms with natural contrary flexures. [39]
The point of this
hierarchy was to give the designer a strict set of priorities with regard to the
application of forms in predetermined situations:
Beauty consists neither
in delicacy nor in its expression, but in the correct expression of whatever
quality the object really possesses.[40]
A building is a complex
organism. To reflect that complexity Garbett allows the architect to several if
not all classes of forms at once in one building. The building thus becomes a
many-sided character, as subtly composed as any human individual. To achieve
this complexity there must be an organisational principle which decides on
priorities, determining which forms are appropriate to specific situations. The
architect needs a system of subordination which is not imposed by man, but one
that is imposed by nature in that it can be seen to operate in nature without
our interference. This natural hierarchy should allow the ordered integration of
the different classes to make up a whole in the same way Cuvier had devised a
system of the subordination of organs.[41]
If those forms exhibiting most contrast are expressive of strength then
they must obviously be used in those parts of a building where strength is
needed and seen to be needed, namely the supporting elements or structural parts
of a building. This condition becomes the first principle of Garbett's system of
architectural composition: forms must be distributed according to the structural
requirements of a building. A second principle, connected with the one just
mentioned, is that forms must become visibly lighter as their distance from the
ground increases. It is a principle well illustrated by the human pyramid, where
the strongest and most solid men are nearest to the ground. The lighter the
person, the higher his or her position is relative to the ground. This sequence
is similarly echoed in the classic order in which the various architectural
orders may be superimposed upon one another, such as in the colosseum. The third
and last principle of organisation decides on the relative social importance of
each feature and determines the choice and distribution of appropriate forms.
These three principles were subsequently translated into three laws:
I. That in
buildings of different destinations, features which are of the same importance,
and placed at the same heights relatively to the whole buildings to which they
belong, should never be found belonging to a graver class of form in the
building of the lighter destination, and vice verse.
II. That in the
same building, and at the same height above the ground, principal and structured
members should never belong to a lighter class of form than subordinate
features, nor these to a lighter class than ornaments.
III. That in the same
building, features of the same degree of importance, but situated at different
levels, should never belong to a graver class of form at the higher level than
at the lower.[42]
The Greeks were
faithful to these natural laws, even omitting to adopt the dentils from the
ionic order when they imported the order from their ionian
neighbours, because they considered rectangular forms inappropriate to such minor features, so
near the top of a composition aiming altogether at greater delicacy and elegance
than their national [read Doric] style.[43]
The Romans, who were less particular about the issues of Taste, adopted Grecian
forms but forgot the underlying principles inaugurating the slow process of
degeneration which led to the chaos of architectural manners between the fall of the
Roman and the rise of the Gothic systems.[44]
The Gothicists were able to recover the lost knowledge of a natural system of
subordination, banishing all rectangular details from their ornament:
...at length [the
Gothicists] established a consistency nowise inferior to that observed in the
Finest Grecian works, though confined to a narrower scale; the forms of the
fifth class being found only in the smallest ornamental carving...while those of
the first class almost completely banished from every thing except the grand
divisions and masses of the building, and are never found in any details, not
even those of the basement.[45]
The principle of
subordination suggested an interesting hypothesis concerning the causes of
decline and architectural degeneration:
As the lighter classes
of form are indisputably the most beautiful in themselves, apart from fitness,
there is generally, when the art is in a progressive state, far more danger of
their encroaching on the domains of the graver classes than there is of the
contrary evil. Accordingly, it was in this way that the Greek, the Gothic, and
the Italian systems all declined and fell after their perfection had been
reached, and change began to be sought no longer for the sake of improvement,
but for the sake of change.[46]
The Sublime
It was somehow
inevitable that the concept of the sublime would be rationalised according to
the principles discussed above. The sublime, Garbett argued, did not depend on
magnitude or quantity, instead it insisted on the proper subordination of forms
and the exclusive application of the principle of contrast in the design of the
building.
The Doric order represents the purest and most rational application of
the principle of contrast. The temples built by the Dorians are sublime to a
unique degree. Yet, when they are compared in size to those Egyptian buildings
which are known to exhibit sublimity, they are no more than cottages. In other
words they are far more efficient at procuring that quality called sublime than
any other style of building. Egyptian buildings on the same scale as Doric
temples may be called curious, mysterious even, but never sublime. The same is
true for Gothic buildings; they need to treble or quadruple their measurements
in order to attain sublimity. Most Greek temples are no larger than Parish
churches, and who would consider a parish church sublime...; picturesque maybe,
pretty, mysterious, but hardly sublime!
Once the sublime was suitably conventionalised into axioms Garbett was
content to leave the definition of the sublime to others, most notably Ruskin.
Garbett quoted at length the passage in "The Lamp of Power" which has since
become one of Ruskin's classic statements:
that the relative
majesty of buildings depends more on the weight and vigour of their masses than
on any other attribute of their design; mass of everything, of bulk, of light,
of darkness, of colour, not the mere sum of any of these but breadth of them;
not mere broken light nor scattered darkness, nor divided weight, but solid
stone, broad sunshine, starless shade.[47]
Like the principle
of unity amidst variety, the sublime relies not on a compromise between
extremes, but on the tension created by their forced coexistence.
Meanness
The treatment of the
sublime is surprisingly brief in the Treatise. Perhaps that is because it really serves as
an introduction into a much more urgent problem facing contemporary English
architecture, which is the opposite of the sublime, namely the concept of
lightness. Lightness was an attractive concept during the first half of the
nineteenth century. The reason for this, without wanting to be cynical, was
undoubtedly that lightness was one of the few aesthetic qualities which could
make a building cheaper. The concept came under threat as soon as Ruskin
insisted on weight
and vigour. It was further rejected by Garbett who called it the paste-board
treatment of buildings peculiar to modern England.[48] With that judgement the concept of lightness changed
its name to suit the temper of the prose and became instead the problem of meanness, a theme
which, in the years following the publication of the Treatise, was to
become one of Garbett's fiercest obsessions.
The problem really concerned sharp practices in architecture and the
discrepancies between the design and the finished product. In order to lure his
client, the architect made his building on paper look far more attractive, solid
and vigorous that the cost of execution would permit. In Barry's designs for the
Houses of Parliament, for instance, the recesses of the windows appeared about
three feet thick according to Garbett. In the executed building they were
reduced to no more than a foot thick. This accusation was followed up with a
quick calculation as to how much the architect has robbed the public of apparent solidity
and produced the unforgettable slogan: Give us back our 112,000 cubic feet.[49]
The Picturesque
Garbett devotes very
little space to the picturesque. What he does say is little more than a
derivative echo of Ruskin's ideas but without the latter's subtle arguments and
brilliant resolution of the concept in the lamp of memory. Garbett does not
appear to have grasped the full (social) implications of Ruskin's concept of
Picturesque.[50] Having said that, Garbett does isolate the interesting phrase in
Ruskin's lamp of memory which defines the picturesque as a "Parasitical
Sublimity."[51]
The picturesque and the sublime behave in a way similar to Alison's power,
versus delicacy. The picturesque is a quality achieved by the workings of an
external agent on the object. The sublime, on the other hand, is a quality which
is intrinsic to the object. The picturesque is a display, in the
extraneous and adventitious circumstances of a thing, of such qualities, as,
transferred to the thing itself, would conduce to sublimity. The picturesque
may be defined as a secondary quality:
The same depth, and prevalence of contrast in a building,
which, when produced by evident design, leads to
nobleness, or at least obviates meanness; when resulting from chance (either by the falling of a building to ruin, or
the unforeseen clustering of buildings together,) constitutes the
picturesque.
To support this argument
Garbett tries to translate Ruskin's ideas into his own, more axiomatic program
concerning the principle of the subordination of forms. The Picturesque can be
achieved through the accumulation of all the physical elements conducing to
sublimity with a studied exclusion of all those principles relevant to beauty.
These include the uniformity of halves, or bilateral symmetry, equidistant
repetition and the principle of gradation in general.[52] That is as much as to say that picturesque as a principle relevant to
architectural design must ultimately be rejected on the grounds that it is a
quality which relies totally on the arbitrary and the accidental effect of time
and circumstance to achieve its effects and therefore not on the beautiful
necessity exhibited in the design of nature. The picturesque is the Rembrandt of
aesthetics.
1.
Books which provide a general backdrop to
this part are Mach (1953); Whittaker (1960) and Rothschuh (1973) More recently
there is Kemp (1990).
2.
The only truly negative criticism of Newton's
thinking had come from Goethe. Goethe's Theory of Colours was an attempt to respond to Newton's
physical analysis by adopting a psychological and physiological approach.
Goethe's book was translated into English by Charles Eastlake and published in
1840. Garbett did not want to criticise Newton and Goethe's provocative stand
against the divine Newton's status may have detracted from the book's
cover-appeal. Even so, Goethe uses a direct Aristotelian empiricism in his
theory of colour which Garbett would have found appealing and useful, that is
why it is a little surprising that Garbett did not even acknowledge the book's
existence.
3.
For D.R Hay's reliance on the theories of
George Field see Brett (1986) p. 339 & 348. cf. Hay (1844) Garbett, who does
quote Hay on form and ornamental design, does not mention his Laws of Harmonious
Colouring of which the fifth edition came out in 1844, suggesting it was a
commanding book. Neither does he mention George Field's influential Chromatography; or, A
treatise on Colours and Pigments, and of Their Power in Painting etc.,
(London 1835) This book was to have enjoyed 5 editions by 1885. Field's Chromatography was
a broader version of his much earlier Chromatics, or an Essay on the Analogy and Harmony of
Colours, which came out in London in 1817. See Brett's bibliography, Brett
(1986) p. 337-338.
4.
Buffon's work on physiology and Optics are
contained in his Mémoires to the Académie des Sciences between
1737-1752.
8.