Succession and UniformitySUCCESSION and uniformity of parts are what constitute the
artificial infinite. 1. Succession; which is requisite that
the parts may be continued so long and in such a direction, as by their
frequent impulses on the
sense to impress the imagination with an idea of their progress beyond
their actual limits. 2 Uniformity; because if the figures
of the parts should be changed, the imagination at every change finds
a check; you
are presented at every alteration with the termination of one idea,
and the beginning of another; by which means it becomes impossible
to continue that uninterrupted progression, which alone can stamp on
bounded objects the character of infinity. [1] It is in this kind of
artificial infinity, I believe, we ought to look for the cause why
a rotund has such a noble effect. For in a rotund, whether it be a
building or a plantation, you can nowhere fix a boundary; turn which
way you will, the same object still seems to continue, and the imagination
has no rest. But the parts must be uniform, as well as circularly disposed,
to give this figure its full force; because any difference, whether
it be in the disposition, or in the figure, or even in the color of
the parts, is highly prejudicial to the idea of infinity, which every
change must check and interrupt, at every alteration commencing a new
series. On the same principles of succession and uniformity, the grand
appearance of the ancient heathen temples, which were generally oblong
forms, with a range of uniform pillars on every side, will be easily
accounted for. From the same cause also may be derived the grand effect
of the aisles in many of our own old cathedrals. The form of a cross
used in some churches seems to me not so eligible as the parallelogram
of the ancients; at least, I imagine it is not so proper for the outside.
For, supposing the arms of the cross every way equal, if you stand
in a direction parallel to any of the side walls, or colonnades, instead
of a deception that makes the building more extended than it is, you
are cut off from a considerable part (two-thirds) of its actual length;
and to prevent all possibility of progression, the arms of the cross,
taking a new direction, make a right angle with the beam, and thereby
wholly turn the imagination from the repetition of the former idea.
Or suppose the spectator placed where he may take a direct view of
such a building, what will be the consequence? The necessary consequence
will be, that a good part of the basis of each angle formed by the
intersection of the arms of the cross, must be inevitably lost; the
whole must of course assume a broken, unconnected figure; the lights
must be unequal, here strong, and there weak; without that noble gradation
which the perspective always effects on parts disposed uninterruptedly
in a right line. Some or all of these objections will lie against every
figure of a cross, in whatever view you take it. I exemplified them
in the Greek cross, in which these faults appear the most strongly;
but they appear in some degree in all sorts of crosses. Indeed there
is nothing more prejudicial to the grandeur of buildings, than to abound
in angles; a fault obvious in many; and owing to an inordinate thirst
for variety, which, whenever it prevails, is sure to leave very little
true taste. |
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