The Principles of AestheticsParker, De Witt H. (De Witt Henry)
Philosophy
The Principles of Aesthetics
Parker, De Witt H. (De Witt Henry)
Aesthetics
Differences of feeling in arched forms depend upon the relative height
of arches and supporting piers and columns. The vertical effect is
strongly emphasized when the latter are relatively high, while the
effect of weight is increased in flattened arches, which for this
reason are especially appropriate for crypts and prison entrances.
Interesting complications are introduced in arcades or intersecting
vaults, where a single column serves as a support for two or more
arches; for there the vertical force is divided, flowing in different
directions in the little triangular piece of wall between, or along
the ribs of the vaults. Something similar occurs in the Byzantine dome
on pendentives, only instead of supporting the horizontal weight of
a gallery or a vault, the triangular pendentives meet the outward
thrust of a superposed dome.
In Renaissance architecture and the modern classical revivals, where
Greek and Roman styles are freely adapted to novel modes of life and
purpose, no essentially new form was added to architectural speech.
There were combinations of old forms into more complex structures, but
no new important elements. The most outstanding novelty is perhaps the
reversed relation between the whole and the parts. [Footnote: See P.
Frankl, _Die Entwicklungsphasen der neueren Baukunst_, 1914.] In
the classic styles, whether arched or Greek, the whole is built up of
the parts additively; each is a relatively independent center of energy
complete in itself; first the columns, then the architrave, frieze,
and cornice, then the pediment; or first one row of arches, then another
row on top of this, and so on. Coordination is the governing principle.
But in the modern adaptations, even where coordination rather than
subordination rules in the pictorial sphere, the whole is first
dynamically and the parts are secondary. In the typical Renaissance
facade, for example, the arches of the windows are rather openings in
the walls than supporting members. They are centers of little eddies
of force, rather than independent parts of the main determining stream
of energy. The wall rises as a whole to its heavy overhanging cornice,
despite the horizontal divisions marking the stories. There are,
however, important differences between the various modern types; the
earlier Renaissance forms, for example, keeping closer to the antique
than the later Baroque and Rococo.
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