The question discussed in the experiments, as to whether narrower interspacing was required between units decorated toward the centre, and units blank, or covered entirely with non-centrally accented decoration, could not be taken up in the latter analysis. To settle such a point, illustrations would have to be found of blank and decorated units of the same shape and size, in the same structure, and their relative interspacing compared. But no such examples were found, where the spacing was not regulated by some obvious structural reason other than pure pleasure in the repetition. This must stand, therefore, solely as an experimental result.
The use made of difference in plane or end, to facilitate two series being taken along together, whereas they would be fatiguing if the same in those respects, has been touched upon in the discussion of statues and bas-reliefs, and other series of more complicated units. Where the unit and alternate are both rich and significant, and would tire the observer by following each other at the distances they are obliged to be in a series, a slight difference in plane relieves the situation, and is used largely in monuments, fountains, pulpits, and such structures.
Many other questions have come up in the investigation which might be discussed in the same manner as the preceding, but can only be hinted at in conclusion:
Just what factors make an element and its alternate congruous? What is the exact relation of lines, which makes the scroll decoration in a balustrade alternate satisfactorily with an upright support, while the alternation of the arches in the Colosseum with the Greek pillars between them is incongruous?
In what does the pleasure in repeated series differ, when the observer is not certain just what is the repeated element? May there be a bare rhythmic pleasure, when the series is too far away to distinguish what the elements are, or when they run together, so that no definite demarcation is felt between them? Do such series excite a pleasure of repetition without content as to elements, and does it differ from mere variation and contrast?
The series of unsymmetrical units was found in the experiments to have a peculiarly unstable run-on effect similar to that of rhythmic units and of arches. Are they used in the same kind of cases as the others were, when a particularly active effect is desired?
Must a space be wholly enclosed, to be taken as a unit?
In a series of projections along a wall, the projections are taken as the unit, even when they almost meet at the top of the alternate space. When they actually do meet at the top, the enclosed space becomes the unit instead.
These questions and others similar might be experimented upon, and examples of their treatment analyzed, as in the previous questions discussed.
