The essentially rhythmic character of the experience is, however, the
same in both. The experience of visual repetition is only one-sided
when the symmetry or proportion of a finished series is regarded as the
explanation of its essential character, and when the temporal rhythmic
factor is neglected.
PART II
The purpose of the latter half of this discussion of repetition is to
consider a certain number of examples of its use in typical buildings
of all the European styles of architecture from Greece down, and to
show that the principles laid down in the earlier half have been
expressed almost without exception in those of recognized merit. In
other words it is to show that the laws of repetition, which have been
brought out in the experiments of the first part, and which would of
necessity be true if that explanation were correct, have indeed been
exemplified in types of architecture universally accepted as beautiful.
The illustrations have all been drawn from architecture beginning with
Greece, and not from the older Eastern styles. Egyptian architecture,
although it recognized the importance of repetition to some extent, in
its colonnades, avenues of sphinxes, and hieroglyphic decoration, never
reduced it to any principle, nor adhered to any one scheme throughout
a piece of work. Supports of the same kind and diameter have no fixed
relation to each other, they may be of the same or different lengths,
and may vary in diameter as well.[98] Spaces between columns of one
size and design may vary considerably, and the entablatures be of
different proportions. The art of Egypt was not rhythmic.
The architecture of Assyria and Chaldea had even less of repeated
forms in its style. They made but little use of columns or piers, and
had few arches.[99] The bare Assyrian edifice was like a great box,
perpendicular to its foundations, and the long walls pierced by hardly
an opening in the way of windows or doors.
Persian architecture was noted for extreme nicety of execution, but
a monotony in all its forms, and conventionality about its use of
the column, which makes it little more fruitful for our study of
repetition as an artistic value. In its decorations of bas-relief, the
pose and gesture of each figure is so exactly similar that they appear
almost machine-made.[100] When a little variety is introduced, it is
evidently done with misgivings, and shows none of the spontaneity or
first-hand pleasure in either repetition or variation which would make
it profitable for illustration.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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