DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.20658#0188
174
ARCHITECTURE IN LANDSCAPE.
The most approved proportions for both gates and doors are to make the height about double
the breadth.
Windows admit of various sizes and proportions, according to the purposes of the building, the
different stories or parts of a house, and also the climate of the country. For although it be
true that there is no kind of ornament in an apartment equal to the light of the sun, yet in the
distribution of windows much good sense may be shown ; that our houses may not resemble some
of the buildings in Elizabeth's days, of which Bacon says,—" You shall have sometimes fair
houses so full of glass that one cannot tell where to come to be out of the sun."
In placing his windows therefore the landscape painter must be careful that their situations
correspond with what may be supposed to be a proper arrangement of the apartments within the
building he represents.
The windows of the principal floor ought to be the most enriched, with an architrave sur-
rounding the aperture, and crowned with a frieze and cornice: but those of the other floors are
less ornamented, and in some cases left entirely plain.
The breadth of the piers between the windows must vary according to circumstances: but it
ought to fluctuate between one and two breadths of the aperture.
How far Niches or cavities formed in the solidity of a wall are in themselves proper, as evi-
dently weakening it, is not to be here considered : but as both ancients and moderns have em-
ployed them, and that they are very susceptible of picturesque effect, thev well deserve some
share of the painter's attention.
They are commonly employed to hold a group, a statue, a vase, &c. and must be proportioned
by good taste to the objects they contain. The lowest sort ought to be at least twice as high as
broad; and the highest ought never to reach three times their breadth.
Niches, whether they stand by themselves or are intermixed with windows, are ornamented
like these last, with an architrave or pannel.
The foregoing observations on architecture may perhaps be sufficient to give the young artist
a general notion of that branch of the fine arts. But to make himself master of the subject, as
taught and practised both by ancients and those of later times, he must consult and study the
works of Vitruvius, Palladio, Vignola, Scamozzi, &c. uot to mention the many excellent treatises
lately published in this country; in which all parts of architecture are comprehensively and dis-
tinctly treated.
There is still another species of architecture which, although founded and proceeding on prin-
ciples very different from those of the ancient Greeks and Romans, possesses peculiar beauties,
and which ma}^ with singular propriety, enter into the composition of a landscape: we mean
what is commonly called Gothic architecture.
This term has often been employed to denote all buildings not reducible to any of the five pre-
ceding orders : but these buildings are now properly distinguished, according to the supposed pe-
riods of their erection, into Saxon, Norman, and Saracenic, or modern Gothic now often styled
English.
This last species is generally supposed to have made its first appearance in this country about
the end of the reign of Henry II.
To what country or people the modern Gothic style of building with pointed arches owes its
origin has not hitherto been satisfactorily explained.
Some have imagined it took its rise from the intersections of the wide semicircular arches
observed
ARCHITECTURE IN LANDSCAPE.
The most approved proportions for both gates and doors are to make the height about double
the breadth.
Windows admit of various sizes and proportions, according to the purposes of the building, the
different stories or parts of a house, and also the climate of the country. For although it be
true that there is no kind of ornament in an apartment equal to the light of the sun, yet in the
distribution of windows much good sense may be shown ; that our houses may not resemble some
of the buildings in Elizabeth's days, of which Bacon says,—" You shall have sometimes fair
houses so full of glass that one cannot tell where to come to be out of the sun."
In placing his windows therefore the landscape painter must be careful that their situations
correspond with what may be supposed to be a proper arrangement of the apartments within the
building he represents.
The windows of the principal floor ought to be the most enriched, with an architrave sur-
rounding the aperture, and crowned with a frieze and cornice: but those of the other floors are
less ornamented, and in some cases left entirely plain.
The breadth of the piers between the windows must vary according to circumstances: but it
ought to fluctuate between one and two breadths of the aperture.
How far Niches or cavities formed in the solidity of a wall are in themselves proper, as evi-
dently weakening it, is not to be here considered : but as both ancients and moderns have em-
ployed them, and that they are very susceptible of picturesque effect, thev well deserve some
share of the painter's attention.
They are commonly employed to hold a group, a statue, a vase, &c. and must be proportioned
by good taste to the objects they contain. The lowest sort ought to be at least twice as high as
broad; and the highest ought never to reach three times their breadth.
Niches, whether they stand by themselves or are intermixed with windows, are ornamented
like these last, with an architrave or pannel.
The foregoing observations on architecture may perhaps be sufficient to give the young artist
a general notion of that branch of the fine arts. But to make himself master of the subject, as
taught and practised both by ancients and those of later times, he must consult and study the
works of Vitruvius, Palladio, Vignola, Scamozzi, &c. uot to mention the many excellent treatises
lately published in this country; in which all parts of architecture are comprehensively and dis-
tinctly treated.
There is still another species of architecture which, although founded and proceeding on prin-
ciples very different from those of the ancient Greeks and Romans, possesses peculiar beauties,
and which ma}^ with singular propriety, enter into the composition of a landscape: we mean
what is commonly called Gothic architecture.
This term has often been employed to denote all buildings not reducible to any of the five pre-
ceding orders : but these buildings are now properly distinguished, according to the supposed pe-
riods of their erection, into Saxon, Norman, and Saracenic, or modern Gothic now often styled
English.
This last species is generally supposed to have made its first appearance in this country about
the end of the reign of Henry II.
To what country or people the modern Gothic style of building with pointed arches owes its
origin has not hitherto been satisfactorily explained.
Some have imagined it took its rise from the intersections of the wide semicircular arches
observed