DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.4423#0036
16 THE FIBST GIVEN PBOPOBTIONS.
these natural bodies, and innumerable ratios and Geometrical properties were found to exist
in the plane figures, obtained by cutting sections through these elementary and natural forms.
Also we find in Euclid, Book XII., prob. 10, every Cone is the third part of a Cylinder,
which has the same base and is of an equal altitude with it.
Again, from Archimedes the Sphere is § of the circumscribed Cylinder.
The ancient Philosophers, finding so much order existing within the limits of their
Geometrical observations, conceived that if they could penetrate the mysteries of the creation,
that the same order and regularity, and the same principles of proportioning, might be
there discovered. Thus Plato, in his Timseus, says, " The composition of the world received
" one whole of each of these four natures—fire and air, earth and water—for its composing
" artificer constituted it from all fire, water, air, and earth, for he concluded it would thus be
" a perfect whole if formed from perfect parts."
This perfect harmony of Proportion which the Mathematicians discovered in the forms
they investigated, and which the Philosophers conceived as existing in the composition of the
world, the ancient Architects established, as a fundamental principle, in their Architecture ;
thus Vitruvius says :—" The composition of Temples is governed by the laws of symmetry,
" which an Architect ought well to understand: this arises from Proportion." " Proportion
" is the correspondence of the measures of all the parts of a work and of the whole
" configuration, from which correspondence symmetry is produced ; for a building cannot be
" well composed without the rules of Symmetry and Proportion, nor unless the members, as
" in a well-formed human body, have a perfect agreement."
PLATE I.
THE PROPORTIONS OF EGYPTIAN ARCHITECTURE AND SCULPTURE.
In the very beautiful work of Mons. Prisse d'Avennes, Histoire de l'Art Egyptien
d'apres les Monuments, published by the French Government, in 1859, several examples are
given of Egyptian drawings of Sculpture, laid down according to the Egyptian canon of
Proportions, where the Artist has first traced the divisions of squares in red lines, and then
outlined the figures in dark ink, guided by certain established Proportions. In Fig. 1, is given
a copy of one of these outline drawings, taken from the above-mentioned work, and we find
that the same ideas of proportioning can be applied to the several chambers of the Tombs of
the Kings, at Thebes.
In these early works of Egyptian Architecture, which were most carefully designed
and executed, we meet with many illustrations of the first simple ideas of Proportion ; for
when we examine the principal chambers in these Tombs, we find that the length, the
width, and the height, were generally made commensurable quantities, measured by a common
these natural bodies, and innumerable ratios and Geometrical properties were found to exist
in the plane figures, obtained by cutting sections through these elementary and natural forms.
Also we find in Euclid, Book XII., prob. 10, every Cone is the third part of a Cylinder,
which has the same base and is of an equal altitude with it.
Again, from Archimedes the Sphere is § of the circumscribed Cylinder.
The ancient Philosophers, finding so much order existing within the limits of their
Geometrical observations, conceived that if they could penetrate the mysteries of the creation,
that the same order and regularity, and the same principles of proportioning, might be
there discovered. Thus Plato, in his Timseus, says, " The composition of the world received
" one whole of each of these four natures—fire and air, earth and water—for its composing
" artificer constituted it from all fire, water, air, and earth, for he concluded it would thus be
" a perfect whole if formed from perfect parts."
This perfect harmony of Proportion which the Mathematicians discovered in the forms
they investigated, and which the Philosophers conceived as existing in the composition of the
world, the ancient Architects established, as a fundamental principle, in their Architecture ;
thus Vitruvius says :—" The composition of Temples is governed by the laws of symmetry,
" which an Architect ought well to understand: this arises from Proportion." " Proportion
" is the correspondence of the measures of all the parts of a work and of the whole
" configuration, from which correspondence symmetry is produced ; for a building cannot be
" well composed without the rules of Symmetry and Proportion, nor unless the members, as
" in a well-formed human body, have a perfect agreement."
PLATE I.
THE PROPORTIONS OF EGYPTIAN ARCHITECTURE AND SCULPTURE.
In the very beautiful work of Mons. Prisse d'Avennes, Histoire de l'Art Egyptien
d'apres les Monuments, published by the French Government, in 1859, several examples are
given of Egyptian drawings of Sculpture, laid down according to the Egyptian canon of
Proportions, where the Artist has first traced the divisions of squares in red lines, and then
outlined the figures in dark ink, guided by certain established Proportions. In Fig. 1, is given
a copy of one of these outline drawings, taken from the above-mentioned work, and we find
that the same ideas of proportioning can be applied to the several chambers of the Tombs of
the Kings, at Thebes.
In these early works of Egyptian Architecture, which were most carefully designed
and executed, we meet with many illustrations of the first simple ideas of Proportion ; for
when we examine the principal chambers in these Tombs, we find that the length, the
width, and the height, were generally made commensurable quantities, measured by a common