Harvard Psychological Studies, Volume 2

by Unknown

Having thus concluded that the odd numbers of units in groups is more adapted for separate enclosures, is the opposite true? In the continuous balustrade, previously discussed, are the units of groups made up of an even number of elements? Of the fifty-seven examples cited of continuous railings, thirty-one have an even number of posts in their groups. These conform to the rule: but what will explain the twenty-six remaining? It will be noticed that six of these have too many in a group for the eye to perceive any difference between odd and even, since they range from nine to thirteen. When so many units are in a group, the effect is always of the run-on type, whether the actual number turns out to be odd or even on subsequent count. One has a balustrade with only two sections on a side, each side of the centre door. Seven are in each section, and since the appearance of a symmetrical whole is the desired effect, an odd number is more in keeping than an even; in fact, this example, Monte Berico, might better come under the other head of separate enclosures, although it partakes of the character of both. Another balustrade with three in a section (Blois Château) is so heavy and massive in all its parts that fixity and solidity is more in keeping with it than rhythm. Eleven of them, that is, the larger proportion of all those with an odd number of pillars in a section, support arches, and the arch is taken as the unit instead of the separate pillar; and we find an even number of arch-units in each section, which is what we should have expected. It is a noticeable fact, which was previously suggested in connection with separate enclosures, that when a row of pillars supports a plain lintel, the pillar is taken as the unit of repetition. (When the row is on the front of a building, temple, etc., the opening may be the unit, if the purpose of the central door or the fact of going through is in the mind: but when the series stands for itself, the pillar is the unit.) When pillars support arches, the arch is the unit, unless it is very narrow as in the Moorish style, when the pillar is often so high and the arch so narrow in comparison that its value is weakened.

Of the thirty-one balustrades with an even number of parts in a section, four sets of pillars bear arches, and make an odd number of them. This would seem to make an exception to the rule were they not so narrow in two cases that the pillar was still the unit, and in the other two the motif of the arch was built around the intervening piers, so that they did not seem divided into sections at all, but continuous.

We have thus surveyed the whole field of repetitions of rhythmic and symmetrical units, and their difference in treatment according to the end they serve, and the results bear out our expectations. The symmetrical unit, as exemplified chiefly by an odd number of units in groups, is more used for detached enclosures; and the rhythmic type, with even numbers, is used more especially for continuous ones. In the former case the motor tendency is toward the central balance, while in the latter it is driven on out of itself through the series. When pillars support arches, the arch is the unit; when they support lintels, the pillars themselves remain the unit. Any number of units over eight loses its value of odd or even, since the difference can no longer be perceived and becomes rhythmic whether odd or even.

It must not be supposed that these rules are inevitably carried out or that the effect is necessarily poor if they are not. It shows a general æsthetic demand, however, which in individual cases may be modified by other demands, or altered in parts to make a more unified whole. When, however, the series is taken for itself, and judged entirely on its own merits, these conclusions will be found generally valid.

We have still to consider whether series always end with a heavy unit. All the series examined do end in this way; in fact we feel the necessity of this so clearly that one illustration would be as good as a hundred. But there is a difference in the use of the end unit, which is noticeable in any two series of symmetrical and rhythmic units. Of the sixteen examples of continuous series whose units were distinctly symmetrical instead of rhythmic, eight of them, although ending on supports, do not end on the principal unit of the series. This can be best shown by one or two examples. The Orvieto Cathedral has on the façade a balustrade of rectangular reliefs alternating with supports. The reliefs are undoubtedly the more interesting and important element of the series, yet the series ends with the less important element, the support or post, and we feel that it must do so. The Palazzo Contarini has a balustrade on its façade in which carved wheel-like designs alternate with supports which come at the ends. Why, in these cases, do we feel it as inevitable that the heavier and more important unit should not come at the end, as with rhythmic units we feel that they should? The answer to this is partly structural and partly æsthetic. We must feel, first of all, that the series is properly supported, that it will not fall away at the ends or down in the middle, and for this reason support of some kind must come at the end to hold it up and give a feeling of solidity and stability. But why are not these supports made the more interesting and important unit so that they might still bear up the superstructure and end the series as well? Here the æsthetic demand appears. As soon as the object is regarded as an æsthetic unity and care put upon it to make it beautiful for its own sake, it must not be thought of as the end of any series. It must be cut off from the rest of the world by supports or framed in some way, and while it still may have a place in a series, provided it is sufficiently conventionalized and not too important in itself, it must not be thought of as either ending or beginning, as depending on a series to give it importance, or lending support to anything else. It simply exists, cut off from the world, even though in the balustrade not an integral part of it, and one ought to be able to remove it without affecting the stability of the structure.

The question whether series of symmetrical units have less heavy ends to finish them than series of rhythmic units cannot be settled by these methods of analysis. While it seems certain that the rhythmic series drives the attention on by its greater motor activity, and hence would need more of an end to stop it, so many other factors enter in of more importance, such exact measurements would be necessary (quite impossible with the photographs of the scale here used), the refinement would be so great, since the stone of which most of the examples are made, by its own weight supplies a check to rhythmic activity, all these considerations make it impossible to illustrate this conclusion and it must remain an experimental result alone.

There remains one question: Is regular repetition of three units ever found? They may be in combination of some kind so that they fall into a rhythm of twos, but are they ever found repeated as three separate and distinct units? The answer to this is without exception. Of the five thousand photographs analyzed, not one instance of this kind of series was found. In many cloisters the pillars are of different design, and often one design is repeated through an otherwise varying series, but their repetition is either without scheme of any kind, or in some combination that falls into a rhythm of twos. No three-rhythm has been used in art, any more than it has been found possible in experiments.

ARCHES

It has been noticed in the preceding discussion that when a series of pillars supports arches, the arch, not the pillar, is taken as the unit. If this is so, it would seem that the arch by binding two pillars together with a curve awakens a more vigorous response than the vertical line of the pillars, and this greater expenditure of activity makes it to be taken as the element of repetition. It suggested that the arch (like the rhythmic unit) tends to drive attention on out of one unit to the next in the series. The outward thrust of the arch arouses an outward-tending activity, and for this reason a row of arches would need, to give a finished, stable effect, a wider and heavier embankment at the end than a series of lintels. The experiments on this point were inconclusive owing to the difficulty of obtaining a series of arches and of lintels which should be comparable in size. For this reason the validity of this suggestion must depend upon the actual treatment of arches in architecture. It would seem that the arch would, like the rhythmic unit, be more appropriate for continuous series than for detached short rows; or if the series were short, the ends should be treated in some way, by reduction in size, change in width of pillar, pier, or decoration, so that the outward-activity might be counteracted by some inward thrust or some accentuation of the centre. Thus the unity or balance of the series as a whole would prevent the arches from seeming to "run away" which they might appear to do without such treatment. We shall, then, look through photographs of buildings where arches are used, to find if their treatment carries out the supposition.