ing whereby it is possible to gain the power to perceive and use these correlations for worthy ends, is of great value to the creative artist, whose succe

understanding and appreciation of every variety of esthetic endeavor. For the benefit of such I shall try to trace some of th

ted and coordinated that our pigmy bodies, equally with the farthest star, vibrate to the music of the spheres. There is a Beautiful Necessity which rules the world, which is a law of nature and equally a law of art, for art is idealized creation: nature carried to a higher power by reason of its passage through a human consciousness. Thought and emotion tend to crystallize into forms of beauty as inevitably as does the frost on a window pane. Art therefore i

se laws and rules, on whose fulfilment beauty depends, are not consciously present in the mind of the artist who creates the work, or of the observer who contemplates it." Never

ous as to be almost unnecessary of elucidation, for to say that a work of art must possess unity, must seem to proceed from a single impulse and be the embodiment of one dominant idea, is to state a truism. In a work of architecture the co?rdination of its various parts with one anoth

ithin his limiting veil, maya, and that his life appears as spirit (male), and his maya as matter (female), the two being never disjoined during manifestation. The two terms of this polarity are endlessly repeated throughout nature: in sun and moon, day and night, fire and water, man and woman-and so on. A close inter-relation is always seen to subsist between corresponding members of such

tant, and the constant and characteristic distinction b

und of suspense, made with the mouth open; and of the second m, a sound of satisfaction, made by closing the mouth; their combination forms the sacred syllable Om (Aum). In painting they are warm colors, and cold: the pole of the first being in red, the color of fire, which excites; and of the second in blue, the color of water, which calms; in the Arts of design they are

matter; mind, and body; etc. The English words "masculine" and "feminine" are too intimately associated with the idea of physical sex properly to designate the terms of this polarity. In Japanese philosophy and art (derived from the Chinese) the two are called In and Yo (In, feminine; Yo, masculine); and these little words, being fre

6: WILD CHER

ion 7: CAL

exhibited in the vastly more pretentious easel pictures of modern Occidental artists-a superiority now generally acknowledged b

ion in a single form. The straight, vertical reeds which so often grow in still, shallow water, find their complement in the curved lily-pads which lie horizontally on its surface. Trees such as pine and hemlock, which are excurrent-those in which the branches start successively (i.e., after the manner of time) from a straight and vertical central stem-are Yo; trees such as the elm and willow, which are deliquescent-those in which the trunk dissolves as it were simultaneousl

ognize them in his chosen art, whatever that art may be. If it happens to be painting, he will endeavor to discern this law of duality in the composition of every masterpiece, recognizing an instinctive obedience to it in that favorite devi

AW OF POLARITY CLEOPAT

EP

mains a certain number of architectural forms whose origin cannot be explained in any such manner. The secret of their undying charm lies in the fact that in them In and Yo stand symbolized and contrasted. They no longer obey a law of utility, but an abstract law of beauty, for in becoming sexually expressive as it were, the construction itself is sometimes weakened or falsified. The familiar classic console or modillion is an example: although in general contour it is well adapted to its function as a supporting bracket, embedded in, and projecting from a wall, yet the scroll-like ornament with which its sides are emb

9: CROSS SECTI

eived of as a condensed section of wall; and of the second, the lintel, which may be conceived of as a condensed section of roof. The column, being vertical, is Yo; the lintel, being horizontal, is In. To mark an entablature with

NTHIAN MODILLION; CLAS

two spirally marked volutes. This, though a less rational and expressive form for its particular office than is the echinus of the Doric cap, is a far more perfect symbol of the feminine element in nature. There is an essential identity between the Ionic cap and the classic console before referred to-although superficially the two do not resemble each other-for a straight line and a double spiral are elements common to both (Illustration 10). The Corinthian capital consists of an ordered mass of delicately sculptured leaf and scroll forms sustaining a

strat

strat

motif, which has persisted throughout so many centuries and survived so many styles, exhibits an alternation of forms resembling phallic emblems. Yo and In are well suggested in the channeled triglyphs and the sculptu

and modifying the design of a cathedral in much the same way that sex modifies bodily structure. The masonic guilds of the Middle Ages were custodians of the

PITAL FROM THE TOWER

RIAN BUILDINGS, ATHENS;

S OF CORINTHIAN CAP;

G AND TONGUE; BEAD A

of the two towers (the south being the more slender and delicate), there is a clearly marked distinction in the character of the ornamentation, that of the north tower being more salient, angular, radial-more masculine in point of fact (Illustration 17). In Notre Dame, the cathedral of Paris, as in the cathedral of Tours, the north tower is perceptibly broader than the south. The only other important difference appears to be in the angular label-mould above the north entrance: whatever may have been its original function or significance, it serves to define the tower sexually, so to speak, as effectively as does the beard on a man's face. In Amiens the north tower is taller than the south, and more massive in its upper stages. The

E OF THE FARNESE PALACE

HE EMPIRE STYLE BY

E OF VESTA AT TIVOLI.

E-VIG

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art to certain subtle vertical leans and horizontal bends; and to nicely calculated variations from strict uniformity, which find their analogue in nature, where structure is seldom rigidly geometrical. The author hazards

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strat

ion will be found in all. The modes of support and of decoration are infinitely various, but the real character of the building, in all good Gothic, depends on the single lines of the gable over the pointed arch endlessly rearranged and repeated." These two, an angular and a curved form, like the everywhere recurring column and lintel of classic architecture, are but presentments of Yo and In (Illustration 18). Every Gothic traceried window, w

20: SAN GIMIGN

h that esoteric significance, that excess of beauty, by which architecture rises to the dignity of a "fine" art (Illustrations 19, 20). In so doing, however, he should never forget, and the layman also should ever remember, that the supreme architectural excellence is fitness, appropriateness, the perf