DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.18825#0080
70 HISTORY OF ART. [LECT. III.
away by their running into perspective, without lo-
sing the idea of fitness: and when he is of necesssity
obliged to give the front of a building, with all its
equalities and parallelisms, he generally breaks (as it
is termed) such disagreeable appearances, by throw-
ing a tree before it, or the shadow of an imaginary
cloud, or some other object that may answer the
same purpose of adding variety, which is the same
with taking away uniformity......
" In my mind, odd numbers have the advantage
over the even ones, as variety is more pleasing than
uniformity, where the same end is answered by both ;
and I cannot help observing, that nature m all her
works of fancy, if I may be allowed the expression,
where it seems immaterial whether even or odd num-
bers of divisions were preferred, most frequently
employs the odd ; as for example, in the indenting
of leaves, flowers, blossoms. Sec.
" The oval also, on account of its variety with
simplicity, is as much to be preferred to the circle,
as the triangle to the square, or the pyramid to the
cube ; and this figure lessened at one end, like the
effff. thereby bein«; more varied, is singled out by
the Author of all variety, to bound the features of a
beautiful face.
u When the oval has a little more of the cone
added to it than the egg lias, it becomes more dis-
tinctly a compound of those two most simple varied
figures. This is the shape of the pine-apple, which
Nature has particularly distinguished by bestowing
rich ornaments of mosaic upon it, composed of con -
trasted serpentine lines; and the pips, as the gar-
deners
away by their running into perspective, without lo-
sing the idea of fitness: and when he is of necesssity
obliged to give the front of a building, with all its
equalities and parallelisms, he generally breaks (as it
is termed) such disagreeable appearances, by throw-
ing a tree before it, or the shadow of an imaginary
cloud, or some other object that may answer the
same purpose of adding variety, which is the same
with taking away uniformity......
" In my mind, odd numbers have the advantage
over the even ones, as variety is more pleasing than
uniformity, where the same end is answered by both ;
and I cannot help observing, that nature m all her
works of fancy, if I may be allowed the expression,
where it seems immaterial whether even or odd num-
bers of divisions were preferred, most frequently
employs the odd ; as for example, in the indenting
of leaves, flowers, blossoms. Sec.
" The oval also, on account of its variety with
simplicity, is as much to be preferred to the circle,
as the triangle to the square, or the pyramid to the
cube ; and this figure lessened at one end, like the
effff. thereby bein«; more varied, is singled out by
the Author of all variety, to bound the features of a
beautiful face.
u When the oval has a little more of the cone
added to it than the egg lias, it becomes more dis-
tinctly a compound of those two most simple varied
figures. This is the shape of the pine-apple, which
Nature has particularly distinguished by bestowing
rich ornaments of mosaic upon it, composed of con -
trasted serpentine lines; and the pips, as the gar-
deners