{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_12625/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_12625","id":"gutenberg_12625","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/12625","summary":null,"tags":["Architecture","Architecture -- United States","Category: Architecture","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Decoration and ornament","Sullivan, Louis H., 1856-1924"],"text":"ARCHITECTURE AND DEMOCRACY\n\nBY\n\nCLAUDE BRAGDON\nF.A.I.A.\n\n1918\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration: PLATE I. THE WOOLWORTH BUILDING, NEW YORK]\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE\n\n\nThis book can lay no claim to unity of theme, since its subjects range\nfrom skyscrapers to symbols and soul states; but the author claims for\nit nevertheless a unity of point of view, and one (correct or not) so\ncomprehensive as to include in one synthesis every subject dealt\nwith. For according to that point of view, a skyscraper is only a\nsymbol--and of what? A condition of consciousness, that is, a state of\nthe soul. Democracy even, we are beginning to discover, is a condition\nof consciousness too.\n\nOur only hope of understanding the welter of life in which we are\nimmersed, as in a swift and muddy river, is in ascending as near\nto its pure source as we can. That source is in consciousness and\nconsciousness is in ourselves. This is the point of view from which\neach problem dealt with has been attacked; but lest the author be at\nonce set down as an impracticable dreamer, dwelling aloof in an ivory\ntower, the reader should know that his book has been written in\nthe scant intervals afforded by the practice of the profession of\narchitecture, so broadened as to include the study of abstract form,\nthe creation of ornament, experiments with color and light, and such\noccasional educational activities as from time to time he has been\ncalled upon to perform at one or another architectural school.\n\nThe three essays included under the general heading of \"Democracy\nand Architecture\" were prepared at the request of the editor of _The\nArchitectural Record_, and were published in that journal. The two\nfollowing, on \"Ornament from Mathematics,\" represent a recasting and\na rewriting of articles which have appeared in _The Architectural\nReview, The Architectural Forum_, and _The American Architect_.\n\"Harnessing the Rainbow\" is an address delivered before the Ad. Club\nof Cleveland, and the Rochester Rotary Club, and afterwards made into\nan essay and published in _The American Architect_ under a different\ntitle. The appreciation of Louis Sullivan as a writer appears here for\nthe first time, the author having previously paid his respects to Mr.\nSullivan's strictly architectural genius in an essay in _House and\nGarden_. \"Color and Ceramics\" was delivered on the occasion of the\ndedication of the Ceramic Building of the University of Illinois,\nand afterwards published in _The Architectural Forum_. \"Symbols and\nSacraments\" was printed in the English Quarterly _Orpheus_. \"Self\nEducation\" was delivered before the Boston Architectural Club, and\nafterwards published in a number of architectural journals.\n\nAcknowledgment is hereby tendered by the author to the editors of\nthese various magazines for their consent to republication, together\nwith thanks, however belated, for their unfailing hospitality to the\nchildren of his brain.\n\nCLAUDE BRAGDON.\n\n_August 1, 1918_.\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n  ARCHITECTURE AND DEMOCRACY\n\n     I. Before the War\n\n    II. During the War\n\n   III. After the War\n\n\n  ORNAMENT FROM MATHEMATICS\n\n     I. The World Order\n\n    II. The Fourth Dimension\n\n\n  HARNESSING THE RAINBOW\n\n\n  LOUIS SULLIVAN, PROPHET OF DEMOCRACY\n\n\n  COLOR AND CERAMICS\n\n\n  SYMBOLS AND SACRAMENTS\n\n\n  SELF-EDUCATION\n\n\n\n\nLIST OF FULL PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS\n\n  Plate    I. The Woolworth Building, New York\n\n  Plate   II. The New York Public Library\n\n  Plate  III. The Prudential Building, Buffalo, N.Y.\n\n  Plate   IV. The Erie County Savings Bank, Buffalo, N.Y.\n\n  Plate    V. The New York Central Terminal\n\n  Plate   VI. Plan of the Red Cross Community Club House,\n              Camp Sherman, Ohio\n\n  Plate  VII. Interior View of the Camp Sherman Community House\n\n  Plate VIII. Imaginative Sketch by Henry P. Kirby\n\n  Plate   IX. Architectural Sketch by Otto Rieth\n\n  Plate    X. 200 West 57th Street, New York\n\n  Plate   XI. Imaginary Composition: The Portal\n\n  Plate  XII. Imaginary Composition: The Balcony\n\n  Plate XIII. Imaginary Composition: The Audience Chamber\n\n  Plate  XIV. Song and Light: An Approach toward \"Color Music\"\n\n  Plate   XV. Symbol of Resurrection\n\n\n\n\nEvery form of government, every social institution, every\nundertaking, however great, however small, every symbol of\nenlightenment or degradation, each and all have sprung and are still\nspringing from the life of the people, and have ever formed and are\nnow as surely forming images of their thought. Slowly by centuries,\ngenerations, years, days, hours, the thought of the people has\nchanged; so with precision have their acts responsively changed; thus\nthoughts and acts have flowed and are flowing ever onward, unceasingly\nonward, involved within the impelling power of Life. Throughout this\nstream of human life, and thought, and activity, men have ever felt\nthe need to build; and from the need arose the power to build. So,\nas they thought, they built; for, strange as it may seem, they could\nbuild in no other way. As they built, they made, used, and left behind\nthem records of their thinking. Then, as through the years new men\ncame with changed thoughts, so arose new buildings in consonance\nwith the change of thought--the building always the expression of\nthe thinking. Whatever the character of the thinking, just so was the\ncharacter of the building.\n\nWhat is Architecture? A Study in the American People of Today, by\nLOUIS SULLIVAN.\n\n\n\n\nArchitecture and Democracy\n\nI\n\nBEFORE THE WAR\n\n\nThe world war represents not the triumph, but the birth of democracy.\nThe true ideal of democracy--the rule of a people by the _demos_, or\ngroup soul--is a thing unrealized. How then is it possible to consider\nor discuss an architecture of democracy--the shadow of a shade? It is\nnot possible to do so with any degree of finality, but by an intention\nof consciousness upon this juxtaposition of ideas--architecture and\ndemocracy--signs of the times may yield new meanings, relations may\nemerge between things apparently unrelated, and the future, always\nexistent in every present moment, may be evoked by that strange magic\nwhich resides in the human mind.\n\nArchitecture, at its worst as at its best, reflects always a true\nimage of the thing that produced it; a building is revealing even\nthough it is false, just as the face of a liar tells the thing\nhis words endeavor to conceal. This being so, let us make such\narchitecture as is ours declare to us our true estate.\n\nThe architecture of the United States, from the period of the Civil\nWar, up to the beginning of the present crisis, everywhere reflects a\nstruggle to be free of a vicious and depraved form of feudalism,\ngrown strong under the very \u00e6gis of democracy. The qualities that made\nfeudalism endeared and enduring; qualities written in beauty on\nthe cathedral cities of mediaeval Europe--faith, worship,\nloyalty, magnanimity--were either vanished or banished from this\npseudo-democratic, aridly scientific feudalism, leaving an inheritance\nof strife and tyranny--a strife grown mean, a tyranny grown prudent,\nbut full of sinister power the weight of which we have by no means\nceased to feel.\n\nPower, strangely mingled with timidity; ingenuity, frequently\nmisdirected; ugliness, the result of a false ideal of beauty--these\nin general characterize the architecture of our immediate past; an\narchitecture \"without ancestry or hope of posterity,\" an architecture\ndevoid of coherence or conviction; willing to lie, willing to steal.\nWhat impression such a city as Chicago or Pittsburgh might have made\nupon some denizen of those cathedral-crowned feudal cities of the\npast we do not know. He would certainly have been amazed at its giant\nenergy, and probably revolted at its grimy dreariness. We are wont\nto pity the mediaeval man for the dirt he lived in, even while smoke\ngreys our sky and dirt permeates the very air we breathe: we think of\ncastles as grim and cathedrals as dim, but they were beautiful and gay\nwith color compared with the grim, dim canyons of our city streets.\n\nLafcadio Hearn, in _A Conservative_, has sketched for us, with a\nsympathy truly clairvoyant, the impression made by the cities of the\nWest upon the consciousness of a young Japanese samurai educated under\na feudalism not unlike that of the Middle Ages, wherein was worship,\nreverence, poetry, loyalty--however strangely compounded with the more\nsinister products of the feudal state.\n\n    Larger than all anticipation the West appeared to him,--a\n    world of giants; and that which depresses even the boldest\n    Occidental who finds himself, without means or friends, alone\n    in a great city, must often have depressed the Oriental exile:\n    that vague uneasiness aroused by the sense of being invisible\n    to hurrying millions; by the ceaseless roar of traffic\n    drowning voices; by monstrosities of architecture without a\n    soul; by the dynamic display of wealth forcing mind and\n    hand, as mere cheap machinery, to the uttermost limits of\n    the possible. Perhaps he saw such cities as Dor\u00e9 saw London:\n    sullen majesty of arched glooms, and granite deeps opening\n    into granite deeps beyond range of vision, and mountains\n    of masonry with seas of labor in turmoil at their base, and\n    monumental spaces displaying the grimness of ordered power\n    slow-gathering through centuries. Of beauty there was nothing\n    to make appeal to him between those endless cliffs of stone\n    which walled out the sunrise and the sunset, the sky and the\n    wind.\n\nThe view of our pre-war architecture thus sketchily presented is sure\nto be sharply challenged in certain quarters, but unfortunately for\nus all this is no mere matter of opinion, it is a matter of fact. The\nbuildings are there, open to observation; rooted to the spot, they\ncannot run away. Like criminals \"caught with the goods\" they stand,\nself-convicted, dirty with the soot of a thousand chimneys, heavy with\nthe spoils of vanished civilizations; graft and greed stare at us out\nof their glazed windows--eyes behind which no soul can be discerned.\nThere are doubtless extenuating circumstances; they want to be clean,\nthey want to be honest, these \"monsters of the mere market,\" but they\nare nevertheless the unconscious victims of evils inherent in our\ntransitional social state.\n\nLet us examine these strange creatures, doomed, it is hoped, to\nextinction in favor of more intelligent and gracious forms of\nlife. They are big, powerful, \"necessitous,\" and have therefore an\nimpressiveness, even an \u00e6sthetic appeal, not to be denied. So subtle\nand sensitive an old-world consciousness as that of M. Paul Bourget\nwas set vibrating by them like a violin to the concussion of a\ntrip-hammer, and to the following tune:\n\n    The portals of the basements, usually arched as if crushed\n    beneath the weight of the mountains which they support, look\n    like dens of a primitive race, continually receiving and\n    pouring forth a stream of people. You lift your eyes, and you\n    feel that up there behind the perpendicular wall, with\n    its innumerable windows, is a multitude coming and\n    going,--crowding the offices that perforate these cliffs of\n    brick and iron, dizzied with the speed of the elevators.\n    You divine, you feel the hot breath of speculation quivering\n    behind these windows. This it is which has fecundated these\n    thousands of square feet of earth, in order that from them may\n    spring up this appalling growth of business palaces, that hide\n    the sun from you and almost shut out the light of day.\n\n\"The simple power of necessity is to a certain degree a principle of\nbeauty,\" says M. Bourget, and to these structures this order of beauty\ncannot be denied, but even this is vitiated by a failure to press the\nadvantage home: the ornate fa\u00e7ades are notably less impressive\nthan those whose grim and stark geometry is unmitigated by the\ngrave-clothes of dead styles. Instances there are of strivings toward\na beauty that is fresh and living, but they are so unsuccessful and\ninfrequent as to be negligible. However impressive these buildings may\nbe by reason of their ordered geometry, their weight and magnitude,\nand as a manifestation of irrepressible power, they have the\nunloveliness of things ignoble being the product neither of praise,\nnor joy, nor worship, but enclosures for the transaction of sharp\nbargains--gold bringing jinn of our modern Aladdins, who love them not\nbut only use them. That is the reason they are ugly; no one has loved\nthem for themselves alone.\n\nFor beauty is ever the very face of love. From the architecture of\na true democracy, founded on love and mutual service, beauty would\ninevitably shine forth; its absence convicts us of a maladjustment in\nour social and economic life. A skyscraper shouldering itself aloft at\nthe expense of its more humble neighbors, stealing their air and\ntheir sunlight, is a symbol, written large against the sky, of\nthe will-to-power of a man or a group of men--of that ruthless and\ntireless aggression on the part of the cunning and the strong so\ncharacteristic of the period which produced the skyscraper. One of\nour streets made up of buildings of diverse styles and shapes and\nsizes--like a jaw with some teeth whole, some broken, some rotten,\nand some gone--is a symbol of our unkempt individualism, now happily\nbecoming curbed and chastened by a common danger, a common devotion.\n\nSome people hold the view that our insensitiveness to formal beauty is\nno disgrace. Such argue that our accomplishments and our interests are\nin other fields, where we more than match the accomplishments of older\ncivilizations. They forget that every achievement not registered in\nterms of beauty has failed of its final and enduring transmutation. It\nis because the achievements of older civilizations attained to their\napotheoses in art that they interest us, and unless we are able\nto effect a corresponding transmutation we are destined to perish\nunhonoured on our rubbish heap. That we shall effect it, through\nknowledge and suffering, is certain, but before attempting the\nmore genial and rewarding task of tracing, in our life and in our\narchitecture, those forces and powers which make for righteousness,\nfor beauty, let us look our failures squarely in the face, and\ndiscover if we can why they are failures.\n\nConfining this examination to the particular matter under discussion,\nthe neo-feudal architecture of our city streets, we find it to lack\nunity, and the reason for this lack of unity dwells in a _divided\nconsciousness_. The tall office building is the product of many\nforces, or perhaps we should say one force, that of necessity; but its\nconcrete embodiment is the result of two different orders of talent,\nthat of the structural engineer and of the architectural designer.\nThese are usually incarnate in two different individuals, working\nmore or less at cross purposes. It is the business of the engineer\nto preoccupy himself solely with ideas of efficiency and economy,\nand over his efficient and economical structure the designer smears\na frosting of beauty in the form of architectural style, in the\narch\u00e6ological sense. This is a foolish practice, and cannot but result\nin failure. In the case of a Greek temple or a mediaeval cathedral\nstructure and style were not twain, but one; the structure determined\nthe style, the style expressed the structure; but with us so divorced\nhave the two things become that in a case known to the author, the\nstructural framework of a great office building was determined and\nfabricated and then architects were invited to \"submit designs\"\nfor the exterior. This is of course an extreme example and does not\nrepresent the usual practice, but it brings sharply to consciousness\nthe well known fact that for these buildings we have substantially one\nmethod of construction--that of the vertical strut, and the horizontal\n\"fill\"--while in style they appear as Grecian, Roman, Renaissance,\nGothic, Modern French and what not, according to the whim of the\ndesigner.\n\n[Illustration: PLATE II. THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY]\n\nWith the modern tendency toward specialization, the natural outgrowth\nof necessity, there is no inherent reason why the bones of a building\nshould not be devised by one man and its fleshly clothing by another,\nso long as they understand one another, and are in ideal agreement,\nbut there is in general all too little understanding, and a\nconfusion of ideas and aims. To the average structural engineer the\narchitectural designer is a mere milliner in stone, informed in those\nprevailing architectural fashions of which he himself knows little and\ncares less. Preoccupied as he is with the building's strength, safety,\neconomy; solving new and staggeringly difficult problems with address\nand daring, he has scant sympathy with such inconsequent matters as\nthe stylistic purity of a fa\u00e7ade, or the profile of a moulding. To the\ndesigner, on the other hand, the engineer appears in the light of a\nsubordinate to be used for the promotion of his own ends, or an evil\nto be endured as an interference with those ends.\n\nAs a result of this lack of sympathy and co-ordination, success crowns\nonly those efforts in which, on the one hand, the stylist has been\ncompletely subordinated to engineering necessity, as in the case of\nthe East River bridges, where the architect was called upon only to\nadd a final grace to the strictly structural towers; or on the other\nhand, in which the structure is of the old-fashioned masonry sort, and\nfaced with a familiar problem the architect has found it easy to be\nfrank; as in the case of the Manhattan Storage Warehouse, on 42nd\nStreet, New York, or in the Bryant Park fa\u00e7ade on the New York\nLibrary. The Woolworth building is a notable example of the complete\nco-ordination between the structural framework and its envelope, and\nfalls short of ideal success only in the employment of an archaic and\nalien ornamental language, used, however, let it be said, with a fine\nunderstanding of the function of ornament.\n\nFor the most part though, there is a difference of intention between\nthe engineer and the designer; they look two ways, and the result of\ntheir collaboration is a flat and confused image of the thing that\nshould be, not such as is produced by truly binocular vision. This\ndifference of aim is largely the result of a difference of education.\nEngineering science of the sort which the use of steel has required is\na thing unprecedented; the engineer cannot hark back to the past for\nhelp, even if he would. The case is different with the architectural\ndesigner; he is taught that all of the best songs have been sung, all\nof the true words spoken. The Glory that was Greece, and the Grandeur\nthat was Rome, the romantic exuberance of Gothic, and the ordered\nrestraint of Renaissance are so drummed into him during his years of\ntraining, and exercise so tyrannical a spell over his imagination that\nhe loses the power of clear and logical thought, and never becomes\ntruly creative. Free of this incubus the engineer has succeeded in\nbeing straightforward and sensible, to say the least; subject to it\nthe man with a so-called architectural education is too often tortuous\nand absurd.\n\nThe architect without any training in the essentials of design\nproduces horrors as a matter of course, for the reason that sin is the\nresult of ignorance; the architect trained in the false manner of the\ncurrent schools becomes a reconstructive arch\u00e6ologist, handicapped by\nconditions with which he can deal only imperfectly, and imperfectly\ncontrol. Once in a blue moon a man arises who, with all the advantages\ninherent in education, pierces through the past to the present, and\nis able to use his brain as the architects of the past used theirs--to\ndeal simply and directly with his immediate problem.\n\nSuch a man is Louis Sullivan, though it must be admitted that not\nalways has he achieved success. That success was so marked, however,\nin his treatment of the problem of the tall building, and exercised\nsubconsciously such a spell upon the minds even of his critics and\ndetractors, that it resulted in the emancipation of this type of\nbuilding from an absurd and impossible convention--the practice,\ncommon before his time, of piling order upon order, like a house\nof cards, or by a succession of strongly marked string courses\nemphasizing the horizontal dimension of a vertical edifice, thus\nvitiating the finest effect of which such a building is capable.\n\nThe problem of the tall building, with which his predecessors dealt\nalways with trepidation and equivocation, Mr. Sullivan approached\nwith confidence and joy. \"What,\" he asked himself, \"is the chief\ncharacteristic of the tall office building? It is lofty. This\nloftiness is to the artist-nature its thrilling aspect. It must be\ntall. The force of altitude must be in it. It must be every inch a\nproud and soaring thing, rising in sheer exultation that from bottom\nto top it is a unit without a dissenting line.\" The Prudential\n(Guaranty) building in Buffalo represents the finest concrete\nembodiment of his idea achieved by Mr. Sullivan. It marks his\nemancipation from what he calls his \"masonry\" period, during which\nhe tried, like so many other architects before and since, to make a\nsteel-framed structure look as though it were nothing but a masonry\nwall perforated with openings--openings too many and too great not\nto endanger its stability. The keen blade of Mr. Sullivan's mind cut\nthrough this contradiction, and in the Prudential building he carried\nout the idea of a _protective casing_ so successfully that Montgomery\nSchuyler said of it, \"I know of no steel framed building in which the\nmetallic construction is more palpably felt through the envelope of\nbaked clay.\"\n\n[Illustration: PLATE III. THE PRUDENTIAL BUILDING, BUFFALO N.Y.]\n\nThe present author can speak with all humbleness of the general\nfailure, on the part of the architectural profession, to appreciate\nthe importance of this achievement, for he pleads guilty of day after\nday having passed the Prudential building, then fresh in the majesty\nof its soaring lines, and in the wonder of its fire-wrought casing,\nwith eyes and admiration only for the false romanticism of the Erie\nCounty Savings Bank, and the empty bombast of the gigantic Ellicott\nSquare. He had not at that period of his life succeeded in living down\nhis architectural training, and as a result the most ignorant layman\nwas in a better position to appraise the relative merits of these\nthree so different incarnations of the building impulse than was he.\n\nSince the Prudential building there have been other tall office\nbuildings, by other hands, truthful in the main, less rigid, less\nmonotonous, more superficially pleasing, yet they somehow fail to\nimpart the feeling of utter sincerity and fresh originality inspired\nby this building. One feels that here democracy has at last found\nutterance in beauty; the American spirit speaks, the spirit of the\nLong Denied. This rude, rectangular bulk is uncompromisingly practical\nand utilitarian; these rows on rows of windows, regularly spaced, and\nall of the same size, suggest the equality and monotony of obscure,\nlaborious lives; the upspringing shafts of the vertical piers stand\nfor their hopes and aspirations, and the unobtrusive, delicate\nornament which covers the whole with a garment of fresh beauty is like\nthe very texture of their dreams. The building is able to speak\nthus powerfully to the imagination because its creator is a poet\nand prophet of democracy. In his own chosen language he declares, as\nWhitman did in verse, his faith in the people of \"these states\"--\"A\nNation announcing itself.\" Others will doubtless follow who will make\na richer music, commensurate with the future's richer life, but such\ndemocracy as is ours stands here proclaimed, just as such feudalism\nas is still ours stands proclaimed in the Erie County Bank just across\nthe way. The massive rough stone walls of this building, its pointed\ntowers and many dormered chateau-like roof unconsciously symbolize the\nattempt to impose upon the living present a moribund and alien\norder. Democracy is thus afflicted, and the fact must needs find\narchitectural expression.\n\nIn the field of domestic architecture these dramatic contrasts are\nless evident, less sharply marked. Domestic life varies little from\nage to age; a cottage is a cottage the world over, and some manorial\nmansion on the James River, built in Colonial days, remains a fitting\nhabitation (assuming the addition of electric lights and sanitary\nplumbing) for one of our Captains of Industry, however little an\nancient tobacco warehouse would serve him as a place of business.\nThis fact is so well recognized that the finest type of modern country\nhouse follows, in general, this or some other equally admirable model,\nthough it is amusing to note the millionaire's preference for a feudal\ncastle, a French chateau, or an Italian villa of the decadence.\n\nThe \"man of moderate means,\" so called, provides himself with\nno difficulty with a comfortable house, undistinguished but\nunpretentious, which fits him like a glove. There is a piazza towards\nthe street, a bay-window in the living room, a sleeping-porch for the\nchildren, and a box of a garage for the flivver in the bit of a back\nyard.\n\nFor the wage earner the housing problem is not so easily nor\nso successfully solved. He is usually between the devil of the\nspeculative builder and the deep sea of the predatory landlord, each\nintent upon taking from him the limit that the law allows and giving\nhim as little as possible for his money. Going down the scale of\nindigence we find an itinerancy amounting almost to homelessness, or\nhouses so abject that they are an insult to the very name of home.\n\n[Illustration: PLATE IV: THE ERIE COUNTY SAVINGS BANK, BUFFALO, N.Y.]\n\nIt is an eloquent commentary upon our national attitude toward a most\nvital matter that in this feverish hustle to produce ships, airplanes,\nclothing and munitions on a vast scale, the housing of the workers was\neither overlooked entirely, or received eleventh-hour consideration,\nand only now, after a year of participation in the war, is it\nbeginning to be adequately and officially dealt with--how efficiently\nand intelligently remains to be seen. The housing of the soldiers was\nanother matter: that necessity was plain and urgent, and the miracle\nhas been accomplished, but except by indirection it has contributed\nnothing to the permanent housing problem.\n\nOther aspects of our life which have found architectural expression\nfall neither in the commercial nor in the domestic category--the great\nhotels, for example, which partake of the nature of both, and our\npassenger railway terminals, which partake of the nature of neither.\nThese latter deserve especial consideration in this connection, by\nreason of their important function. The railway is of the very essence\nof the modern, even though (with what sublime unreason) Imperial Rome\nis written large over New York's most magnificent portal.\n\nThink not that in an age of unfaith mankind gives up the building\nof temples. Temples inevitably arise where the tide of life flows\nstrongest; for there God manifests, in however strange a guise. That\ntide is nowhere stronger than in the railroad, which is the arterial\nsystem of our civilization. All arteries lead to and from the heart,\nand thus the railroad terminus becomes the beating heart at the center\nof modern life. It is a true instinct therefore which prompts to\nthe making of the terminal building a very temple, a monument to\nthe conquest of space through the harnessing of the giant horses of\nelectricity and steam. This conquest must be celebrated on a scale\ncommensurate with its importance, and in obedience to this necessity\nthe Pennsylvania station raised its proud head amid the push-cart\narchitecture of that portion of New York in which it stands. It is not\ntherefore open to the criticism often passed upon it, that it is too\ngrand, but it is the wrong kind of grandeur. If there be truth in the\ncontention that the living needs of today cannot be grafted upon the\ndead stump of any ancient grandeur, the futility of every attempt to\naccomplish this impossible will somehow, somewhere, reveal itself to\nthe discerning eye. Let us seek out, in this building, the place of\nthis betrayal.\n\nIt is not necessarily in the main fa\u00e7ade, though this is not a face,\nbut a mask--and a mask can, after its kind, always be made beautiful;\nit is not in the nobly vaulted corridor, lined with shops--for all we\nknow the arcades of Imperial Rome were similarly lined; nor is it in\nthe splendid vestibule, leading into the magnificent waiting room, in\nwhich a subject of the C\u00e6sars would have felt more perfectly at home,\nperhaps, than do we. But beyond this passenger concourse, where the\nelevators and stairways descend to the tracks, necessity demanded the\nconstruction of a great enclosure, supported only on slender columns\nand far-flung trusses roofed with glass. Now latticed columns, steel\ntrusses, and wire glass are inventions of the modern world too useful\nto be dispensed with. Rome could not help the architect here. The mode\nto which he was inexorably self-committed in the rest of the building\ndemanded massive masonry, cornices, mouldings; a tribute to C\u00e6sar\nwhich could be paid everywhere but in this place. The architect's\nproblem then became to reconcile two diametrically different systems.\nBut between the west wall of the ancient Roman baths and the modern\nskeleton construction of the roof of the human greenhouse there is\nno attempt at fusion. The slender latticed columns cut unpleasantly\nthrough the granite cornices and mouldings; the first century A.D. and\nthe twentieth are here in incongruous juxtaposition--a little thing,\neasily overlooked, yet how revealing! How reassuring of the fact \"God\nis not mocked!\"\n\nThe New York Central terminal speaks to the eye in a modern tongue,\nwith however French an accent. Its fa\u00e7ade suggests a portal, reminding\nthe beholder that a railway station is in a very literal sense a city\ngate placed just as appropriately in the center of the municipality as\nin ancient times it was placed in the circuit of the outer walls.\n\nNeither edifice will stand the acid test of Mr. Sullivan's formula,\nthat a building is an organism and should follow the law of organisms,\nwhich decrees that the form must everywhere follow and express the\nfunction, the function determining and creating its appropriate form.\nHere are two eminent examples of \"arranged\" architecture. Before\norganic architecture can come into being our inchoate national life\nmust itself become organic. Arranged architecture, of the sort we\nsee everywhere, despite its falsity, is a true expression of the\nconditions which gave it birth.\n\n[Illustration: PLATE V. THE NEW YORK CENTRAL TERMINAL]\n\nThe grandeur of Rome, the splendour of Paris--what just and adequate\nexpression do they give of modern American life? Then shall we find in\nour great hotels, say, such expression? Truly they represent, in the\nphrase of Henry James, \"a realized ideal\" and a study of them should\nreveal that ideal. From such a study we can only conclude that it\nis life without effort or responsibility, with every physical need\nluxuriously gratified. But these hotels nevertheless represent\ndemocracy, it may be urged, for the reason that every one may there\nbuy board and lodging and mercenary service if he has the price. The\nexceeding greatness of that price, however, makes of it a badge\nof nobility which converts these democratic hostelries into feudal\ncastles, more inaccessible to the Long Denied than as though entered\nby a drawbridge and surrounded by a moat.\n\nWe need not even glance at the churches, for the tides of our\nspiritual life flow no longer in full volume through their portals;\nneither may the colleges long detain us, for architecturally\nconsidered they give forth a confusion of tongues which has its\nanalogue in the confusion of ideas in the collective academic head.\n\nIs our search for some sign of democracy ended, and is it vain? No,\ndemocracy exists in the secret heart of the people, all the people,\nbut it is a thing so new, so strange, so secret and sacred--the ideal\nof brotherhood--that it is unmanifest yet in time and space. It is\na thing born not with the Declaration of Independence, but only\nyesterday, with the call to a new crusade. The National Army is its\ncradle, and it is nurtured wherever communities unite to serve the\nsacred cause. Although menaced by the bloody sword of Imperialism in\nEurope, it perhaps stands in no less danger from the secret poison\nof graft and greed and treachery here at home. But it is a spiritual\nbirth, and therefore it cannot perish, but will live to write itself\non space in terms of beauty such as the world has never known.\n\n\n\n\nII\n\nDURING THE WAR\n\n\nThe best thing that can be said about our immediate architectural\npast is that it is past, for it has contributed little of value to an\narchitecture of democracy. During that neo-feudal period the architect\nprospered, having his place at the baronial table; but now poor Tom's\na-cold on a war-swept heath, with food only for reflection. This\nis but natural; the architect, in so far as he is an artist, is a\npurveyor of beauty; and the abnormal conditions inevitable to a state\nof war are devastating to so feminine and tender a thing, even though\nwar be the very soil from which new beauty springs. With Mars in\nmid-heaven how afflicted is the horoscope of all artists! The skilled\nhand of the musician is put to coarser uses; the eye that learned\nits lessons from the sunset must learn the trick of making invisible\nwarships and great guns. Let the architect serve the war-god likewise,\nin any capacity that offers, confident that this troubling of the\nwaters will bring about a new precipitation; that once the war is\nover, men will turn from those \"old, unhappy, far-off things\" to\npastures beautiful and new.\n\nIn whatever way the war may complicate the architect's personal\nproblem, it should simplify and clarify his attitude toward his art.\nWith no matter what seriousness and sincerity he may have undertaken\nhis personal search for truth and beauty, he will come to question,\nas never before, both its direction and its results. He is bound to\nperceive, if he does not perceive already, that the war's arrestment\nof architecture (in all but its most utilitarian and ephemeral phases)\nis no great loss to the world for the reason that our architecture was\nuninspired, unoriginal, done without joy, without reverence, without\nconviction: a thing which any wind of a new spirit was bound to make\nappear foolish to a generation with sight rendered clairvoyant through\nits dedication to great and regenerative ends.\n\nHe will come to perceive that between the Civil War and the crusade\nthat is now upon us, we were under the evil spell of materialism. Now\nmaterialism is the very negation of democracy, which is a government\nby the _demos_, or over-soul; it is equally the negation of joy, the\nnegation of reverence, and it is without conviction because it cannot\nbelieve even in itself. Reflecting thus, he can scarcely fail to\nrealize that materialism, everywhere entrenched, was entrenched\nstrongest in the camps of the rich---not the idle rich, for\nmaterialism is so terrible a taskmaster that it makes its votaries its\nslaves. These slaves, in turn, made a slave of the artist, a minister\nto their pride and pretence. His art thus lacked that \"sad sincerity\"\nwhich alone might have saved it in a crisis. When the storm broke\nmilitant democracy turned to the engineer, who produced buildings at\nrecord speed, by the mile, with only such architectural assistance as\ncould be first and easiest fished up from the dragnet of the draft.\n\nIn one direction only does there appear to be open water. Toward the\ngeneral housing problem the architectural profession has been spurred\ninto activity by reason of the war, and to its credit be it said, it\nis now thoroughly aroused. The American Institute of Architects sent a\ncommissioner to England to study housing in its latest manifestations,\nand some of the ablest and most influential members of that\norganization have placed their services at the disposal of the\ngovernment. Moreover, there is a manifest disposition, on the part of\narchitects everywhere, to help in this matter all they can. The danger\ndwells in the possibility that their advice will not be heeded, their\nservices not be fully utilized, but through chicanery, ignorance,\nor inanition, we will relapse into the tentative, \"expensively\nprovisional\" methods which have governed the housing of workers\nhitherto. Even so, architects will doubtless recapture, and more\nthan recapture, their imperiled prestige, but under what changed\nconditions, and with what an altered attitude toward their art and\ntheir craft!\n\nThey will find that they must unlearn certain things the schools had\ntaught them: preoccupation with the relative merits of Gothic and\nClassic--tweedledum and tweedledee. Furthermore, they must learn\ncertain neglected lessons from the engineer, lessons that they will\nbe able immeasurably to better, for although the engineer is a very\nmonster of competence and efficiency within his limits, these are\nsharply marked, and to any detailed knowledge of that \"beautiful\nnecessity\" which determines spatial rhythm and counterpoint he is a\nstranger. The ideal relation between architect and engineer is that of\na happily wedded pair--strength married to beauty; in the period just\npassed or passing they have been as disgruntled divorc\u00e9s.\n\n[Illustration: PLATE VI. PLAN OF THE RED CROSS COMMUNITY CLUB HOUSE,\nCAMP SHERMAN, OHIO]\n\nThe author has in mind one child of such a happy union brought about\nby the war; the building is the Red Cross Community Club House at Camp\nSherman, which, in the pursuit of his destiny, and for the furtherance\nof his education, he inhabited for two memorable weeks. He learned\nthere more lessons than a few, and encountered more tangled skeins of\ndestiny than he is ever likely to unravel. The matter has so direct a\nbearing, both on the subject of architecture and of democracy, that it\nis worth discussing at some length.\n\nThis club house stands, surrounded by its tributary dormitories, on a\ngovernment reservation, immediately adjacent to the camp itself,\nthe whole constituting what is known as the Community Center. By the\npayment of a dollar any soldier is free to entertain his relatives\nand friends there, and it is open to all the soldiers at all times.\nBecause the iron discipline of the army is relaxed as soon as the\nlimits of the camp are overpassed, the atmosphere is favourable to\nsocial life.\n\nThe building occupies its acre of ground invitingly, though exteriorly\nof no particular distinction. It is the interior that entitles it to\nconsideration as a contribution to an architecture of that new-born\ndemocracy of which our army camps have been the cradle. The plan of\nthis interior is cruciform, two hundred feet in each dimension. Built\nby the Red Cross of the state of Ohio, and dedicated to the larger\nuses of that organization, the symbolic appropriateness of this\nparticular geometrical figure should not pass unremarked. The cross\nis divided into side aisles, nave, and crossing, with galleries and\nmezzanines so arranged as to shorten the arms of the cross in its\nupper stages, leaving the clear-story surrounding the crossing\nunimpeded and well defined. The light comes for the most part from\nhigh windows, filtering down, in tempered brightness to the floor. The\nbones of the structure are everywhere in evidence, and an element of\nits beauty, by reason of the admirably direct and logical\narrangement of posts and trusses. The vertical walls are covered with\nplaster-board of a light buff color, converted into good sized\npanels by means of wooden strips finished with a thin grey stain. The\nstructural wood work is stained in similar fashion, the iron rods,\nstraps, and bolts being painted black. This color scheme is\ncompleted and a little enlivened by red stripes and crosses placed at\nappropriate intervals in the general design.\n\nThe building attained its final synthesis through the collaboration of\na Cleveland architect and a National Army captain of engineers. It is\nso single in its appeal that one does not care to inquire too closely\ninto the part of each in the performance; both are in evidence, for\nan architect seldom succeeds in being so direct and simple, while an\nengineer seldom succeeds in being so gracious and altogether suave.\n\nEntirely aside from its \u00e6sthetic interest--based as this is on beauty\nof organism almost alone--the building is notable for the success with\nwhich it fulfils and co-ordinates its manifold functions: those of a\ndormitory, a restaurant, a ballroom, a theatre, and a lounge. The\narm of the cross containing the principal entrance accommodates the\noffice, coat room, telephones, news and cigar stand, while leaving\nthe central nave unimpeded, so that from the door one gets the unusual\neffect of an interior vista two hundred feet long. The restaurant\noccupies the entire left transept, with a great brick fireplace at the\nfar end. There is another fireplace in the centre of the side of\nthe arm beyond the crossing; that part which would correspond in a\ncathedral to the choir and apse being given over to the uses of a\nreading and writing room. The right transept forms a theatre, on\noccasion, terminating as it does with a stage. The central floor\nspaces are kept everywhere free except in the restaurant, the sides\nand angles being filled in with leather-covered sofas, wicker and\nwooden chairs and tables, arranged in groups favourable to comfort and\nconversation. Two stairways, at the right and left of the restaurant,\ngive access to the ample balcony and to the bedrooms, which occupy\nthree of the four ends of the arms of the cross at this level.\n\nThe appearance and atmosphere of this great interior is inspiring;\nparticularly of an evening, when it is thronged with soldiers, and\ncivilian guests. The strains of music, the hum of many voices, the\nrhythmic shuffle on the waxed floor of the feet of the dancers--these\neminently social sounds mingle and lose themselves in the spaces of\nthe roof, like the voice of many waters. Tobacco smoke ascends like\nincense, blue above the prevailing green-brown of the crowd, shot here\nand there with brighter colors from the women's hats and dresses, in\nthe kaleidoscopic shifting of the dance. Long parallel rows of orange\nlights, grouped low down on the lofty pillars, reflect themselves\non the polished floor, and like the patina of time on painted canvas\nimpart to the entire animated picture an incomparable tone. For the\nlighting, either by accident or by inspiration, is an achievement\nof the happiest, an example of the friendliness of fate to him who\nattempts a free solution of his problem. The brackets consist merely\nof a cruciform arrangement of planed pine boards about each column,\nwith the end grain painted red. On the under side of each arm of the\ncross is a single electric bulb enclosed within an orange-coloured\nshade to kill the glare. The light makes the bare wood of the fixture\nappear incandescent, defining its geometry in rose colour with the\nmost beautiful effect.\n\nThe club house is the centre of the social and ceremonial life of the\ncamp, for balls, dinners, receptions, conferences, concerts without\nnumber; and it has been the scene of a military wedding--the daughter\nof a major-general to the grandson of an ex-president. To these events\nthe unassuming, but pervasive beauty of the place lends a dignity new\nto our social life. In our army camps social life is truly democratic,\nas any one who has experienced it does not need to be told. Not alone\nhave the conditions of conscription conspired to make it so, but there\nis a manifest _will-to-democracy_--the growing of a new flower of\nthe spirit, sown in a community of sacrifice, to reach its maturity,\nperhaps, only in a community of suffering.\n\nThe author may seem to have over-praised this Community Club House;\nwith the whole country to draw from for examples it may well appear\nfatuous to concentrate the reader's attention, for so long, on a\nbuilding in a remote part of the Middle West: cheap, temporary,\nand requiring only twenty-one days for its erection. But of the\ntransvaluation of values brought about by the war, this building is\nan eminent example: it stands in symbolic relation to the times; it\nrepresents what may be called the architecture of Service; it is among\nthe first of the new temples of the new democracy, dedicated to the\nuses of simple, rational social life. Notwithstanding that it fills a\nfelt need, common to every community, there is nothing like it in\nany of our towns and cities; there are only such poor and partial\nsubstitutes as the hotel, the saloon, the dance hall, the lodge room\nand the club. It is scarcely conceivable that the men and women who\nhave experienced its benefits and its beauty should not demand and\nhave similar buildings in their own home towns.\n\n[Illustration: PLATE VII. INTERIOR OF THE CAMP SHERMAN COMMUNITY\nHOUSE]\n\nBeyond the oasis of the Community Club House at Camp Sherman stretch\nthe cantonments--a Euclidian nightmare of bare boards, black roofs\nand ditches, making grim vistas of straight lines. This is the\narchitecture of Need in contradistinction to the architecture of\nGreed, symbolized in the shop-window prettiness of those sanitary\nsuburbs of our cities created by the real estate agent and the\nspeculative builder. Neither contain any enduring element of beauty.\n\nBut the love of beauty in one form or another exists in every human\nheart, and if too long or too rigorously denied it finds its own\nchannels of fulfilment. This desire for self-expression through beauty\nis an important, though little remarked phenomenon of these mid-war\ntimes. At the camps it shows itself in the efforts of men of\nspecialized tastes and talents to get together and form dramatic\norganizations, glee clubs, and orchestras; and more generally by the\ndisposition of the soldiers to sing together at work and play and on\nthe march. The renascence of poetry can be interpreted as a revulsion\nagainst the prevailing prosiness; the amateur theatre is equally a\nprotest against the inanity and conventionality of the commercial\nstage; while the Community Chorus movement is an evidence of a desire\nto escape a narrow professionalism in music. A similar situation\nhas arisen in the field of domestic architecture, in the form of\nan unorganized, but wide-spread reaction against the cheap and ugly\ncommercialism which has dominated house construction and decoration of\nthe more unpretentious class. This became articulate a few years ago\nin the large number of books and magazines devoted to house-planning,\nconstruction, decoration, furnishing, and garden-craft. The success\nwhich has attended these publications, and their marked influence,\ngive some measure of the magnitude of this revolt.\n\nBut now attention must be called to a significant, and somewhat\nsinister fact. The professional in these various fields of \u00e6sthetic\nendeavour, has shown either indifference or active hostility toward\nall manner of amateur efforts at self-expression. Free verse aroused\nthe ridicule of the professors of metrics; the Little Theatre movement\nwas solemnly banned by such pundits as Belasco and Mrs. Fiske; the\nCommunity Chorus movement has invariably met with opposition and\nmisunderstanding from professional musicians; and with few exceptions\nthe more influential architects have remained aloof from the effort\nto give skilled architectural assistance to those who cannot afford to\npay them ten per cent.\n\nThus everywhere do we discover a deadening hand laid upon the\nself-expression of the democratic spirit through beauty. Its enemies\nare of its own household; those who by nature and training should\nbe its helpers hinder it instead. Why do they do this? Because their\nfastidious, \u00e6sthetic natures are outraged by a crudeness which they\nthemselves could easily refine away if they chose; because also they\nrecoil at a lack of conformity to existing conventions--conventions\nso hampering to the inner spirit of the Newness, that in order to\nincarnate at all it must of necessity sweep them aside.\n\nBut in every field of \u00e6sthetic endeavour appears here and there a\nman or a woman with unclouded vision, who is able to see in the\nflounderings of untrained amateurs the stirrings of _demos_ from his\nage-long sleep. These, often forsaking paths more profitable, lend\ntheir skilled assistance, not seeking to impose the ancient outworn\nforms upon the Newness, but by a transfusion of consciousness\npermitting it to create forms of its own. Such a one, in architecture,\nLouis Sullivan has proved himself; in music Harry Barnhart, who evokes\nthe very spirit of song from any random crowd. The _demos_ found voice\nfirst in the poetry of Walt Whitman who has a successor in Vachel\nLindsay, the man who walked through Kansas, trading poetry for food\nand lodging, teaching the farmers' sons and daughters to intone\nhis stirring odes to Pocahontas, General Booth, and Old John Brown.\nIsadora Duncan, Gordon Craig, Maeterlinck, Scriabine are perhaps\ntoo remote from the spirit of democracy, too tinged with old-world\n\u00e6stheticism, to be included in this particular category, but all\nare image-breakers, liberators, and have played their part in the\npreparation of the field for an art of democracy.\n\nTo the architect falls the task, in the new dispensation, of providing\nthe appropriate material environment for its new life. If he holds the\nold ideas and cherishes the old convictions current before the war\nhe can do nothing but reproduce their forms and fashions; for\narchitecture, in the last analysis, is only the handwriting of\nconsciousness on space, and materialism has written there already all\nthat it has to tell of its failure to satisfy the mind and heart of\nman. However beautiful old forms may seem to him they will declare\ntheir inadequacy to generations free of that mist of familiarity which\nnow makes life obscure. If, on the other hand, submitting himself\nto the inspiration of the _demos_ he experiences a change of\nconsciousness, he will become truly and newly creative.\n\nHis problem, in other words, is not to interpret democracy in terms\nof existing idioms, be they classic or romantic, but to experience\ndemocracy in his heart and let it create and determine its new forms\nthrough him. It is not for him to _impose_, it is for him to be\n_imposed upon_.\n\n  \"The passive Master lent his hand\n    To the vast soul that o'er him planned\"\n\nsays Emerson in _The Problem_, a poem, which seems particularly\naddressed to architects, and which every one of them would do well to\nlearn by heart.\n\nIf he is at a loss to know where to go and what to do in order to be\nplayed upon by these great forces let him direct his attention to\nthe army and the army camps. Here the spirit of democracy is\nalready incarnate. These soldiers, violently shaken free from their\nenvironment, stripped of all but the elemental necessities of life;\nfacing a sinister destiny beyond a human-shark-infested ocean,\nare today the fortunate of earth by reason of their realization of\nbrotherhood, not as a beautiful theory, but as a blessed fact of\nexperience. They will come back with ideas that they cannot utter,\nwith memories that they cannot describe; they will have dreamed dreams\nand seen visions, and their hearts will stir to potencies for which\nmaterialism has not even a name.\n\nThe future of the country will be in their young hands. Will they\nre-create, from its ruins, the faithless and loveless feudalism\nfrom which the war set them free? No, they will seek only for\nself-expression, the expression of that aroused and indwelling spirit\nwhich shall create the new, the true democracy. And because it is a\nspiritual thing it will come clothed in beauty; that is, it will find\nits supreme expression through the forms of art. The architect who\nassists in the emprise of weaving this garment will be supremely\nblessed, but only he who has kept the vigil with prayer and fasting\nwill be supremely qualified.\n\n\n\n\nIII\n\nAFTER THE WAR\n\n  \"When the old world is sterile\n  And the ages are effete,\n  He will from wrecks and sediment\n  The fairer world complete.\"\n\n      _The World Soul_. Emerson.\n\nHe whom the World Soul \"forbids to despair\" cannot but hope; and he\nwho hopes tries ever to imagine that \"fairer world\" yearning for birth\nbeyond this interval of blood and tears. Prophecy, to all but the\nanointed, is dangerous and uncertain, but even so, the author cannot\nforbear attempting to prevision the architecture likely to arise from\nthe wrecks and sediment left by the war. As a basis for this forecast\nit is necessary first of all briefly to classify the expression of the\nbuilding impulse from what may be called the psychological point of\nview.\n\nBroadly speaking, there are not five orders of architecture--nor\nfifty--but only two: _Arranged_ and _Organic_. These correspond to the\ntwo terms of that \"inevitable duality\" which bisects life. Talent and\ngenius, reason and intuition, bromide and sulphite are some of the\nnames we know them by.\n\nArranged architecture is reasoned and artificial; produced by talent,\ngoverned by taste. Organic architecture, on the other hand, is the\nproduct of some obscure inner necessity for self-expression which\nis sub-conscious. It is as though Nature herself, through some human\norgan of her activity, had addressed herself to the service of the\nsons and daughters of men.\n\nArranged architecture in its finest manifestations is the product of\na pride, a knowledge, a competence, a confidence staggering to behold.\nIt seems to say of the works of Nature, \"I'll show you a trick worth\ntwo of that.\" For the subtlety of Nature's geometry, and for her\ninfinite variety and unexpectedness, Arranged architecture substitutes\na Euclidian system of straight lines and (for the most part) circular\ncurves, assembled and arranged according to a definite logic of\nits own. It is created but not creative; it is imagined but not\nimaginative. Organic architecture is both creative and imaginative. It\nis non-Euclidian in the sense that it is higher-dimensional--that is,\nit suggests extension in directions and into regions where the spirit\nfinds itself at home, but of which the senses give no report to the\nbrain.\n\n[Illustration: PLATE VIII. IMAGINATIVE SKETCH BY HENRY P. KIRBY]\n\nTo make the whole thing clearer it may be said that Arranged and\nOrganic architecture bear much the same relation to one another that\na piano bears to a violin. A piano is an instrument that does not give\nforth discords if one follows the rules. A violin requires absolutely\nan ear--an inner rectitude. It has a way of betraying the man of\ntalent and glorifying the genius, becoming one with his body and his\nsoul.\n\nOf course it stands to reason that there is not always a hard and fast\ndifferentiation between these two orders of architecture, but there\nis one sure way by which each may be recognized and known. If the\nfunction appears to have created the form, and if everywhere the\nform follows the function, changing as that changes, the building is\nOrganic; if on the contrary, \"the house confines the spirit,\" if the\nbuilding presents not a face but however beautiful a mask, it is an\nexample of Arranged architecture.\n\nThe Gothic cathedrals of the \"Heart of Europe\"--now the place of\nArmageddon--represent the most perfect and powerful incarnation of\nthe Organic spirit in architecture. After the decadence of mediaeval\nfeudalism--synchronous with that of monasticism--the Arranged\narchitecture of the Renaissance acquired the ascendant; this was\ncoincident with the rise of humanism, when life became increasingly\nsecular. During the post-Renaissance, or scientific period, of which\nthe war probably marks the close, there has been a confusion of\ntongues; architecture has spoken only alien or dead languages, learned\nby rote.\n\nBut in so far as it is anything at all, \u00e6sthetically, our architecture\nis Arranged, so if only by the operation of the law of opposites, or\nalternation, we might reasonably expect the next manifestation to\nbe Organic. There are other and better reasons, however, for such\nexpectancy.\n\nOrganic architecture is ever a flower of the religious spirit. When\nthe soul draws near to the surface of life, as it did in the two\nmystic centuries of the Middle Ages, it _organizes_ life; and\narchitecture, along, with the other arts becomes truly creative. The\ninforming force comes not so much _from_ man as _through_ him. After\nthe war that spirit of brotherhood, born in the camps--as Christ was\nborn in a manger--and bred on the battlefields and in the trenches of\nEurope, is likely to take on all the attributes of a new religion of\nhumanity, prompting men to such heroisms and renunciations, exciting\nin them such psychic sublimations, as have characterized the great\nreligious renewals of time past.\n\nIf this happens it is bound to write itself on space in an\narchitecture beautiful and new; one which \"takes its shape and\nsun-color\" not from the niggardly mind, but from the opulent heart.\nThis architecture will of necessity be organic, the product not of\nself-assertive personalities, but the work of the \"Patient Daemon\"\norganizing the nation into a spiritual democracy.\n\nThe author is aware that in this point of view there is little of\nthe \"scientific spirit\"; but science fails to reckon with the soul.\nScience advances facing backward, so what prevision can it have of a\nmiraculous and divinely inspired future--or for the matter of that,\nof any future at all? The old methods and categories will no longer\nanswer; the orderly course of evolution has been violently interrupted\nby the earthquake of the war; igneous action has superseded aqueous\naction. The casements of the human mind look out no longer upon\nfamiliar hills and valleys, but on a stark, strange, devastated\nlandscape, the ploughed land of some future harvest of the years.\nIt is the end of the Age, the _Kali Yuga_--the completion of a major\ncycle; but all cycles follow the same sequence: after winter, Spring;\nand after the Iron Age, the Golden.\n\nThe specific features of this organic, divinely inspired architecture\nof the Golden Age cannot of course be discerned by any one, any more\nthan the manner in which the Great Mystery will present itself anew to\nconsciousness. The most imaginative artist can imagine only in\nterms of the already-existent; he can speak only the language he has\nlearned. If that language has been derived from mediaevalism, he\nwill let his fancy soar after the manner of Henry Kirby, in his\n_Imaginative Sketches_; if on the contrary he has learned to think in\nterms of the classic vernacular, Otto Rieth's _Architectur-Skizzen_\nwill suggest the sort of thing that he is likely to produce. Both\nresults will be as remote as possible from future reality, for the\nreason that they are so near to present reality. And yet some germs of\nthe future must be enfolded even in the present moment. The course\nof wisdom is to seek them neither in the old romance nor in the new\nrationalism, but in the subtle and ever-changing spirit of the times.\n\n[Illustration: PLATE IX. ARCHITECTURAL SKETCH BY OTTO RIETH]\n\nThe most modern note yet sounded in business, in diplomacy, in social\nlife, is expressed by the phrase, \"Live openly!\" From every quarter,\nin regard to every manner of human activity, has come the cry, \"Let\nin the light!\" By a physical correspondence not the result of\ncoincidence, but of the operation of an occult law, we have, in a very\nreal sense, let in the light. In buildings of the latest type devoted\nto large uses, there has been a general abandonment of that \"cellular\nsystem\" of many partitions which produced the pepper-box exterior, in\nfavour of great rooms serving diverse functions lit by vast areas of\nglass. Although an increase of efficiency has dictated and determined\nthese changes, this breaking down of barriers between human beings\nand their common sharing of the light of day in fuller measure, is a\nsymbol of the growth of brotherhood, and the search, by the soul, for\nspiritual light.\n\nNow if this fellowship and this quest gain volume and intensity, its\nphysical symbols are bound to multiply and find ever more perfect\nforms of manifestation. So both as a practical necessity and as a\nsymbol the most pregnant and profound, we are likely to witness in\narchitecture the development of the House of Light, particularly as\nhuman ingenuity has made this increasingly practicable.\n\nGlass is a product still undergoing development, as are also those\ndevices of metal for holding it in position and making the joints\nweather tight. The accident and fire hazard has been largely overcome\nby protecting the structural parts, by the use of wire glass, and\nby other ingenious devices. The author has been informed on good\nauthority that shortly before the outbreak of the war a glass had been\ninvented abroad, and made commercially practicable, which shut out\nthe heat rays, but admitted the light. The use of this glass would\novercome the last difficulty--the equalization of temperatures--and\nmight easily result in buildings of an entirely novel type, the\napproach to which is seen in the \"pier and grill\" style of exterior.\nThis is being adopted not only for commercial buildings, but for\nothers of widely different function, on account of its manifest\nadvantages. Cass Gilbert's admirable studio apartment at 200 West\nFifty-Seventh Street, New York, is a building of this type.\n\nIn this seeking for sunlight in our cities, we will come to live on\nthe roofs more and more--in summer in the free air, in winter under\nvariformed shelters of glass. This tendency is already manifesting\nitself in those newest hotels whose roofs are gardens, convertible\ninto skating ponds, with glazed belvideres for eating in all weathers.\nNothing but ignorance and inanition stand in the way of utilization of\nwaste roof spaces. People have lived on the roofs in the past, often\nenough, and will again.\n\n[Illustration: PLATE X. RODIN STUDIOS, 200 WEST 57TH STREET, NEW YORK]\n\nBy shouldering ever upward for air and light, we have too often\nmade of the \"downtown\" districts cliff-bound canyons--\"granite deeps\nopening into granite deeps.\" This has been the result of no inherent\nnecessity, but of that competitive greed whose nemesis is ever to\nmiss the very thing it seeks. By intelligent co-operation, backed\nby legislation, the roads and sidewalks might be made to share the\nsunlight with the roofs.\n\nThis could be achieved in two ways: by stepping back the fa\u00e7ades\nin successive stages--giving top lighting, terraces, and wonderful\nincidental effects of light and shade--or by adjusting the height of\nthe buildings to the width of their interspaces, making rows of tall\nbuildings alternate with rows of low ones, with occasional fully\nisolated \"skyscrapers\" giving variety to the sky-line.\n\nThese and similar problems of city planning have been worked out\ntheoretically with much minuteness of detail, and are known to every\nstudent of the science of cities, but very little of it all has been\nrealized in a practical way--certainly not on this side of the water,\nwhere individual rights are held so sacred that a property owner may\ncommit any kind of an architectural nuisance so long as he confines\nit to his own front yard. The strength of IS, the weakness of _should\nbe_, conflicting interests and legislative cowardice are responsible\nfor the highly irrational manner in which our cities have grown great.\n\nThe search for spiritual light in the midst of materialism finds\nunconscious symbolization in a way other than this seeking for the\nsun. It is in the amazing development of artificial illumination. From\na purely utilitarian standpoint there is almost nothing that cannot\nnow be accomplished with light, short of making the ether itself\nluminiferous. The \u00e6sthetic development of this field, however, can be\nsaid to have scarcely begun. The so recent San Francisco Exposition\nwitnessed the first successful effort of any importance to enhance the\neffect of architecture by artificial illumination, and to use colored\nlight with a view to its purely pictorial value. Though certain\nbuildings have since been illuminated with excellent effect, it\nremains true that the corset, chewing-gum, beer and automobile\nsky signs of our Great White Ways indicate the height to which our\nimagination has risen in utilizing this Promethean gift in any but\nnecessary ways. Interior lighting, except negatively, has not been\ndealt with from the standpoint of beauty, but of efficiency; the\nengineer has preempted this field to the exclusion of the artist.\n\nAll this is the result of the atrophy of that faculty to worship and\nwonder which alone induces the mood from which the creation of beauty\nsprings. Light we regard only as a convenience \"to see things by\"\ninstead of as the power and glory that it inherently is. Its intense\nand potent vibrations and the rainbow glory of its colour beat at the\ndoor of consciousness in vain. When we awaken to these things we shall\norganize light into a language of spontaneous emotion, just as from\nsound music was organized.\n\nIt is beside the purpose of this essay to attempt to trace the\nevolution of this new art form, made possible by modern invention, to\nindicate what phases it is likely to pass through on the way to what\nperfections, but that it is bound to add a new glory to architecture\nis sure. This will come about in two ways: directly, by giving color,\nquality, subtlety to outdoor and indoor lighting, and indirectly by\neducating the eye to color values, as the ear has been educated by\nmusic; thus creating a need for more color everywhere.\n\nAs light is the visible symbol of an inner radiance, so is color the\nsign manual of happiness, of joy. Our cities are so dun and drab in\ntheir outward aspects, by reason of the weight of care that burdens\nus down. We decry the happy irresponsibility of the savage, and the\npatient contentment of the Oriental with his lot, but both are able\nto achieve marvels of color in their environment beyond the compass\nof civilized man. The glory of mediaeval cathedral windows is a still\nliving confutation of the belief that in those far-off times the human\nheart was sad. Architecture is the index of the inner life of those\nwho produced it, and whenever it is colorful that inner life contains\nan inner joy.\n\nIn the coming Golden Age life will be joyous, and if it is joyous,\ncolour will come into architecture again. Our psychological state even\nnow, alone prevents it, for we are rich in materials and methods to\nmake such polychromy possible. In an article in a recent number\nof _The Architectural Record_, Mr. Leon V. Solon, writing from an\nentirely different point of view, divines this tendency, and expresses\nthe opinion that color is again renascent. This tendency is so marked,\nand this opinion is so shared that we may look with confidence toward\na color-evolution in architectural art.\n\nThe question of the character of what may be called the ornamental\nmode of the architecture of the New Age is of all questions the most\nobscure. Evolution along the lines of the already existent does not\nhelp us here, for we are utterly without any ornamental mode from\nwhich a new and better might conceivably evolve. Nothing so betrays\nthe spiritual bankruptcy of the end of the Iron Age as this.\n\nThe only light on this problem which we shall find, dwells in the\nrealm of metaphysics rather than in the world of material reality.\nOrnament, more than any other element of architecture, is deeply\npsychological, it is an externalization of an inner life. This is\nso true that any time-worn fragment out of the past when art was\na language can usually be assigned to its place and its period, so\neloquent is it of a particular people and a particular time. Could we\ntherefore detect and understand the obscure movement of consciousness\nin the modern world, we might gain some clue to the language it would\nlater find.\n\nIt is clear that consciousness is moving away from its absorption in\nmateriality because it is losing faith in materialism. Clairvoyance,\npsychism, the recrudescence of mysticism, of occultism--these signs\nof the times are straws which show which way the wind now sets, and\nindicate that the modern mind is beginning to find itself at home in\nwhat is called _the fourth dimension_. The phrase is used here in\na different sense from that in which the mathematician uses it, but\noddly enough four-dimensional geometry provides the symbols by\nwhich some of these occult and mystical ideas may be realized by the\nrational mind. One of the most engaging and inspiring of these\nideas is that the personal self is a _projection_ on the plane of\nmateriality of a metaphysical self, or soul, to which the personal\nself is related as is the shadow of an object to the object\nitself. Now this coincides remarkably with the idea implicit in all\nhigher-space speculation, that the figures of solid geometry\nare projections on a space of three dimensions, of corresponding\nfour-dimensional forms.\n\nAll ornament is in its last analysis geometrical--sometimes directly\nso, as in the system developed by the Moors. Will the psychology\nof the new dispensation find expression through some adaptation of\nfour-dimensional geometry? The idea is far from absurd, by reason of\nthe decorative quality inherent in many of the regular hypersolids of\nfour-dimensional space when projected upon solid and plane space.\n\nIf this suggestion seems too fanciful, there is still recourse to the\nlaw of analogy in finding the thing we seek. Every fresh religious\nimpulse has always developed a symbology through which its truths are\nexpressed and handed down. These symbols, woven into the very texture\nof the life of the people, are embodied by them in their ornamental\nmode. The sculpture of a Greek temple is a picture-book of Greek\nreligion; the ornamentation of a Gothic cathedral is a veritable bible\nof the Christian faith. Almost all of the most beautiful and enduring\nornaments have first been sacred symbols; the swastika, the \"Eye of\nBuddha,\" the \"Shield of David,\" the wheel, the lotus, and the cross.\n\nNow that \"twilight of the world\" following the war perhaps will\nwitness an _Avatara_--the coming of a World-Teacher who will rebuild\non the one broad and ancient foundation that temple of Truth which\nthe folly and ignorance of man is ever tearing down. A material\ncounterpart of that temple will in that case afterward arise. Thus\nwill be born the architecture of the future; and the ornament of that\narchitecture will tell, in a new set of symbols, the story of the\nrejuvenation of the world.\n\nIn this previsioning of architecture after the war, the author\nmust not be understood to mean that these things will be realized\n_directly_ after. Architecture, from its very nature, is the most\nsluggish of all the arts to respond to the natural magic of the\nquick-moving mind--it is Caliban, not Ariel. Following the war the\nnation will be for a time depleted of man-power, burdened with\ndebt, prostrate, exhausted. But in that time of reckoning will come\nreflection, penitence.\n\n            \"And I'll be wise hereafter,\n  And seek for grace. What a thrice-double ass\n  Was I, to take this drunkard for a god,\n  And worship this dull fool.\"\n\nWith some such epilogue the curtain will descend on the great drama\nnow approaching a close. It will be for the younger generations, the\nreincarnate souls of those who fell in battle, to inaugurate the work\nof giving expression, in deathless forms of art, to the vision of that\n\"fairer world\" glimpsed now only as by lightning, in a dream.\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\nESSAYS\n\n\n\n\nORNAMENT FROM MATHEMATICS\n\nI\n\nTHE WORLD ORDER\n\n\nNo fact is better established than that we live in an _orderly_\nuniverse. The truth of this the world-war may for the moment, and to\nthe near and narrow view appear to contradict, but the sweep of human\nhistory, and the stars in their courses, show an orderliness which\ncannot be gainsaid.\n\nNow of that order, _number_--that is, mathematics--is the more than\nsymbol, it is the very thing itself. Whence this weltering tide of\nlife arose, and whither it flows, we know not; but that it is governed\nby mathematical law all of our knowledge in every field confirms. Were\nit not so, knowledge itself would be impossible. It is because man is\na counting animal that he is master over all the beasts of the earth.\n\nNumber is the tune to which all things move, and as it were make\nmusic; it is in the pulses of the blood no less than in the starred\ncurtain of the sky. It is a necessary concomitant alike of the sharp\nbargain, the chemical experiment, and the fine frenzy of the poet.\nMusic is number made audible; architecture is number made visible;\nnature geometrizes not alone in her crystals, but in her most\nintricate arabesques.\n\nIf number be indeed the universal solvent of all forms, sounds,\nmotions, may we not make of it the basis of a new \u00e6sthetic--a loom on\nwhich to weave patterns the like of which the world has never seen? To\nattempt such a thing--to base art on mathematics--argues (some one\nis sure to say) an entire misconception of the nature and function of\nart. \"Art is a fountain of spontaneous emotion\"--what, therefore,\ncan it have in common with the proverbially driest, least spontaneous\npreoccupation of the human mind? But the above definition concludes\nwith the assertion that this emotion reaches the soul \"through various\nchannels.\" The transit can be effected only through some sensuous\nelement, some language (in the largest sense), and into this the\nelement of number and form must inevitably enter--mathematics is\n\"there\" and cannot be thought or argued away.\n\n[Illustration: PLATE XI. IMAGINARY COMPOSITION: THE PORTAL]\n\nBut to make mathematics, and not the emotion which it expresses, the\nimportant thing, is not this to fall into the time-worn heresy of\nart for art's sake, that is, art for form's sake--art for the sake of\nmathematics? To this objection there is an answer, and as this answer\ncontains the crux of the whole matter, embraces the proposition by\nwhich this thesis must stand or fall, it must be full and clear.\n\nWhat is it, in the last analysis, that all art which is not\npurely personal and episodical strives to express? Is it not the\n_world-order_?--the very thing that religion, philosophy, science,\nstrive according to their different natures and methods to express?\nThe perception of the world-order by the artist arouses an emotion to\nwhich he can give vent only in terms of number; but number is itself\nthe most abstract expression of the world order. The form and content\nof art are therefore not different, but the same. A deep sense of this\nprobably inspired Pater's famous saying that all art aspires toward\nthe condition of music; for music, from its very nature, is the\nworld-order uttered in terms of number, in a sense and to a degree not\nattained by any other art.\n\nThis is not mere verbal juggling. We have suffered so long from an\nart-phase which exalts the personal, as opposed to the cosmic, that\nwe have lost sight of the fact that the great arts of antiquity,\npreceding the Renaissance, insisted on the cosmic, or impersonal\naspect, and on this alone, just as does Oriental art, even today.\nThe secret essence, the archetypal idea of the subject is the\npreoccupation of the Oriental artist, as it was of the Egyptian,\nand of the Greek. We of the West today seek as eagerly to fix the\naccidental and ephemeral aspect--the shadow of a particular cloud upon\na particular landscape; the smile on the face of a specific person, in\na recognizable room, at a particular moment of time. Of symbolic art,\nof universal emotion expressing itself in terms which are universal,\nwe have very little to show.\n\nThe reason for this is first, our love for, and understanding of,\nthe concrete and personal: it is the _world-aspect_ and not the\n_world-order_ which interests us; and second, the inadequacies of\ncurrent forms of art expression to render our sense of the eternal\nsecret heart of things as it presents itself to our young eyes.\nConfronted with this difficulty, we have shirked it, and our ambition\nhas shrunk to the portrayal of those aspects which shuffle our poverty\nout of sight. It is not a poverty of technique--we are dexterous\nenough; nor is it a poverty of invention--we are clever enough; it is\nthe poverty of the spiritual bankrupt trying to divert attention by a\nprodigal display of the smallest of small change.\n\nReference is made here only to the arts of space; the arts of\ntime--music, poetry, and the (written) drama--employing vehicles more\nflexible, have been more fortunate, though they too suffer in some\ndegree from worshipping, instead of the god of order, the god of\nchance.\n\nThe corrective of this is a return to first principles: principles so\nfundamental that they suffer no change, however new and various their\nillustrations. These principles are embodied in number, and one might\nalmost say nowhere else in such perfection. Mathematics is not the\ndry and deadly thing that our teaching of it and the uses we put it\nto have made it seem. Mathematics is the handwriting on the human\nconsciousness of the very Spirit of Life itself. Others before\nPythagoras discovered this, and it is the discovery which awaits us\ntoo.\n\nTo indicate the way in which mathematics might be made to yield the\nelements of a new \u00e6sthetic is beyond the province of this essay, being\nbeyond the compass of its author, but he makes bold to take a single\nphase: ornament, and to deal with it from this point of view.\n\nThe ornament now in common use has been gathered from the dust-bin\nof the ages. What ornamental _motif_ of any universality, worth, or\nimportance is less than a hundred years old? We continue to use the\nhoneysuckle, the acanthus, the fret, the egg and dart, not because\nthey are appropriate to any use we put them to, but because they are\nbeautiful _per se_. Why are they beautiful? It is not because they\nare highly conventionalized representations of natural forms which\nare themselves beautiful, but because they express cosmic truths. The\nhoneysuckle and the acanthus leaf, for example, express the idea\nof successive impulses, mounting, attaining a maximum, and\ndescending--expanding from some focus of force in the manner universal\nthroughout nature. Science recognizes in the spiral an archetypal\nform, whether found in a whirlpool or in a nebula. A fret is a series\nof highly conventionalized spirals: translate it from angular to\ncurved and we have the wave-band; isolate it and we have the volute.\nEgg and dart are phallic emblems, female and male; or, if you prefer,\nas ellipse and straight line, they are symbols of finite existence\ncontrasted with infinity. [Figure 1.]\n\n[Illustration: Figure 1.]\n\nSuppose that we determine to divest ourselves of these and other\nprecious inheritances, not because they have lost their beauty and\nmeaning, but rather on account of their manifold associations with a\npast which the war makes suddenly more remote than slow centuries have\ndone; suppose that we determine to supplant these symbols with others\nno less charged with beauty and meaning, but more directly drawn from\nthe inexhaustible well of mathematical truth--how shall we set to\nwork?\n\nWe need not _set_ to work, because we have done that already, we are\nalways doing it, unknowingly, and without knowing the reason why. All\nornamentalists are subjective mathematicians--an amazing statement,\nperhaps, but one susceptible of confirmation in countless amusing\nways, of which two will be shown.\n\n[Illustration: Figure 2.]\n\nConsider first your calendar--your calendar whose commonplace face,\nhaving yielded you information as to pay day, due day, and holiday,\nyou obliterate at the end of each month without a qualm, oblivious to\nthe fact that were your interests less sordid and personal it would\nspeak to you of that order which pervades the universe; would make you\nrealize something of the music of the spheres. For on that familiar\ncheckerboard of the days are numerical arrangements which are\nmysterious, \"magical\"; each separate number is as a spider at the\ncenter of an amazing mathematical web. That is to say, every number\nis discovered to be half of the sum of the pairs of numbers which\nsurround it, vertically, horizontally, and diagonally: all of the\npairs add to the same sum, and the central number divides this sum by\ntwo. A graphic indication of this fact on the calendar face by means\nof a system of intersecting lines yields that form of classic grille\ndear to the heart of every tyro draughtsman. [Figure 2.] Here is\nan evident relation between mathematical fact and ornamental mode,\nwhether the result of accident, or by reason of some subconscious\nconnection between the creative and the reasoning part of the mind.\n\nTo show, by means of an example other than this acrostic of the days,\nhow the pattern-making instinct follows unconsciously in the groove\ntraced out for it by mathematics, the attention of the reader is\ndirected to the design of the old Colonial bed-spread shown in Figure\n3. Adjacent to this, in the upper right hand corner, is a magic\nsquare of four. That is, all of the columns of figures of which it is\ncomposed: vertical, horizontal and diagonal add to the same sum: 34.\nAn analysis of this square reveals the fact that it is made up of\nthe figures of two different orders of counting: the ordinary order,\nbeginning at the left hand upper corner and reading across and down in\nthe usual way, and the reverse-ordinary, beginning at the lower right\nhand corner and reading across and up. The figures in the four central\ncells and in the four outside corner cells are discovered to belong\nin the first category, and the remaining figures in the second. Now\nif the ordinary order cells be represented by white, and the reverse\nordinary by black, just such a pattern has been created as forms the\ndecorative motif of the quilt.\n\nIt may be claimed that these two examples of a relation between\nornament and mathematics are accidental and therefore prove nothing,\nbut they at least furnish a clue which the artist would be foolish not\nto follow up. Let him attack his problem this time directly, and\nsee if number may not be made to yield the thing he seeks: namely,\nspace-rhythms which are beautiful and new.\n\nWe know that there is a beauty inherent in _order_, that necessity of\none sort or another is the parent of beauty. Beauty in architecture\nis largely the result of structural necessity; beauty in ornament\nmay spring from a necessity which is numerical. It is clear that the\narrangement of numbers in a magic square is necessitous--they must be\nplaced in a certain way in order that the summation of every column\nshall be the same. The problem then becomes to make that necessity\nreveal itself to the eye. Now most magic squares contain a _magic\npath_, discovered by following the numbers from cell to cell in\ntheir natural order. Because this is a necessitous line it should not\nsurprise us that it is frequently beautiful as well.\n\n[Illustration: Figure 3.]\n\nThe left hand drawing in Figure 4 represents the smallest aggregation\nof numbers that is capable of magic square arrangement. Each vertical,\nhorizontal, and corner diagonal column adds up to 15, and the sum of\nany two opposite numbers is 10, which is twice the center number. The\nmagic path is the endless line developed by following, free hand, the\nnumbers in their natural order, from 1 to 9 and back to 1 again. The\ndrawing at the right of Figure 4 is this same line translated into\nornament by making an interlace of it, and filling in the larger\ninterstices with simple floral forms. This has been executed in white\nplaster and made to perform the function of a ventilating grille.\n\nNow the number of magic squares is practically limitless, and while\nall of them do not yield magic lines of the beauty of this one, some\ncontain even richer decorative possibilities. But there are also other\nways of deriving ornament from magic squares, already hinted at in the\ndiscussion of the Colonial quilt.\n\n[Illustration: Figure 4.]\n\n[Illustration: Figure 5.]\n\nMagic squares of an even number of cells are found sometimes to\nconsist of numbers arranged not only in combinations of the ordinary\nand the reverse ordinary orders of counting, but involving two others\nas well: the reverse of the ordinary (beginning at the upper right\nhand, across, and down) and the reversed inverse, (beginning at the\nlower left hand, across, and up). If, in such a magic square, a simple\ngraphic symbol be substituted for the numbers belonging to each order,\npattern spontaneously springs to life. Figures 5 and 6 exemplify the\nmethod, and Figures 7 and 8 the translation of some of these squares\ninto richer patterns by elaborating the symbols while respecting their\narrangement. By only a slight stretch of the imagination the beautiful\npierced stone screen from Ravenna shown in Figure 9 might be conceived\nof as having been developed according to this method, although of\ncourse it was not so in fact. Some of the arrangements shown in Figure\n6 are closely paralleled in the acoustic figures made by means of\nmusical tones with sand, on a sheet of metal or glass.\n\n[Illustration: Figure 6.]\n\n[Illustration: Figure 7.]\n\nThe celebrated Franklin square of 16 cells can be made to yield a\nbeautiful pattern by designating some of the lines which give the\nsummation of 2056 by different symbols, as shown in Figure 10. A free\ntranslation of this design into pattern brickwork is indicated in\nFigure 11.\n\nIf these processes seem unduly involved and elaborate for the\nachievement of a simple result--like burning the house down in\norder to get roast pig--there are other more simple ways of deriving\nornament from mathematics, for the truths of number find direct and\nperfect expression in the figures of geometry. The squaring of\na number--the raising of it to its second power--finds graphic\nexpression in the plane figure of the square; and the cubing of a\nnumber--the raising of it to its third power--in the solid figure\nof the cube. Now squares and cubes have been recognized from time\nimmemorial as useful ornamental motifs. Other elementary geometrical\nfigures, making concrete to the eye the truths of abstract number, may\nbe dealt with by the designer in such a manner as to produce ornament\nthe most varied and profuse. Moorish ceilings, Gothic window tracery,\nGrolier bindings, all indicate the richness of the field.\n\n[Illustration: Figure 8.]\n\n[Illustration: PLATE XII. IMAGINARY COMPOSITION. THE BALCONY]\n\n[Illustration: Figure 9.]\n\nSuppose, for example, that we attempt to deal decoratively which such\nsimple figures as the three lowest Platonic solids--the tetrahedron,\nthe hexahedron, and the octahedron. [Figure 12.] Their projection on a\nplane yields a rhythmical division of space, because of their inherent\nsymmetry. These projections would correspond to the network of lines\nseen in looking through a glass paperweight of the given shape, the\nlines being formed by the joining of the several faces. Figure 13\nrepresents ornamental bands developed in this manner. The dodecahedron\nand icosahedron, having more faces, yield more intricate patterns, and\nthere is no limit to the variety of interesting designs obtainable by\nthese direct and simple means.\n\n[Illustration: Figure 10.]\n\nIf the author has been successful thus far in his exposition, it\nshould be sufficiently plain that from the inexhaustible well of\nmathematics fresh beauty may be drawn. But what of its significance?\nOrnament must _mean something_; it must have some relation to the\ndominant ideation of the day; it must express the psychological mood.\n\nWhat is the psychological mood? Ours is an age of transition; we live\nin a changing world. On the one hand we witness the breaking up of\nmany an old thought crystal, on the other we feel the pressure of\nthose forces which shall create the new. What is nature's first\nvisible creative act? The formation of a geometrical crystal. The\nartist should take this hint, and organize geometry into a new\nornamental mode; by so doing he will prove himself to be in relation\nto the _anima mundi_. It is only by the establishment of such a\nrelation that new beauty comes to birth in the world.\n\n[Illustration: Figure 11.]\n\nOrnament in its primitive manifestations is geometrical rather than\nnaturalistic. This is in a manner strange, that the abstract and\nmetaphysical thing should precede the concrete and sensuous. It would\nbe natural to suppose that man would first imitate the things which\nsurround him, but the most cursory acquaintance with primitive art\nshows that he is much more apt to crudely geometrize. Now it is\nnot necessary to assume that we are to revert to the conditions of\nsavagery in order to believe that in this matter of a sound \u00e6sthetic\nwe must begin where art has always begun--with number and geometry.\nNevertheless there is a subtly ironic view which one is justified in\nholding in regard to quite obvious aspects of American life, in the\nlight of which that life appears to have rather more in common with\nsavagery than with culture.\n\n[Illustration: Figure 12.]\n\n[Illustration: Figure 13.]\n\nThe submersion of scholarship by athletics in our colleges is a case\nin point, the contest of muscles exciting much more interest and\nenthusiasm than any contest of wits. We persist in the savage habit of\ndevouring the corpses of slain animals long after the necessity for it\nis past, and some even murder innocent wild creatures, giving to their\nferocity the name of sport. Our women bedeck themselves with furs and\nfeathers, the fruit of mercenary and systematic slaughter; we perform\norgiastic dances to the music of horns and drums and cymbals--in\nshort, we have the savage psychology without its vital religious\ninstinct and its sure decorative sense for color and form.\n\nBut this is of course true only of the surface and sunlit shadows of\nthe great democratic tide. Its depths conceal every kind of subtlety\nand sophistication, high endeavour, and a response to beauty and\nwisdom of a sort far removed from the amoeba stage of development\nabove sketched. Of this latter stage the simple figures of Euclidian\nplane and solid geometry--figures which any child can understand--are\nthe appropriate symbols, but for that other more developed state of\nconsciousness--less apparent but more important--these will not do.\nSomething more sophisticated and recondite must be sought for if we\nare to have an ornamental mode capable of expressing not only the\nsimplicity but the complexity of present-day psychology. This need not\nbe sought for outside the field of geometry, but within it, and by\nan extension of the methods already described. There is an altogether\nmodern development of the science of mathematics: the geometry of\nfour dimensions. This represents the emancipation of the mind from\nthe tyranny of mere appearances; the turning of consciousness in a\nnew direction. It has therefore a high symbolical significance as\ntypifying that movement away from materialism which is so marked a\nphenomenon of the times.\n\nOf course to those whose notion of the fourth dimension is akin to\nthat of a friend of the author who described it as \"a wagon-load\nof bung-holes,\" the idea of getting from it any practical advantage\ncannot seem anything but absurd. There is something about this form\nof words \"the fourth dimension\" which seems to produce a sort of\nmental-phobia in certain minds, rendering them incapable of perception\nor reason. Such people, because they cannot stick their cane into it\ncontend that the fourth dimension has no mathematical or philosophical\nvalidity. As ignorance on this subject is very general, the following\nessay will be devoted to a consideration of the fourth dimension and\nits relation to a new ornamental mode.\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\nII\n\nTHE FOURTH DIMENSION\n\n\nThe subject of the fourth dimension is not an easy one to understand.\nFortunately the artist in design does not need to penetrate far into\nthese fascinating halls of thought in order to reap the advantage\nwhich he seeks. Nevertheless an intention of mind upon this\n\"fairy-tale of mathematics\" cannot fail to enlarge his intellectual\nand spiritual horizons, and develop his imagination--that finest\ninstrument in all his chest of tools.\n\nBy way of introduction to the subject Prof. James Byrnie Shaw, in an\narticle in the _Scientific Monthly_, has this to say:\n\n    Up to the period of the Reformation algebraic equations of\n    more than the third degree were frowned upon as having no\n    real meaning, since there is no fourth power or dimension.\n    But about one hundred years ago this chimera became an actual\n    existence, and today it is furnishing a new world to physics,\n    in which mechanics may become geometry, time be co-ordinated\n    with space, and every geometric theorem in the world is a\n    physical theorem in the experimental world in study in the\n    laboratory. Startling indeed it is to the scientist to be told\n    that an artificial dream-world of the mathematician is\n    more real than that he sees with his galvanometers,\n    ultra-microscopes, and spectroscopes. It matters little that\n    he replies, \"Your four-dimensional world is only an analytic\n    explanation of my phenomena,\" for the fact remains a fact,\n    that in the mathematician's four-dimensional space there is\n    a space not derived in any sense of the term as a residue of\n    experience, however powerful a distillation of sensations or\n    perceptions be resorted to, for it is not contained at all in\n    the fluid that experience furnishes. It is a product of the\n    creative power of the mathematical mind, and its objects are\n    real in exactly the same way that the cube, the square, the\n    circle, the sphere or the straight line. We are enabled to see\n    with the penetrating vision of the mathematical insight that\n    no less real and no more real are these fantastic forms of the\n    world of relativity than those supposed to be uncreatable or\n    indestructible in the play of the forces of nature.\n\nThese \"fantastic forms\" alone need concern the artist. If by some\npotent magic he can precipitate them into the world of sensuous images\nso that they make music to the eye, he need not even enter into the\nquestion of their reality, but in order to achieve this transmutation\nhe should know something, at least, of the strange laws of their\nbeing, should lend ear to a fairy-tale in which each theorem is a\nparadox, and each paradox a mathematical fact.\n\nHe must conceive of a space of four mutually independent directions; a\nspace, that is, having a direction at right angles to every direction\nthat we know. We cannot point to this, we cannot picture it, but we\ncan reason about it with a precision that is all but absolute. In such\na space it would of course be possible to establish four axial lines,\nall intersecting at a point, and all mutually at right angles with one\nanother. Every hyper-solid of four-dimensional space has these four\naxes.\n\nThe regular hyper-solids (analogous to the Platonic solids of\nthree-dimensional space) are the \"fantastic forms\" which will prove\nuseful to the artist. He should learn to lure them forth along them\naxis lines. That is, let him build up his figures, space by space,\ndeveloping them from lower spaces to higher. But since he cannot enter\nthe fourth dimension, and build them there, nor even the third--if he\nconfines himself to a sheet of paper--he must seek out some form of\n_representation_ of the higher in the lower. This is a process with\nwhich he is already acquainted, for he employs it every time he makes\na perspective drawing, which is the representation of a solid on\na plane. All that is required is an extension of the method: a\nhyper-solid can be represented in a figure of three dimensions, and\nthis in turn can be projected on a plane. The achieved result will\nconstitute a perspective of a perspective--the representation of a\nrepresentation.\n\nThis may sound obscure to the uninitiated, and it is true that the\nplane projection of some of the regular hyper-solids are staggeringly\nintricate affairs, but the author is so sure that this matter lies so\nwell within the compass of the average non-mathematical mind that he\nis willing to put his confidence to a practical test.\n\nIt is proposed to develop a representation of the tesseract or\nhyper-cube on the paper of this page, that is, on a space of two\ndimensions. Let us start as far back as we can: with a point.\nThis point, a, [Figure 14] is conceived to move in a direction w,\ndeveloping the line a b. This line next moves in a direction at right\nangles to w, namely, x, a distance equal to its length, forming\nthe square a b c d. Now for the square to develop into a cube by a\nmovement into the third dimension it would have to move in a direction\nat right angles to both w and x, that is, out of the plane of the\npaper--away from it altogether, either up or down. This is not\npossible, of course, but the third direction can be _represented_ on\nthe plane of the paper.\n\n[Illustration: Figure 14. TWO PROJECTIONS OF THE HYPERCUBE OR\nTESSERACT, AND THEIR TRANSLATION INTO ORNAMENT.]\n\n\nLet us represent it as diagonally downward toward the right, namely,\ny. In the y direction, then, and at a distance equal to the length\nof one of the sides of the square, another square is drawn, a'b'c'd',\nrepresenting the original square at the end of its movement into the\nthird dimension; and because in that movement the bounding points of\nthe square have traced out lines (edges), it is necessary to connect\nthe corresponding corners of the two squares by means of lines. This\ncompletes the figure and achieves the representation of a cube on a\nplane by a perfectly simple and familiar process. Its six faces\nare easily identified by the eye, though only two of them appear as\nsquares owing to the exigencies of representation.\n\nNow for a leap into the abyss, which won't be so terrifying, since\nit involves no change of method. The cube must move into the fourth\ndimension, developing there a hyper-cube. This is impossible, for\nthe reason the cube would have to move out of our space\naltogether--three-dimensional space will not contain a hyper-cube. But\nneither is the cube itself contained within the plane of the paper;\nit is only there _represented_. The y direction had to be imagined and\nthen arbitrarily established; we can arbitrarily establish the fourth\ndirection in the same way. As this is at right angles to y, its\nindication may be diagonally downward and to the left--the direction\nz. As y is known to be at right angles both to w and to x, z is at\nright angles to all three, and we have thus established the four\nmutually perpendicular axes necessary to complete the figure.\n\nThe cube must now move in the z direction (the fourth dimension)\na distance equal to the length of one of its sides. Just as we did\npreviously in the case of the square, we draw the cube in its new\nposition (ABB'D'C'C) and also as before we connect each apex of the\nfirst cube with the corresponding apex of the other, because each of\nthese points generates a line (an edge), each line a plane, and\neach plane a solid. This is the tesseract or hyper-cube in plane\nprojection. It has the 16 points, 32 lines, and 8 cubes known to\ncompose the figure. These cubes occur in pairs, and may be readily\nidentified.[1]\n\nThe tesseract as portrayed in A, Figure 14, is shown according to the\nconventions of oblique, or two-point perspective; it can equally be\nrepresented in a manner correspondent to parallel perspective. The\nparallel perspective of a cube appears as a square inside another\nsquare, with lines connecting the four vertices of the one with those\nof the other. The third dimension (the one beyond the plane of the\npaper) is here conceived of as being not beyond the boundaries of the\nfirst square, but _within_ them. We may with equal propriety conceive\nof the fourth dimension as a \"beyond which is within.\" In that case\nwe would have a rendering of the tesseract as shown in B, Figure 14:\na cube within a cube, the space between the two being occupied by six\ntruncated pyramids, each representing a cube. The large outside cube\nrepresents the original generating cube at the beginning of its motion\ninto the fourth dimension, and the small inside cube represents it at\nthe end of that motion.\n\n[Illustration: PLATE XIII. IMAGINARY COMPOSITION: THE AUDIENCE\nCHAMBER]\n\nThese two projections of the tesseract upon plane space are not the\nonly ones possible, but they are typical. Some idea of the variety of\naspects may be gained by imagining how a nest of inter-related cubes\n(made of wire, so as to interpenetrate), combined into a single\nsymmetrical figure of three-dimensional space, would appear\nfrom several different directions. Each view would yield new\nspace-subdivisions, and all would be rhythmical--susceptible,\ntherefore, of translation into ornament. C and D represent such\ntranslations of A and B.\n\nIn order to fix these unfamiliar ideas more firmly in the reader's\nmind, let him submit himself to one more exercise of the creative\nimagination, and construct, by a slightly different method, a\nrepresentation of a hexadecahedroid, or 16-hedroid, on a plane. This\nregular solid of four-dimensional space consists of sixteen cells,\neach a regular tetrahedron, thirty-two triangular faces, twenty-four\nedges and eight vertices. It is the correlative of the octahedron of\nthree-dimensional space.\n\nFirst it is necessary to establish our four axes, all mutually\nat right angles. If we draw three lines intersecting at a point,\nsubtending angles of 60 degrees each, it is not difficult to\nconceive of these lines as being at right angles with one another\nin three-dimensional space. The fourth axis we will assume to pass\nvertically through the point of intersection of the three lines,\nso that we see it only in cross-section, that is, as a point. It is\nimportant to remember that all of the angles made by the four axes\nare right angles--a thing possible only in a space of four dimensions.\nBecause the 16-hedroid is a symmetrical hyper-solid all of its\neight apexes will be equidistant from the centre of a containing\nhyper-sphere, whose \"surface\" these will intersect at symmetrically\ndisposed points. These apexes are established in our representation by\ndescribing a circle--the plane projection of the hyper-sphere--about\nthe central point of intersection of the axes. (Figure 15, left.)\nWhere each of these intersects the circle an apex of the 16-hedroid\nwill be established. From each apex it is now necessary to draw\nstraight lines to every other, each line representing one edge of the\nsixteen tetrahedral cells. But because the two ends of the fourth axis\nare directly opposite one another, and opposite the point of sight,\nall of these lines fail to appear in the left hand diagram. It\ntherefore becomes necessary to _tilt_ the figure slightly, bringing\ninto view the fourth axis, much foreshortened, and with it, all of the\nlines which make up the figure. The result is that projection of the\n16-hedroid shown at the right of Figure 15.[2] Here is no fortuitous\narrangement of lines and areas, but the \"shadow\" cast by an\narchetypal, figure of higher space upon the plane of our materiality.\nIt is a wonder, a mystery, staggering to the imagination,\ncontradictory to experience, but as well entitled to a place at the\nhigh court of reason as are any of the more familiar figures with\nwhich geometry deals. Translated into ornament it produces such an\nall-over pattern as is shown in Figure 16 and the design which adorns\nthe curtains at right and left of pl. XIII. There are also other\ninteresting projections of the 16-hedroid which need not be gone into\nhere.\n\n[Illustration: Figure 15. DIRECT VIEW AXES SHOWN BY HEAVY LINES TILTED\nVIEW APEXES SHOWN BY CIRCLES THE 16-HEDROID IN PLANE PROJECTION]\n\nFor if the author has been successful in his exposition up to\nthis point, it should be sufficiently plain that the geometry\nof four-dimensions is capable of yielding fresh and interesting\nornamental motifs. In carrying his demonstration farther, and in\nmultiplying illustrations, he would only be going over ground already\ncovered in his book _Projective Ornament_ and in his second Scammon\nlecture.\n\nOf course this elaborate mechanism for producing quite obvious and\neven ordinary decorative motifs may appear to some readers like\nGoldberg's nightmare mechanics, wherein the most absurd and intricate\ndevices are made to accomplish the most simple ends. The author is\nundisturbed by such criticisms. If the designs dealt with in this\nchapter are \"obvious and even ordinary\" they are so for the reason\nthat they were chosen less with an eye to their interest and beauty\nthan as lending themselves to development and demonstration by an\norderly process which should not put too great a tax upon the patience\nand intelligence of the reader. Four-dimensional geometry yields\nnumberless other patterns whose beauty and interest could not possibly\nbe impeached--patterns beyond the compass of the cleverest designer\nunacquainted with projective geometry.\n\n[Illustration: Figure 16.]\n\nThe great need of the ornamentalist is this or some other solid\nfoundation. Lacking it, he has been forced to build either on the\nshifting sands of his own fancy, or on the wrecks and sediment of the\npast. Geometry provides this sure foundation. We may have to work hard\nand dig deep, but the results will be worth the effort, for only on\nsuch a foundation can arise a temple which is beautiful and strong.\n\nIn confirmation of his general contention that the basis of all\neffective decoration is geometry and number, the author, in closing,\ndesires to direct the reader's attention to Figure 17 a slightly\nmodified rendering of the famous zodiacal ceiling of the Temple of\nDenderah, in Egypt. A sun and its corona have been substituted for the\nzodiacal signs and symbols which fill the centre of the original, for\nexcept to an Egyptologist these are meaningless. In all essentials the\ndrawing faithfully follows the original--was traced, indeed, from a\nmeasured drawing.\n\n[Illustration: Figure 17. CEILING DECORATION FROM THE TEMPLE OF\nDENDERAH]\n\nHere is one of the most magnificent decorative schemes in the whole\nworld, arranged with a feeling for balance and rhythm exceeding the\npower of the modern artist, and executed with a mastery beyond the\ncompass of a modern craftsman. The fact that first forces itself upon\nthe beholder is that the thing is so obviously mathematical in its\nrhythms, that to reduce it to terms of geometry and number is a matter\nof small difficulty. Compare the frozen music of these rhymed and\nlinked figures with the herded, confused, and cluttered compositions\nof even our best decorative artists, and argument becomes\nunnecessary--the fact stands forth that we have lost something\nprecious and vital out of art of which the ancients possessed the\nsecret.\n\nIt is for the restoration of these ancient verities and the discovery\nof new spatial rhythms--made possible by the advance of mathematical\nscience--that the author pleads. Artists, architects, designers,\ninstead of chewing the cud of current fashion, come into these\npastures new!\n\n[Illustration]\n\n[Footnote 1: The eight cubes in A, Figure 14, are as follows:\nabb'd'c'c; ABB'D'C'C; abdDCA; a'b'd'D'C'A'; abb'B'A'A; cdd'D'C'C;\nbb'd'D'DB; aa'c'C'CA.]\n\n[Footnote 2: The sixteen cells of the hexadehahedroid are as follows:\nABCD: A'B'C'D': AB'C'D': A'BCD: AB'CD: A'BC'D: ABC'D: A'B'CD': ABCD':\nA'B'C'D: ABC'D': A'B'CD: A'BC'D: AB'CD': A'BCD': AB'C'D.]\n\n\n\n\nHARNESSING THE RAINBOW\n\n\nReference was made in an antecedent essay to an art of light--of\nmobile color--an abstract language of thought and emotion which should\nspeak to consciousness through the eye, as music speaks through the\near. This is an art unborn, though quickening in the womb of the\nfuture. The things that reflect light have been organized \u00e6sthetically\ninto the arts of architecture, painting, and sculpture, but light\nitself has never been thus organized.\n\nAnd yet the scientific development and control of light has reached a\nstage which makes this new art possible. It awaits only the advent of\nthe creative artist. The manipulation of light is now in the hands\nof the illuminating engineers and its exploitation (in other than\nnecessary ways) in the hands of the advertisers.\n\nSome results of their collaboration are seen in the sky signs of upper\nBroadway, in New York, and of the lake front, in Chicago. A carnival\nof contending vulgarities, showing no artistry other than the most\npuerile, these displays nevertheless yield an effect of amazing\nbeauty. This is on account of an occult property inherent in the\nnature of light--_it cannot be vulgarized_. If the manipulation of\nlight were delivered into the hands of the artist, and dedicated\nto noble ends, it is impossible to overestimate the augmentation of\nbeauty that would ensue.\n\nFor light is a far more potent medium than sound. The sphere of sound\nis the earth-sphere; the little limits of our atmosphere mark the\nuttermost boundaries to which sound, even the most strident can\npossibly prevail. But the medium of light is the ether, which links\nus with the most distant stars. May not this serve as a symbol of the\npotency of light to usher the human spirit into realms of being at the\ndoors of which music itself shall beat in vain? Or if we compare the\nuniverse accessible to sight with that accessible to sound--the\nplight of the blind in contrast to that of the deaf--there is the same\ndiscrepancy; the field of the eye is immensely richer, more various\nand more interesting than that of the ear.\n\nThe difficulty appears to consist in the inferior impressionability\nof the eye to its particular order of beauty. To the average man\ncolor--as color--has nothing significant to say: to him grass is\ngreen, snow is white, the sky blue; and to have his attention drawn to\nthe fact that sometimes grass is yellow, snow blue, and the sky green,\nis disconcerting rather than illuminating. It is only when his retina\nis assaulted by some splendid sunset or sky-encircling rainbow that\nhe is able to disassociate the idea of color from that of form and\nsubstance. Even the artist is at a disadvantage in this respect, when\ncompared with the musician. Nothing in color knowledge and analysis\nanalogous to the established laws of musical harmony is part of the\nequipment of the average artist; he plays, as it were, by ear. The\nscientist, on the other hand, though he may know the spectrum from\nend to end, and its innumerable modifications, values this \"rainbow\npromise of the Lord\" not for its own beautiful sake but as a means\nto other ends than those of beauty. But just as the art of music\nhas developed the ear into a fine and sensitive instrument of\nappreciation, so an analogous art of light would educate the eye to\nnuances of color to which it is now blind.\n\n[Illustration: PLATE XIV. SONG AND LIGHT: AN APPROACH TOWARD \"COLOR\nMUSIC\"]\n\nIt is interesting to speculate as to the particular form in which this\nnew art will manifest itself. The question is perhaps already answered\nin the \"color organ,\" the earliest of which was Bambridge Bishop's,\nexhibited at the old Barnum's Museum--before the days of electric\nlight--and the latest A.W. Rimington's. Both of these instruments were\nbuilt upon a supposed correspondence between a given scale of colors,\nand the musical chromatic scale; they were played from a musical score\nupon an organ keyboard. This is sufficiently easy and sufficiently\nobvious, and has been done, with varying success in one way or\nanother, time and again, but its very ease and obviousness should give\nus pause.\n\nIt may well be questioned whether any arbitrary and literal\ntranslation, even though practicable, of a highly complex, intensely\nmobile art, unfolding in time, as does music, into a correspondent\nlight and color expression, is the best approach to a new art of\nmobile color. There is a deep and abiding conviction, justified by the\nhistory of \u00e6sthetics, that each art-form must progress from its\nown beginnings and unfold in its own unique and characteristic way.\nCorrespondences between the arts--such a correspondence, for\nexample, as inspired the famous saying that architecture is frozen\nmusic--reveal themselves usually only after the sister arts have\nattained an independent maturity. They owe their origin to that\nunderlying unity upon which our various modes of sensuous perception\nact as a refracting medium, and must therefore be taken for granted.\nEach art, like each individual, is unique and singular; in this\nsingularity dwells its most thrilling appeal. We are likely to miss\nlight's crowning glory, and the rainbow's most moving message to the\nsoul if we preoccupy ourselves too exclusively with the identities\nexisting between music and color; it is rather their points of\ndifference which should first be dwelt upon.\n\nLet us accordingly consider the characteristic differences between\nthe two sense-categories to which sound and light--music and\ncolor--respectively belong. This resolves itself into a comparison\nbetween time and space. The characteristic thing about time is\nsuccession--hence the very idea of music, which is in time, involves\nperpetual change. The characteristic of space, on the other hand, is\nsimultaneousness--in space alone perpetual immobility would reign.\nThat is why architecture, which is pre-eminently the art of space, is\nof all the arts the most static. Light and color are essentially\nof space, and therefore an art of mobile colour should never lack a\ncertain serenity and repose. A \"tune\" played on a color organ is only\ndistressing. If there is a workable correspondence between the musical\nart and an art of mobile color, it will be found in the domain of\nharmony which involves the idea of simultaneity, rather than in\nmelody, which is pure succession. This fundamental difference between\ntime and space cannot be over-emphasized. A musical note prolonged,\nbecomes at last scarcely tolerable; while a beautiful color, like the\nblue of the sky, we can enjoy all day and every day. The changing hues\nof a sunset, are _andante_ if referred to a musical standard, but to\nthe eye they are _allegretto_--we would have them pass less swiftly\nthan they do. The winking, chasing, changing lights of illuminated\nsky-signs are only annoying, and for the same reason. The eye longs\nfor repose in some serene radiance or stately sequence, while the ear\ndelights in contrast and continual change. It may be that as the eye\nbecomes more educated it will demand more movement and complexity, but\na certain stillness and serenity are of the very nature of light,\nas movement and passion are of the very nature of sound. Music is a\nseeking--\"love in search of a word\"; light is a finding--a \"divine\ncovenant.\"\n\nWith attention still focussed on the differences rather than the\nsimilarities between the musical art and a new art of mobile color,\nwe come next to the consideration of the matter of form. Now form\nis essentially of space: we speak about the \"form\" of a musical\ncomposition, but it is in a more or less figurative and metaphysical\nsense, not as a thing concrete and palpable, like the forms of space.\nIt would be foolish to forego the advantage of linking up form with\ncolour, as there is opportunity to do. Here is another golden ball to\njuggle with, one which no art purely in time affords. Of course it is\nknown that musical sounds weave invisible patterns in the air, and to\nrender these patterns perceptible to the eye may be one of the more\nremote and recondite achievements of our uncreated art. Meantime,\nthough we have the whole treasury of natural forms to draw from, of\nthese we can only properly employ such as are _abstract_. The reason\nfor this is clear to any one who conceives of an art of mobile color,\nnot as a moving picture show--a thing of quick-passing concrete\nimages, to shock, to startle, or to charm--but as a rich and various\nlanguage in which light, proverbially the symbol of the spirit, is\nmade to speak, through the senses, some healing message to the soul.\nFor such a consummation, \"devoutly to be wished,\" natural forms--forms\nabounding in every kind of association with that world of materiality\nfrom which we would escape--are out of place; recourse must be had\nrather to abstract forms, that is, geometrical figures. And because\nthe more remote these are from the things of sense, from knowledge and\nexperience, the projected figures of four-dimensional geometry would\nlend themselves to these uses with an especial grace. Color without\nform is as a soul without a body; yet the body of light must be\nwithout any taint of materiality. Four-dimensional forms are as\nimmaterial as anything that could be imagined and they could be made\nto serve the useful purpose of separating colors one from another,\nas lead lines do in old cathedral windows, than which nothing more\nbeautiful has ever been devised.\n\nComing now to the consideration, not of differences, but similarities,\nit is clear that a correspondence can be established between the\ncolors of the spectrum and the notes of a musical scale. That is,\nthe spectrum, considered as the analogue of a musical octave can\nbe subdivided into twelve colors which may be representative of\nthe musical chromatic scale of twelve semi-tones: the very word,\n_chromatic_, being suggestive of such a correspondence between sound\nand light. The red end of the spectrum would naturally relate to the\nlow notes of the musical scale, and the violet end to the high, by\nreason of the relative rapidity of vibration in each case; for the\noctave of a musical note sets the air vibrating twice as rapidly as\ndoes the note itself, and roughly speaking, the same is true of the\nend colors of the spectrum with relation to the ether.\n\nBut assuming that a color scale can be established which would yield\na color correlative to any musical note or chord, there still remains\nthe matter of _values_ to be dealt with. In the musical scale there is\na practical equality of values: one note is as potent as another. In\na color scale, on the other hand, each note (taken at its greatest\nintensity) has a positive value of its own, and they are all\ndifferent. These values have no musical correlatives, they belong to\ncolor _per se_. Every colorist knows that the whole secret of beauty\nand brilliance dwells in a proper understanding and adjustment of\nvalues, and music is powerless to help him here. Let us therefore\ndefer the discussion of this musical parallel, which is full of\npitfalls, until we have made some examination into such simple\nemotional reactions as color can be discovered to yield. The musical\nart began from the emotional response to certain simple tones and\ncombinations, and the delight of the ear in their repetition and\nvariation.\n\nOn account of our undeveloped sensitivity, the emotional reactions\nto color are found to be largely personal and whimsical: one person\n\"loves\" pink, another purple, or green. Color therapeutics is too\nnew a thing to be relied upon for data, for even though colors\nare susceptible of classification as sedative, recuperative and\nstimulating, no two classifications arrived at independently would be\nlikely to correspond. Most people appear to prefer bright, pure\ncolors when presented to them in small areas, red and blue being\nthe favourites. Certain data have been accumulated regarding the\nphysiological effect and psychological value of different colors, but\nthis order of research is in its infancy, and we shall have recourse,\ntherefore, to theory, in the absence of any safer guide.\n\nOne of the theories which may be said to have justified itself in\npractice in a different field is that upon which is based Delsarte's\nfamous art of expression. It has schooled some of the finest actors\nin the world, and raised others from mediocrity to distinction. The\nDelsarte system is founded upon the idea that man is a triplicity of\nphysical, emotional, and intellectual qualities or attributes, and\nthat the entire body and every part thereof conforms to, and expresses\nthis triplicity. The generative and digestive region corresponds with\nthe physical nature, the breast with the emotional, and the head\nwith the intellectual; \"below\" represents the nadir of ignorance and\ndejection, \"above\" the zenith of wisdom and spiritual power.\nThis seems a natural, and not an arbitrary classification, having\ninteresting confirmations and correspondencies, both in the outer\nworld of form, and in the inner world of consciousness. Moreover, it\nis in accord with that theosophic scheme derived from the ancient and\naugust wisdom of the East, which longer and better than any other\nhas withstood the obliterating action of slow time, and is even now\nrenascent. Let us therefore attempt to classify the colors of the\nspectrum according to this theory, and discover if we can how nearly\nsuch a classification is conformable to reason and experience.\n\nThe red end of the spectrum, being lowest in vibratory rate, would\ncorrespond to the physical nature, proverbially more sluggish than the\nemotional and mental. The phrase \"like a red rag to a bull,\" suggests\na relation between the color red and the animal consciousness\nestablished by observation. The \"low-brow\" is the dear lover of the\nred necktie; the \"high-brow\" is he who sees violet shadows on the\nsnow. We \"see red\" when we are dominated by ignoble passion. Though\nthe color green is associated with the idea of jealousy, it is\nassociated also with the idea of sympathy, and jealousy in the last\nanalysis is the fear of the loss of sympathy; it belongs, at all\nevents to the mediant, or emotional group of colors; while blue and\nviolet are proverbially intellectual and spiritual colors, and\ntheir place in the spectrum therefore conforms to the demands of our\ntheoretical division. Here, then, is something reasonably certain,\ncertainly reasonable, and may serve as an hypothesis to be confirmed\nor confuted by subsequent research. Coming now finally to the\nconsideration of the musical parallel, let us divide a color scale of\ntwelve steps or semi-tones into three groups; each group, graphically\nportrayed, subtending one-third of the arc of a circle. The first or\nred group will be related to the physical nature, and will consist of\npurple-red, red, red-orange, and orange. The second, or green group\nwill be related to the emotional nature, and will consist of yellow,\nyellow-green, green, and green-blue. The third, or blue group will be\nrelated to the intellectual and spiritual nature, and will consist\nof blue, blue-violet, violet and purple. The merging of purple into\npurple-red will then correspond to the meeting place of the\nhighest with the lowest, \"spirit\" and \"matter.\" We conceive of this\nmeeting-place symbolically as the \"heart\"--the vital centre. Now\n\"sanguine\" is the appropriate name associated with the color of\nthe blood--a color between purple and purple-red. It is logical,\ntherefore, to regard this point in our color-scale as its\ntonic--\"middle C\"--though each color, just as in music each note, is\nitself the tonic of a scale of its own.\n\nMr. Louis Wilson--the author of the above \"ophthalmic color scale\"\nmakes the same affiliation between sanguine, or blood color, and\nmiddle C, led thereto by scientific reasons entirely unassociated with\nsymbolism. He has omitted orange-yellow and violet-purple; this\nmakes the scale conform more exactly with the diatonic scale of\ntwo tetra-chords; it also gives a greater range of purples, a color\nindispensable to the artist. Moreover, in the scale as it stands, each\ncolor is exactly opposite its true spectral complementary.\n\nThe color scale being thus established and broadly divided, the next\nstep is to find how well it justifies itself in practice. The most\ndirect way would be to translate the musical chords recognized and\ndealt with in the science of harmony into their corresponding color\ncombinations.\n\nFor the benefit of such readers as have no knowledge of musical\nharmony it should be said that the entire science of harmony is based\nupon the _triad_, or chord of three notes, and that there are various\nkinds of triads: the major, the minor, the augmented, the diminished,\nand the altered. The major triad consists of the first note of the\ndiatonic scale, or tonic; its third, and its fifth. The minor triad\ndiffers from the major only in that the second member is lowered a\nsemi-tone. The augmented triad differs from the major only in that the\nthird member is raised a semi-tone. The diminished triad differs from\nthe minor only in that the third member is lowered a semi-tone. The\naltered triad is a chord different by a semi-tone from any of the\nabove.\n\nThe major triad in color is formed by taking any one of the twelve\ncolor-centers of the ophthalmic color scale as the first member of\nthe triad; and, reading up the scale, the fifth step (each step\nrepresenting a semi-tone) determines the second member, while the\nthird member is found in the eighth step. The minor triad in color is\nformed by lowering the second member of the major triad one step; the\naugmented triad by raising the third member of the major triad one\nstep, and the diminished triad by lowering the third member of the\nminor triad one step.\n\n[Illustration: Figure 18. MAJOR TRIAD, MINOR TRIAD, AUGMENTED TRIAD,\nDIMINISHED TRIAD]\n\nThese various triads are shown graphically in Figure 18 as\ntriangles within a circle divided into twelve equal parts, each part\nrepresenting a semi-tone of the chromatic scale. It is seen at a\nglance that in every case each triad has one of its notes (an apex) in\nor immediately adjacent to a different one of the grand divisions of\nthe colour scale hereinbefore established and described, and that the\nsame thing would be true in any \"key\": that is, by any variation of\nthe point of departure.\n\nThis certainly satisfies the mind in that it suggests variety in\nunity, balance, completeness, and in the actual portrayal, in color,\nof these chords in any \"key\" this judgment is confirmed by the eye,\nprovided that the colors have been thrown into proper _harmonic\nsuppression_. By this is meant such an adjustment of relative values,\nor such an establishment of relative proportions as will produce the\nmaximum of beauty of which any given combination is capable. This\nmatter imperatively demands an \u00e6sthetic sense the most sensitive.\n\nSo this \"musical parallel,\" interesting and reasonable as it is, will\nnot carry the color harmonist very far, and if followed too literally\nit is even likely to hamper him in the higher reaches of his art,\nfor some of the musical dissonances are of great beauty in color\ntranslation. All that can safely be said in regard to the musical\nparallel in its present stage of development is that it simplifies and\nsystematizes color knowledge and experiment and to a beginner it is\nhighly educational.\n\nIf we are to have color symphonies, the best are not likely to be\nthose based on a literal translation of some musical masterpiece into\ncolor according to this or any theory, but those created by persons\nwho are emotionally reactive to this medium, able to imagine in color,\nand to treat it imaginatively. The most beautiful mobile color effects\nyet witnessed by the author were produced on a field only five inches\nsquare, by an eminent painter quite ignorant of music; while some of\nthe most unimpressive have been the result of a rigid adherence to the\nmusical parallel by persons intent on cutting, with this sword, this\nGordian knot.\n\nInto the subject of means and methods it is not proposed to enter, nor\nto attempt to answer such questions as to whether the light shall be\ndirect or projected; whether the spectator, wrapped in darkness, shall\nwatch the music unfold at the end of some mysterious vista, or\nwhether his whole organism shall be played upon by powerful waves\nof multi-coloured light. These coupled alternatives are not mutually\nexclusive, any more than the idea of an orchestra is exclusive of that\nof a single human voice.\n\nIn imagining an art of mobile color unconditioned by considerations\nof mechanical difficulty or of expense, ideas multiply in truly\nbewildering profusion. Sunsets, solar coronas, star spectra, auroras\nsuch as were never seen on sea or land; rainbows, bubbles, rippling\nwater; flaming volcanoes, lava streams of living light--these and a\nhundred other enthralling and perfectly realizable effects suggest\nthemselves. What Israfil of the future will pour on mortals this new\n\"music of the spheres\"?\n\n\n\n\nLOUIS SULLIVAN\n\nPROPHET OF DEMOCRACY\n\n\nDue tribute has been paid to Mr. Louis Sullivan as an architect in\nthe first essay of this volume. That aspect of his genius has been\ncritically dealt with by many, but as an author he is scarcely\nknown. Yet there are Sibylline leaves of his, still let us hope in\ncirculation, which have wielded a potent influence on the minds of a\ngeneration of men now passing to maturity. It is in the hope that his\nmessage may not be lost to the youth of today and of tomorrow that the\npresent author now undertakes to summarize and interpret that message\nto a public to which Mr. Sullivan is indeed a name, but not a voice.\n\nThat he is not a voice can be attributed neither to his lack of\neloquence--for he is eloquent--nor to the indifference of the younger\ngeneration of architects which has grown up since he has ceased,\nin any public way, to speak. It is due rather to a curious fatality\nwhereby his memorabilia have been confined to sheets which the\nwinds of time have scattered--pamphlets, ephemeral magazines, trade\njournals--never the bound volume which alone guards the sacred flame\nfrom the gusts of evil chance.\n\nAnd Mr. Sullivan's is a \"sacred flame,\" because it was kindled solely\nwith the idea of service--a beacon to keep young men from\nshipwreck traversing those straits made dangerous by the Scylla of\nConventionality, and the Charybdis of License. The labour his writing\ncost him was enormous. \"I shall never again make so great a sacrifice\nfor the younger generation,\" he says in a letter, \"I am amazed to\nnote how insignificant, how almost nil is the effect produced, in\ncomparison to the cost, in vitality to me. Or perhaps it is I who\nam in error. Perhaps one must have reached middle age, or the Indian\nSummer of life, must have seen much, heard much, felt and produced\nmuch and been much in solitude to receive in reading what I gave in\nwriting 'with hands overfull.'\"\n\nThis was written with reference to _Kindergarten Chats. A sketch\nAnalysis of Contemporaneous American Architecture_, which constitutes\nMr. Sullivan's most extended and characteristic preachment to the\nyoung men of his day. It appeared in 1901, in fifty-two consecutive\nnumbers of _The Interstate Architect and Builder_, a magazine now\nno longer published. In it the author, as mentor, leads an imaginary\ndisciple up and down the land, pointing out to him the \"bold,\nupholsterrific blunders\" to be found in the architecture of the day,\nand commenting on them in a caustic, colloquial style--large, loose,\ndiscursive--a blend of Ruskin, Carlyle and Whitman, yet all Mr.\nSullivan's own. He descends, at times, almost to ribaldry, at others\nhe rises to poetic and prophetic heights. This is all a part of his\nmethod alternately to shame and inspire his pupil to some sort of\ncreative activity. The syllabus of Mr. Sullivan's scheme, as it\nexisted in his mind during the writing of _Kindergarten Chats_,\nand outlined by him in a letter to the author is such a torch of\nillumination that it is quoted here entire.\n\n    A young man who has \"finished his education\" at the\n    architectural schools comes to me for a post-graduate\n    course--hence a free form of dialogue.\n\n    I proceed with his education rather by indirection and\n    suggestion than by direct precept. I subject him to certain\n    experiences and allow the impressions they make on him to\n    infiltrate, and, as I note the effect, I gradually use a\n    guiding hand. I supply the yeast, so to speak, and allow the\n    ferment to work in him.\n\n    This is the gist of the whole scheme. It remains then to\n    determine, carefully, the kind of experiences to which I shall\n    subject the lad, and in what order, or logical (and especially\n    psychological) sequence. I begin, then, with aspects that\n    are literal, objective, more or less cynical, and brutal, and\n    philistine. A little at a time I introduce the subjective,\n    the refined, the altruistic; and, by a to-and-fro increasingly\n    intense rhythm of these two opposing themes, worked so to\n    speak in counterpoint, I reach a preliminary climax: of\n    brutality tempered by a longing for nobler, purer things.\n\n    Hence arise a purblind revulsion and yearning in the lad's\n    soul; the psychological moment has arrived, and I take him\n    at once into the _country_--(Summer: The Storm). This is the\n    first of the four out-of-door scenes, and the lad's first\n    real experience with nature. It impresses him crudely but\n    violently; and in the tense excitement of the tempest he is\n    inspired to temporary eloquence; and at the close is much\n    softened. He feels in a way but does not know that he has been\n    a participant in one of Nature's superb dramas. (Thus do\n    I insidiously prepare the way for the notion that creative\n    architecture is in essence a dramatic art, and an art of\n    eloquence; of subtle rhythmic beauty, power, and tenderness).\n\n    Left alone in the country the lad becomes maudlin--a callow\n    lover of nature--and makes feeble attempts at verse. Returning\n    to the city he melts and unbosoms--the tender shaft of the\n    unknowable Eros has penetrated to his heart--Nature's subtle\n    spell is on him, to disappear and reappear. Then follow\n    discussions, more or less didactic, leading to the second\n    out-of-door scene (Autumn Glory). Here the lad does most of\n    the talking and shows a certain lucidity and calm of mind. The\n    discussion of Responsibility, Democracy, Education, etc., has\n    inevitably detached the lurking spirit of pessimism. It has\n    to be:--Into the depths and darkness we descend, and the\n    work reaches the tragic climax in the third out-of-door\n    scene--Winter.\n\n    Now that the forces have been gathered and marshalled the\n    true, sane movement of the work is entered upon and pushed\n    at high tension, and with swift, copious modulations to its\n    foreordained climax and optimistic peroration in the fourth\n    and last out-of-door scene as portrayed in the Spring Song.\n    The _locale_ of this closing number is the beautiful spot in\n    the woods, on the shore of Biloxi Bay:--where I am writing\n    this.\n\n    I would suggest in passing that a considerable part of the\n    K.C. is in rhythmic prose--some of it declamatory. I have\n    endeavoured throughout this work to represent, or reproduce\n    to the mind and heart of the reader the spoken word and\n    intonation--not written language. It really should be read\n    aloud, especially the descriptive and exalted passages.\n\nThere was a movement once on the part of Mr. Sullivan's admirers to\nissue _Kindergarten Chats_ in book form, but he was asked to tone it\ndown and expurgate it, a thing which he very naturally refused to do.\nMr. Sullivan has always been completely alive to our cowardice when\nit comes to hearing the truth about ourselves, and alive to the danger\nwhich this cowardice entails, for to his imaginary pupil he says,\n\n    If you wish to read the current architecture of your country,\n    you must go at it courageously, and not pick out merely the\n    little bits that please you. I am going to soak you with it\n    until you are absolutely nauseated, and your faculties turn\n    in rebellion. I may be a hard taskmaster, but I strive to be\n    a good one. When I am through with you, you will know\n    architecture from the ground up. You will know its virtuous\n    reality and you will know the fake and the fraud and the\n    humbug. I will spare nothing--for your sake. I will stir up\n    the cesspool to its utmost depths of stench, and also the\n    pious, hypocritical virtues of our so-called architecture--the\n    nice, good, mealy-mouthed, suave, dexterous, diplomatic\n    architecture, I will show you also the kind of architecture\n    our \"cultured\" people believe in. And why do they believe in\n    it? Because they do not believe in themselves.\n\n_Kindergarten Chats_ is even more pertinent and pointed today than it\nwas some twenty years ago, when it was written. Speech that is full of\ntruth is timeless, and therefore prophetic. Mr. Sullivan forecast some\nof the very evils by which we have been overtaken. He was able to do\nthis on account of the fundamental soundness of his point of view,\nwhich finds expression in the following words: \"Once you learn to look\nupon architecture not merely as an art more or less well, or more or\nless badly done, but as a _social manifestation_, the critical eye\nbecomes clairvoyant, and obscure, unnoted phenomena become illumined.\"\n\nLooking, from this point of view, at the office buildings that the\nthen newly-realized possibilities of steel construction were sending\nskyward along lower Broadway, in New York, Mr. Sullivan reads in them\na denial of democracy. To him they signify much more than they seem\nto, or mean to; they are more than the betrayal of architectural\nignorance and mendacity, they are symptomatic of forces undermining\nAmerican life.\n\n    These buildings, as they increase in number, make this city\n    poorer, morally and spiritually; they drag it down and down\n    into the mire. This is not American civilization; it is the\n    rottenness of Gomorrah. This is not Democracy--it is savagery.\n    It shows the glutton hunt for the Dollar with no thought for\n    aught else under the sun or over the earth. It is decadence of\n    the spirit in its most revolting form; it is rottenness of\n    the heart and corruption of the mind. So truly does this\n    architecture reflect the causes which have brought it into\n    being. Such structures are _profoundly anti-social_, and as\n    such, they must be reckoned with. These buildings are not\n    architecture, but outlawry, and their authors criminals in the\n    true sense of the word. And such is the architecture of lower\n    New York--hopeless, degraded, and putrid in its pessimistic\n    denial of our art, and of our growing civilization--its\n    cynical contempt for all those qualities that real humans\n    value.\n\nWe have always been very glib about democracy; we have assumed that\nthis country was a democracy because we named it so. But now that\nwe are called upon to die for the idea, we find that we have never\nrealized it anywhere except perhaps in our secret hearts. In the life\nof Abraham Lincoln, in the poetry of Walt Whitman, in the architecture\nof Louis Sullivan, the spirit of democracy found utterance, and to\nthe extent that we ourselves partake of that spirit, it will find\nutterance also in us. Mr. Sullivan is a \"prophet of democracy\" not\nalone in his buildings but in his writings, and the prophetic note is\nsounded even more clearly in his _What is Architecture? A Study in the\nAmerican People of Today_, than in _Kindergarten Chats_.\n\nThis essay was first printed in _The American Contractor_ of January\n6, 1906, and afterwards issued in brochure form. The author starts\nby tracing architecture to its root in the human mind: this physical\nthing is the manifestation of a psychological state. As a man thinks,\nso he is; he acts according to his thought, and if that act takes the\nform of a building it is an emanation of his inmost life, and reveals\nit.\n\n    Everything is there for us to read, to interpret; and this\n    we may do at our leisure. The building has not means of\n    locomotion, it cannot hide itself, it cannot get away. There\n    it is, and there it will stay--telling more truths about him\n    who made it, than he in his fatuity imagines; revealing his\n    mind and his heart exactly for what they are worth, not a whit\n    more, not a whit less; telling plainly the lies he thinks;\n    telling with almost cruel truthfulness his bad faith, his\n    feeble, wabbly mind, his impudence, his selfish egoism, his\n    mental irresponsibility, his apathy, his disdain for real\n    things--until at last the building says to us: \"I am no more a\n    real building than the thing that made me is a real man!\"\n\nLanguage like this stings and burns, but it is just such as is\nneedful to shame us out of our comfortable apathy, to arouse us to\nnew responsibilities, new opportunities. Mr. Sullivan, awake among\nthe sleepers, drenches us with bucketfuls of cold, tonic, energizing\ntruth. The poppy and mandragora of the past, of Europe, poisons us,\nbut in this, our hour of battle, we must not be permitted to dream on.\nHe saw, from far back, that \"we, as a people, not only have betrayed\neach other, but have failed in that trust which the world spirit of\ndemocracy placed in our hands, as we, a new people, emerged to fill\na new and spacious land.\" It has taken a world war to make us see the\nsituation as he saw it, and it is to us, a militant nation, and not\nto the slothful civilians a decade ago, that Mr. Sullivan's stirring\nmessage seems to be addressed.\n\nThe following quotation is his first crack of the whip at the\narchitectural schools. The problem of education is to him of all\nthings the most vital; in this essay he returns to it again and again,\nwhile of _Kindergarten Chats_ it is the very _raison d'\u00eatre_.\n\n    I trust that a long disquisition is not necessary in order to\n    show that the attempt at imitation, by us, of this day, of the\n    by-gone forms of building, is a procedure unworthy of a free\n    people; and that the dictum of the schools, that Architecture\n    is finished and done, is a suggestion humiliating to every\n    active brain, and therefore, in fact, a puerility and a\n    falsehood when weighed in the scales of truly democratic\n    thought. Such dictum gives the lie in arrogant fashion, to\n    healthful human experience. It says, in a word: the American\n    people are not fit for democracy.\n\nHe finds the schools saturated with superstitions which are the\nsurvivals of the scholasticism of past centuries--feudal institutions,\nin effect, inimical to his idea of the true spirit of democratic\neducation. This he conceives of as a searching-out, liberating, and\ndeveloping the splendid but obscured powers of the average man, and\nparticularly those of children. \"It is disquieting to note,\" he says,\n\"that the system of education on which we lavish funds with such\ngenerous, even prodigal, hand, falls short of fulfilling its true\ndemocratic function; and that particularly in the so-called higher\nbranches its tendency appears daily more reactionary, more feudal.\nIt is not an agreeable reflection that so many of our university\ngraduates lack the trained ability to see clearly, and to think\nclearly, concisely, constructively; that there is perhaps more showing\nof cynicism than good faith, seemingly more distrust of men than\nconfidence in them, and, withal, no consummate ability to interpret\nthings.\"\n\nIn contrast to the schoolman he sketches the psychology of the\nactive-minded but \"uneducated\" man, with sympathy and understanding,\nthe man who is courageously seeking a way with little to guide and\nhelp him.\n\n    Is it not the part of wisdom to cheer, to encourage such a\n    mind, rather than dishearten it with ridicule? To say to it:\n    Learn that the mind works best when allowed to work naturally;\n    learn to do what your problem suggests when you have reduced\n    it to its simplest terms; you will thus find that all\n    problems, however complex, take on a simplicity you had\n    not dreamed of; accept this simplicity boldly, and with\n    confidence, do not lose your nerve and run away from it, or\n    you are lost, for you are here at the point men so heedlessly\n    call genius--as though it were necessarily rare; for you are\n    here at the point no living brain can surpass in essence,\n    the point all truly great minds seek--the point of vital\n    simplicity--the point of view which so illuminates the mind\n    that the art of expression becomes spontaneous, powerful, and\n    unerring, and achievement a certainty. So, if you seek and\n    express the best that is in yourself, you must search out the\n    best that is in your people; for they are your problem, and\n    you are indissolubly a part of them. It is for you to affirm\n    that which they really wish to affirm, namely, the best that\n    is in them, and they as truly wish you to express the best\n    that is in yourself. If the people seem to have but little\n    faith it is because they have been tricked so long; they are\n    weary of dishonesty, more weary than they know, much more\n    weary than you know, and in their hearts they seek honest and\n    fearless men, men simple and clear in mind, loyal to their own\n    manhood and to the people. The American people are now in a\n    stupor; be on hand at the awakening.\n\nNext he pays his respects to current architectural criticism--a\nstraining at gnats and a swallowing of camels, by minds \"benumbed\nby culture,\" and hearts made faint by the tyranny of precedent. He\ncomplains that they make no distinction between _was_ and _is_,\ntoo readily assuming that all that is left us moderns is the humble\nprivilege to select, copy and adapt.\n\n    The current mannerisms of Architectural criticism must often\n    seem trivial. For of what avail is it to say that this is too\n    small, that too large, this too thick, and that too thin, or\n    to quote this, that, or the other precedent, when the real\n    question may be: Is not the entire design a mean evasion? Why\n    magnify this, that, or the other little thing, if the entire\n    scheme of thinking that the building stands for is false, and\n    puts a mask upon the people, who want true buildings, but do\n    not know how to get them so long as Architects betray them\n    with Architectural phrases?\n\nAnd so he goes on with his Jeremiad: a prophet of despair, do you\nsay? No, he seeks to destroy only that falsity which would confine\nthe living spirit. Earlier and more clearly than we, he discerned the\nmenace to our civilization of the unrestricted play of the masculine\nforces--powerful, ruthless, disintegrating--the head dominating the\nheart. It has taken the surgery of war to open our eyes, and behold\nthe spectacle of the entire German nation which by an intellectual\nprocess appears to have killed out compassion, enthroning\n_Schrecklichkeit_. In the heart alone dwells hope of salvation. \"For\nhe who knows even a genuinely little of Mankind knows this truth: the\nheart is greater than the head. For in the heart is Desire; and from\nit come forth Courage and Magnanimity.\"\n\n    You have not thought deeply enough to know that the heart in\n    you is the woman in man. You have derided your femininity,\n    where you have suspected it; whereas, you should have known\n    its power, cherished and utilized it, for it is the hidden\n    well-spring of Intuition and Imagination. What can the brain\n    accomplish without these two? They are the man's two inner\n    eyes; without them he is stone blind. For the mind sets forth\n    their powers both together. One carries the light, the other\n    searches; and between them they find treasures. These they\n    bring to the brain, which first elaborates them, then says to\n    the will, \"Do\"--and Action follows. Poetically considered,\n    as far as the huge, disordered resultant mass of your\n    Architecture is concerned, Intuition and Imagination have not\n    gone forth to illuminate and search the hearts of the people.\n    Thus are its works stone blind.\n\nIt is the absence of poetry and beauty which makes our architecture\nso depressing to the spirits. \"Poetry as a living thing,\" says Mr.\nSullivan, \"stands for the most telling quality that a man can impart\nto his thoughts. Judged by this test your buildings are dreary, empty\nplaces.\" Artists in words, like Lafcadio Hearn and Henry James, are\nable to make articulate the sadness which our cities inspire, but\nit is a blight which lies heavy on us all. Theodore Dreiser says, in\n_Sister Carrie_--a book with so much bitter truth in it that it was\nsuppressed by the original publishers:\n\n    Once the bright days of summer pass by, a city takes on the\n    sombre garb of grey, wrapped in which it goes about its labors\n    during the long winter. Its endless buildings look grey,\n    its sky and its streets assume a sombre hue; the scattered,\n    leafless trees and wind-blown dust and paper but add to the\n    general solemnity of color. There seems to be something in\n    the chill breezes which scurry through the long, narrow\n    thoroughfares productive of rueful thoughts. Not poets alone,\n    nor artists, nor that superior order of mind which arrogates\n    to itself all refinement, feel this, but dogs and all men.\n\nThe excuse that we are too young a people to have developed an\narchitecture instinct with that natural poetry which so charms us in\nthe art of other countries and other times, Mr. Sullivan disposes\nof in characteristic fashion. To the plea that \"We are too young to\nconsider these accomplishments. We have been so busy with our material\ndevelopment that we have not found time to consider them,\" he makes\nanswer as follows:\n\n    Know, then, to begin with, they are not accomplishments but\n    necessaries. And, to end with, you are old enough, and\n    have found the time to succeed in nearly making a fine art\n    of--Betrayal, and a science of--Graft. Know that you are\n    as old as the race. That each man among you had in him the\n    accumulated power of the race, ready at hand for use, in the\n    right way, when he shall conclude it better to think straight\n    and hence act straight rather than, as now, to act crooked\n    and pretend to be straight. Know that the test, plain, simple\n    _honesty_ (and you all know, every man of you knows, exactly\n    what that means) is always at your hand.\n\n    Know that as all complex manifestations have a simple basis\n    of origin, so the vast complexity of your national unrest, ill\n    health, inability to think clearly and accurately concerning\n    simple things, really vital things, is easily traceable to the\n    single, actual, active cause--Dishonesty; and that this points\n    with unescapable logic and in just measure to each individual\n    man!\n\n    The remedy;--_individual honesty_.\n\nTo the objection that this is too simple a solution, Mr. Sullivan\nretorts that all great solutions are simple, that the basic things of\nthe universe are those which the heart of a child might comprehend.\n\"Honesty stands in the universe of Human Thought and Action, as its\nvery Centre of Gravity, and is our human mask-word behind which abides\nall the power of Nature's Integrity, the profoundest _fact_ which\nmodern thinking has persuaded Life to reveal.\"\n\nIf, on the other hand, the reader complains, \"All this is above our\nheads,\" Mr. Sullivan is equally ready with an answer:\n\n    No, it is not. _It is close beside your hand!_ and therein\n    lies its power.\n\n    Again you say, \"How can honesty be enforced?\"\n\n    It cannot be enforced!\n\n    \"Then how will the remedy go into effect?\"\n\n    It cannot _go_ into effect. It can only come into effect.\n\n    \"Then how can it come?\"\n\n    Ask Nature.\n\n    \"And what will Nature say?\"\n\n    Nature is always saying: \"I centre at each man, woman and\n    child. I knock at the door of each heart, and I wait. I wait\n    in patience--ready to enter with my gifts.\"\n\n    \"And is that all that Nature says?\"\n\n    That is all.\n\n    \"Then how shall we receive Nature?\"\n\n    By opening wide your minds! For your greatest crime against\n    yourselves is that you have locked the door and thrown away\n    the key!\n\n\nThus, by a long detour, Mr. Sullivan returns to his initial\nproposition, that the falsity of our architecture can be corrected\nonly by integrity of thought. \"Thought is the fine and powerful\ninstrument. Therefore, _have thought for the integrity of your own\nthought_.\"\n\n    Naturally, then, as your thoughts thus change, your growing\n    architecture will change. Its falsity will depart; its reality\n    will gradually appear. For the integrity of your thought as\n    a People, will then have penetrated the minds of your\n    architects.\n\n    Then, too, _as your basic thought changes, will emerge a\n    philosophy, a poetry, and an art of expression in all things;\n    for you will have learned that a characteristic philosophy,\n    poetry and art of expression are vital to the healthful growth\n    and development of a democratic people_.\n\nSome readers may complain that these are after all only glittering\ngeneralities, of no practical use in solving the specific problems\nwith which every architect is confronted. On the contrary they are\nfundamental verities of incalculable benefit to every sincere artist.\nShallowness is the great vice of democracy; it is surface without\ndepth, a welter of concrete detail in which the mind easily loses\nthose great, underlying abstractions from which alone great art can\nspring. These, in this essay, Mr. Sullivan helps us to recapture, and\ninspires us to employ. He would win us from our insincerities, our\ntrivialities, and awaken our enormous latent, unused power. He says:\n\n    Awaken it.\n\n    Use it.\n\n    Use it for the common good.\n\n    Begin now!\n\n    For it is as true today as when one of your wise men said\n    it:--\n\n    \"The way to resume is to resume!\"\n\n\n\n\nCOLOR AND CERAMICS\n\n\nThe production of ceramics--perhaps the oldest of all the useful\narts practised by man; an art with a magnificent history--seems to be\nentering upon a new era of development. It is more alive today, more\ngenerally, more skilfully, though not more _artfully_ practised than\never before. It should therefore be of interest to all lovers of\narchitecture, in view of the increasing importance of ceramics in\nbuilding, to consider the ways in which these materials may best be\nused.\n\nLooking at the matter in the broadest possible way, it may be said\nthat the building impulse throughout the ages has expressed itself\nin two fundamentally different types of structure: that in which the\narchitecture--and even the ornament--is one with the engineering; and\nthat in which the two elements are separable, not in thought alone,\nbut in fact. For brevity let us name that manner of building in which\nthe architecture is the construction, _Inherent_ architecture, and\nthat manner in which the two are separable _Incrusted_ architecture.\n\nTo the first class belong the architectures of Egypt, Greece, and\nGothic architecture as practised in the north of Europe; to the\nsecond belong Roman architecture of the splendid period, Moorish\narchitecture, and Italian Gothic, so called. In the first class the\nbones of the building were also its flesh; in the second bones and\nflesh were in a manner separable, as is proven by the fact that they\nwere separately considered, separately fashioned. Ruined Karnak, the\nruined Parthenon, wrecked Rheims, show ornament so integral a part\nof the fabric--etched so deep--that what has survived of the one has\nsurvived also of the other; while the ruined Baths of Caracalla the\nuncompleted church of S. Petronio in Bologna, and many a stark mosque\non many a sandy desert show only bare skeletons of whose completed\nglory we can only guess. In them the fabric was a framework for the\ndisplay of the lapidary or the ceramic art--a garment destroyed, rent,\nor tattered by time and chance, leaving the bones still strong, but\nbare.\n\nThis classification of architecture into Inherent and Incrusted is not\nto be confused with the discrimination between architecture that is\n_Arranged_, and architecture that is _Organic_, a classification which\nis based on psychology--like the difference between the business man\nand the poet: talent and genius--whereas the classification which\nthe reader is asked now to consider is based rather on the matter\nof expediency in the use of materials. Let us draw no invidious\ncomparisons between Inherent and Incrusted architecture, but regard\neach as the adequate expression of an ideal type of beauty; the one\nmasculine, since in the male figure the osseous framework is more\neasily discernible; the other feminine, because more concealed and\noverlaid with a cellular tissue of shining, precious materials, on\nwhich the disruptive forces in man and nature are more free to act.\n\nIt is scarcely necessary to state that it is with Incrusted\narchitecture that we are alone concerned in this discussion, for to\nthis class almost all modern buildings perforce belong. This is by\nreason of a necessity dictated by the materials that we employ, and by\nour methods of construction. All modern buildings follow practically\none method of construction: a bony framework of steel--or of concrete\nreinforced by steel--filled in and subdivided by concrete, brick,\nhollow fire-clay, or some of its substitutes. To a construction of\nthis kind some sort of an outer encasement is not only \u00e6sthetically\ndesirable, but practically necessary. It usually takes the form of\nstone, face-brick, terra-cotta, tile, stucco, or some combination of\ntwo or more of these materials. Of the two types of architecture the\nIncrusted type is therefore imposed by structural necessity.\n\nThe enormous importance of ceramics in its relation to architecture\nthus becomes apparent. They minister to an architectural need instead\nof gratifying an architectural whim. Ours is a period of Incrusted\narchitecture--one which demands the encasement, rather than the\nexposure of structure, and therefore logically admits of the\nenrichment of surfaces by means of \"veneers\" of materials more\nprecious and beautiful than those employed in the structure, which\nbecomes, as it were, the canvas of the picture, and not the picture\nitself. For these purposes there are no materials more apt, more\nadaptable, more enduring, richer in potentialities of beauty than the\nproducts of ceramic art. They are easily and inexpensively produced of\nany desired shape, color, texture; their hard, dense surface resists\nthe action of the elements, is not easily soiled, and is readily\ncleaned; being fashioned by fire they are fire resistant.\n\nSo much then for the practical demands, in modern architecture, met by\nthe products of ceramic art. The \u00e6sthetic demand is not less admirably\nmet--or rather _might_ be.\n\nWhen, in the sixteenth century, the Renaissance spread from south\nto north, color was practically eliminated from architecture. The\nEgyptians had had it, hot and bright as the sun on the desert; we\nknow that the Greeks made their Parian marble glow in rainbow tints;\nMoorish architecture was nothing if not colorful, and the Venice\nRuskin loved was fairly iridescent--a thing of fire-opal and pearl.\nIn Italian Renaissance architecture up to its latest phase, the color\nelement was always present; but it was snuffed out under the leaden\ncolored northern skies. Paris is grey, London is brown, New York is\nwhite, and Chicago the color of cinders. We have only to compare them\nto yellow Rome, red Siena, and pearl-tinted Venice, to realize how\nmuch we have lost in the elimination of color from architecture.\nWe are coming to realize it. Color played an important part in the\nPan-American Exposition, and again in the San Francisco Exposition,\nwhere, wedded to light, it became the dominant note of the whole\narchitectural concert. Now these great expositions in which the\narchitects and artists are given a free hand, are in the nature of\npreliminary studies in which these functionaries sketch in transitory\nform the things they desire to do in more permanent form. They are\nforecasts of the future, a future which in certain quarters is\nalready beginning to realize itself. It is therefore probable that\narchitectural art will become increasingly colorful.\n\nThe author remembers the day and the hour when this became his\npersonal conviction--his personal desire. It happened years ago in\nthe Albright Gallery in Buffalo--a building then newly completed, of a\nseverely classic type. In the central hall was a single doorway,\nwhose white marble architrave had been stained with different colored\npigments by Francis Bacon; after the manner of the Greeks. The effect\nwas so charming, and made the rest of the place seem by contrast so\ncold and dun, that the author came then and there to the conclusion\nthat architecture without polychromy was architecture incomplete. Mr.\nBacon spent three years in Asia Minor, and elsewhere, studying\nthe remains of Greek architecture, and he found and brought home a\nfragment of an antefix from the temple of Assos, in which the applied\ncolor was still pure and strong. The Greeks were a joyous people. When\njoy comes back into life, color will come back into architecture.\n\nCeramic products are ideal as a means to this end. The Greeks\nthemselves recognized their value for they used them widely and\nwisely: it has been discovered that they even attached bands of\ncolored terra-cotta to the marble mouldings of their temples. How\ndifferent must have been such a temple's real appearance from\nthat imagined by the Classical Revivalists, whose tradition of the\ninviolable cold Parian purity of Greek architecture has persisted,\neven against arch\u00e6ological evidence to the contrary, up to the present\nday.\n\nIn one way we have an advantage over the Greek, if we only had the wit\nto profit by it. His palette, like his musical scale, was more limited\nthan ours. Nearly the whole gamut of the spectrum is now available to\nthe architect who wishes to employ ceramics. The colors do not\nchange or fade, and possess a beautiful quality. Our craftsmen and\nmanufacturers of face-brick, terra-cotta, and colored tile, after much\ncostly experimentation, have succeeded in producing ceramics of a\nhigh order of excellence and intrinsic beauty; they can do practically\nanything demanded of them; but from that quarter where they\nshould reap the greatest commercial advantage--the field of\narchitecture--there is all too little demand. The architect who should\nlead, teach and dictate in this field, is often through ignorance\nobliged to learn and follow instead. This has led to an ignominious\nsituation--ignominious, that is, to the architect. He has come\nto require of the manufacturer--when he requires anything at\nall--assistance in the very matter in which he should assist: the\ndetermination of color design. It is no wonder that the results are\noften bad, and therefore discouraging. The manufacturers of ceramics\nwelcome co-operation and assistance on the part of the architect with\nan eagerness which is almost pathetic, on those rare occasions when\nassistance is offered.\n\nBut the architect is not really to blame: the reason for his failure\nlies deep in his general predicament of having to know a little of\neverything, and do a great deal more than he can possibly do well. To\ncope with this, if his practice warrants the expenditure, he surrounds\nhimself with specialists in various fields, and assigns various\ndepartments of his work to them. He cannot be expected to have on\nhis staff a specialist in ceramics, nor can he, with all his manifold\nactivities, be expected to become such a specialist himself. As a\nresult, he is usually content to let color problems alone, for they\nare just another complication of his already too complicated life;\nor he refers them to some one whom he thinks ought to know--a\nmanufacturer's designer--and approves almost anything submitted. Of\ncourse the ideal architect would have time for every problem, and\nsolve it supremely well; but the real architect is all too human:\nthere are depressions on his cranium where bumps ought to be;\nmoreover, he wants a little time left to energize in other\ndirections than in the practice of his craft. One of the functions\nof architecture is to reveal the inherent qualities and beauties of\ndifferent materials, by their appropriate use and tasteful display.\nAn onyx staircase on the one hand, and a portland cement high altar\non the other, alike violate this function of architecture; they\ntransgress that beautiful necessity which decrees that precious\nmaterials should serve precious uses and common materials should\nserve utilitarian ends. Now color is a precious thing, and its highest\nbeauties can be brought out only by contrast with broad neutral tinted\nspaces. The interior walls of a mediaeval cathedral never competed\nwith its windows, and by the same token, a riot of polychromy all\nover the side of a building is not as effective, even from a chromatic\npoint of view, as though it were confined, say, to an entrance and a\nfrieze. Gilbert's witty phrase is applicable here:\n\n  \"Where everybody's somebody, nobody's anybody.\"\n\nLet us build our walls, then, of stone, or brick, or stucco,--for\ntheir flat surfaces and neutral tints conduce to that repose so\nessential to good architectural effect: but let us not rest content\nwith this, but grant to the eye the delight and contentment which it\ncraves, by color and pattern placed at those points to which it is\ndesirable to attract attention, for they serve the same \u00e6sthetic\npurpose as a tiara on the brow of beauty, or a ring on a delicate\nwhite hand. But just as jewelry is best when it is most individual,\nso the ornament of a building should be in keeping with its general\ncharacter and complexion. A color scheme should not be chosen at\nrandom, but dictated by the prevailing tone and texture of the wall\nsurfaces, with which it should harmonize as inevitably as the blossom\nof a bush with its prevailing tone of stems and foliage. In a building\nthis prevailing tone will inevitably be either cold or warm, and the\ncolor scheme just as inevitably should be either cold or warm; that\nis, there should be a preponderance of cold colors over warm, or vice\nversa. Otherwise the eye will suffer just that order of uneasiness\nwhich comes from the contemplation of two equal masses, whereas it\nexperiences satisfaction in proportionate unequals.\n\nNothing will take the place of an instinctive colour-sense, but even\nthat needs the training of experience, if the field be new, and a few\ngeneral principles of all but universal application will not be amiss.\n\nFirst of all it should be remembered that the intensity of color\nshould be carefully adjusted to its area. It is dangerous to try to\nuse high, pure colors, unrelieved and uncontrasted, in large masses,\nbut the brightest, strongest colors may be used with safety in units\nof sufficiently restricted size. For harmony, as well as for richness,\nthe law of complementaries, in its most general application, is\nthe safest of all guides, but it must be followed with fine\ndiscrimination. Complementary colors are like married pairs, if they\nfind the right adjustment with one another they are happy--that is,\nthere is an effect of beauty--but lacking such adjustment they are\nworse off together than apart. Every artist who experiments in color\nsoon finds out for himself that instead of using two colors directly\ncomplementary, it is better to \"split\" one of them, that is, use\ninstead of one of them two others, which combined will yield the\ncolor in question. For example, the color complementary to red is\ngreen-blue. Now green-blue is equidistant between yellow-green and\nblue-violet, so if for red and blue-green; red, yellow-green and\nblue-violet be substituted the combination loses its obviousness and\na certain harshness without losing anything of its brilliance, or\nwithout departing from the optical law involved. Such a combination\ncorresponds to a diminished triad in music.\n\nAnother important consideration with regard to color as employed by\nthe architect dwells in those optical changes effected by distance and\nposition: the relative visibility of different colors and combinations\nof colors as the spectator recedes from them, and the environmental\nchanges which colors undergo--in bright sunlight, in shadow, against\nthe sky, and with relation to backgrounds of different sorts.\n\nThe effect of distance is to make colors merge into one another, to\nlower the values, but not all equally. Yellow loses itself first,\ntending toward white. The effect of distance, in general, is to\ndisintegrate and decompose, thus giving \"vibration\" as it is called. A\nknowledge of these and kindred facts will save the architect from many\ndisappointments and enable him to obtain wonderful chromatic effects\nby simple means.\n\nMany architects unused to color problems design their ornament with\nvery little thought about the colors which they propose to employ,\nmaking it an after-consideration; but the two things should be\nconsidered synchronously for the best final effect. There is a cryptic\nsaying that \"color is at right angles to form,\" that is, color is\ncapable of making surfaces advance toward or recede from the eye, just\nas modelling does; and for this reason, if color is used, a great deal\nof modelling may be dispensed with. If a receding color is used on a\nrecessed plane, it deepens that plane unduly; while on the other hand\nif a color which refuses to recede--like yellow for example--is used\nwhere depth is wanted, the receding plane and the approaching color\nneutralize one another, resulting in an effect of flatness not\nintended. The tyro should not complicate his problem by combining\ncolor with high relief modelling, bringing inevitably in the element\nof light and shade. He should leave that for older hands and concern\nhimself rather with flat or nearly flat surfaces, using his modelling\nmuch as the worker in cloisonn\u00e9 uses his little rims of brass--to\nconfine and define each color within its own allotted area. Then,\nas he gains experience, he may gradually enrich his pattern by the\naddition of the element of light and shade, should he so decide.\n\nNow as to certain general considerations in relation to the\nappropriate and logical use of ceramics in the construction and\nadornment of buildings, exterior and interior. In our northern\nlatitudes care should be taken that ceramics are not used in places\nand in ways where the accumulation of snow and ice render the joints\nsubject to alternate freezing and thawing, for in such case, unless\nthe joints are protected with metal, the units will work loose in\ntime. On vertical surfaces such protection is not necessary; the use\nof ceramics should therefore be confined for the most part to such\nsurfaces: for friezes, panels, door and window architraves, and the\nlike. When it is desirable for \u00e6sthetic reasons to tie a series of\nwindows together vertically by means of some \"fill\" of a material\ndifferent from that of the body of the wall, ceramics lend themselves\nadmirably to the purpose--better than wood, which rots; than iron,\nwhich rusts; than bronze, which turns black; and than marble, which\nsoon loses its color and texture in exposed situations of this sort.\n\nOn the interior of buildings, the most universal use of ceramics is,\nof course, for floors, and with the non-slip devices of various sorts\nwhich have come into the market, they are no less good for stairs.\nThere is nothing better for wainscoting, and in fact for any surface\nwhatsoever subject to soil and wear. These materials combine permanent\nprotection and permanent decoration. But fired by the zeal of the\nconvert the use of ceramics may be overdone. One easily recalls\nentire rooms of this material, floors, walls, ceilings, which are less\nsuccessful than as though a variety of materials had been employed. It\nis just such variety--each material treated in a characteristic, and\ntherefore different way--that gives charm to so many foreign churches\nand cathedrals: walls of stone, floors of marble, choir-stalls of\ncarved wood, and rood-screen of metal: it is the difference between\nan orchestra of various instruments and a mandolin orchestra or a\nsaxaphone sextette. Ceramics should never invade the domain of the\nplasterer, the mural painter, the cabinet maker. Do not let us, in\nour zeal for ceramics, be like Bottom the weaver, eager to play every\npart.\n\nCeramics have, as regards architecture, a distinct and honorable\nfunction. This function should be recognized, taken advantage of, but\nnever overpassed. They offer opportunities large but not limitless.\nThey constitute one instrument of the orchestra of which the architect\nis the conductor, an instrument beautiful in the hands of a master,\nand doubly beautiful in concert and contrast with those other\nmaterials whose harmonious ensemble makes that music in three\ndimensions: architectural art.\n\n\n\n\nSYMBOLS AND SACRAMENTS\n\n\nArchitecture is the concrete presentment in space of the soul of a\npeople. If that soul be petty and sordid--\"stirred like a child\nby little things\"--no great architecture is possible because great\narchitecture can image only greatness. Before any worthy architecture\ncan arise in the modern world the soul must be aroused. The cannons\nof Europe are bringing about this awakening. The world--the world of\nthought and emotion from whence flow acts and events--is no longer\ndecrepit, but like Swedenborg's angels it is advancing toward the\nspringtide of its youth: down the ringing grooves of change \"we sweep\ninto the younger day.\"\n\nAfter the war we are likely to witness an art evolution which will\nnot be restricted to statues and pictures and insincere essays in\ndry-as-dust architectural styles, but one which will permeate the\nwhole social fabric, and make it palpitate with the rhythm of a\nyounger, a more abundant life. Beauty and mystery will again make\ntheir dwelling among men; the Voiceless will speak in music, and the\nFormless will spin rhythmic patterns on the loom of space. We shall\nseek and find a new language of symbols to express the joy of the\nsoul, freed from the thrall of an iron age of materialism, and\nfronting the unimaginable splendors of the spiritual life.\n\n[Illustration: PLATE XV. SYMBOL OF RESURRECTION]\n\nFor every \u00e6sthetic awakening is the result of a spiritual awakening\nof some sort. Every great religious movement found an art expression\neloquent of it. When religion languished, such things as Versailles\nand the Paris Opera House were possible, but not such things as the\nParthenon, or Notre Dame. The temples of Egypt were built for the\ncelebration of the rites of the religion of Egypt; so also in the\ncase of Greece. Roman architecture was more widely secular, but Rome's\nnoblest monument, the Pantheon, was a religious edifice. The Moors,\ninflamed with religious ardor, swept across Europe, blazing their\ntrail with mosques and palaces conceived seemingly in some ecstatic\nstate of dream. The Renaissance, tainted though it was by worldliness,\nfound still its inspiration in sacred themes, and recorded\nits beginning and its end in two mighty religious monuments:\nBrunelleschi's and Michael Angelo's domical churches, \"wrought in a\nsad sincerity\" by deeply religious men. Gothic art is a synonym for\nmediaeval Christianity; while in the Orient art is scarcely secular at\nall, but a symbolical language framed and employed for the expression\nof spiritual ideas.\n\nThis law, that spirituality and not materialism distils the precious\nattar of great art, is permanently true and perennially applicable,\nfor laws of this order do not change from age to age, however various\ntheir manifestation. The inference is plain: until we become a\nreligious people great architecture is far from us. We are becoming\nreligious in that broad sense in which churches and creeds, forms\nand ceremonies, play little part. Ours is the search of the heart\nfor something greater than itself which is still itself; it is the\nreligion of brotherhood, whose creed is love, whose ritual is service.\n\nThis transformed and transforming religion of the West, the tardy\nfruit of the teachings of Christ, now secretly active in the hearts\nof men, will receive enrichment from many sources. Science will reveal\nthe manner in which the spirit weaves its seven-fold veil of illusion;\nnature, freshly sensed, will yield new symbols which art will organize\ninto a language; out of the experience of the soul will grow new\nrituals and observances. But one precious tincture of this new\nreligion our civilization and our past cannot supply; it is the\nheritage of Asia, cherished in her brooding bosom for uncounted\ncenturies, until, by the operation of the law of cycles, the time\nshould come for the giving of it to the West.\n\nThis secret is Yoga, the method of self-development whereby the seeker\nfor union is enabled to perceive the shining of the Inward Light. This\nis achieved by daily discipline in stilling the mind and directing the\nconsciousness inward instead of outward. The Self is within, and\nthe mind, which is normally centrifugal, must first be arrested,\ncontrolled, and then turned back upon itself, and held with perfect\nsteadiness. All this is naively expressed in the Upanishads in the\npassage, \"The Self-existent pierced the openings of the senses so that\nthey turn forward, not backward into himself. Some wise man, however,\nwith eyes closed and wishing for immortality, saw the Self behind.\"\nThis stilling of the mind, its subjugation and control whereby it may\nbe concentrated on anything at will, is particularly hard for persons\nof our race and training, a race the natural direction of whose\nconsciousness is strongly outward, a training in which the practice of\nintrospective meditation finds no place.\n\nYoga--that \"union\" which brings inward vision, the contribution of the\nEast to the spiritual life of the West--will bring profound changes\ninto the art of the West, since art springs from consciousness. The\nconsciousness of the West now concerns itself with the visible world\nalmost exclusively, and Western art is therefore characterized by an\nalmost slavish fidelity to the ephemeral appearances of things--the\nrecord of particular moods and moments. The consciousness of the East\non the other hand, is subjective, introspective. Its art accordingly\nconcerns itself with eternal aspects, with a world of archetypal\nideas in which things exist not for their own sake, but as symbols of\nsupernal things. The Oriental artist avoids as far as possible trivial\nand individual rhythms, seeking always the fundamental rhythm of the\nlarger, deeper life.\n\nNow this quality so earnestly sought and so highly prized in Oriental\nart, is the very thing which our art and our architecture most\nconspicuously lack. To the eye sensitive to rhythm, our essays in\nthese fields appear awkward and unconvincing, lacking a certain\n_inevitability_. We must restore to art that first great canon of\nChinese \u00e6sthetics, \"_Rhythmic vitality,_ or the life movement of the\nspirit through the rhythm of things.\" It cannot be interjected from\nthe outside, but must be inwardly realized by the \"stilling\" of the\nmind above described.\n\nArt cannot dispense with symbolism; as the letters on this page convey\nthoughts to the mind, so do the things of this world, organized into\na language of symbols, speak to the soul through art. But in the\nbuilding of our towers of Babel, again mankind is stricken with a\nconfusion of tongues. Art has no _common language;_ its symbols are\nno longer valid, or are no longer understood. This is a condition for\nwhich materialism has no remedy, for the reason that materialism sees\nalways the pattern but never that which the pattern represents. We\nmust become _spiritually illumined_ before we can read nature truly,\nand re-create, from such a reading, fresh and universal symbols for\nart. This is a task beyond the power of our sad generation, enchained\nby negative thinking, overshadowed by war, but we can at least glimpse\nthe nature of the reaction between the mystic consciousness and the\nthings of this world which will produce a new language of symbols. The\nmystic consciousness looks upon nature as an arras embroidered over\nwith symbols of the things it conceals from view. We are ourselves\nsymbols, dwelling in a world of symbols--a world many times removed\nfrom that ultimate reality to which all things bear figurative\nwitness; the commonest thing has yet some mystic meaning, and ugliness\nand vulgarity exist only in the unillumined mind.\n\nWhat mystic meaning, it may be asked, is contained in such things as\na brick, a house, a hat, a pair of shoes? A brick is the ultimate\natom of a building; a house is the larger body which man makes for his\nuses, just as the Self has built its habitation of flesh and bones;\nhat and shoes are felt and leather insulators with which we seek to\ncut ourselves off from the currents which flow through earth and air\nfrom God. It may be objected that these answers only substitute\nfor the lesser symbol a greater, but this is inevitable: if for the\ngreater symbol were named one still more abstract and inclusive, the\nultimate verity would be as far from affirmation as before. There is\nnothing of which the human mind can conceive that is not a symbol of\nsomething greater and higher than itself.\n\nThe dictionary defines a symbol as \"something that stands for\nsomething else and serves to represent it, or to bring to mind one or\nmore of its qualities.\" Now this world is a _reflection_ of a higher\nworld, and that of a higher world still, and so on. Accordingly,\neverything is a symbol of something higher, since by reflecting, it\n\"stands for, and serves to represent it,\" and the thing symbolized,\nbeing itself a reflection, is, by the same token, itself a symbol.\nBy reiterated repetitions of this reflecting process throughout the\nnumberless planes and sub-planes of nature, each thing becomes a\nsymbol, not of one thing only, but of many things, all intimately\ncorrelated, and this gives rise to those underlying analogies, those\n\"secret subterranean passages between matter and soul\" which have ever\nbeen the especial preoccupation of the poet and the mystic, but which\nmay one day become the subject of serious examination by scientific\nmen.\n\nLet us briefly pass in review the various terms of such an ascending\nseries of symbols: members of one family, they might be called, since\nthey follow a single line of descent.\n\nTake gold: as a thing in itself, without any symbolical significance,\nit is a metallic element, having a characteristic yellow color, very\nheavy, very soft, the most ductile, malleable, and indestructible of\nmetals. In its minted form it is the life force of the body economic,\nsince on its abundance and free circulation the well-being of that\nbody depends; it is that for which all men strive and contend, because\nwithout it they cannot comfortably live. This, then, is gold in its\nfirst and lowest symbolical aspect: a life principle, a motive force\nin human affairs. But it is not gold which has gained for man his\nlordship over nature; it is fire, the yellow gold, not of the earth,\nbut of the air,--cities and civilizations, arts and industries, have\never followed the camp fire of the pioneer. Sunlight comes next in\nsequence--sunlight, which focussed in a burning glass, spontaneously\nproduces flame. The world subsists on sunlight; all animate creation\ngrows by it, and languishes without it, as the prosperity of cities\nwaxes or wanes with the presence or absence of a supply of gold. The\nmagnetic force of the sun, specialized as _prana_ (which is not the\nbreath which goes up and the breath which goes down, but that other,\nin which the two repose), fulfils the same function in the human body\nas does gold in civilization, sunlight in nature: its abundance makes\nfor health, its meagreness for enervation. Higher than _prana_ is the\nmind, that golden sceptre of man's dominion, the Promethean gift of\nfire with which he menaces the empire of the gods. Higher still, in\nthe soul, love is the motive force, the conqueror: a \"heart of gold\"\nis one warmed and lighted by love. Still other is the desire of the\nspirit, which no human affection satisfies, but truth only, the Golden\nPerson, the Light of the World, the very Godhead itself. Thus there is\nearthy, airy, etheric gold; gold as intellect, gold as love, gold as\ntruth; from the curse of the world, the cause of a thousand crimes,\nthere ascends a Jacob's Ladder of symbols to divinity itself, whereby\nmen may learn that God works by sacrifice: that His universe is itself\nHis broken body. As gold in the purse, fire on the forge, sunlight\nfor the eyes, breath in the body, knowledge in the mind, love in the\nheart, and wisdom in the understanding, He draws all men unto Him,\nteaching them the wise use of wealth, the mastery over nature, the\ncare of the body, the cultivation of the mind, the love of wife and\nchild and neighbour, and, last lesson of all, He teaches them that in\nindustry, in science, in art, in sympathy and understanding, He it is\nthey are all the while knowing, loving, becoming; and that even when\nthey flee Him, His are the wings--\n\n  \"When me they fly, I am the wings.\"\n\nThis attempt to define gold as a symbol ends with the indication of an\nubiquitous and immanent divinity in everything. Thus it is always: in\nattempting to dislodge a single voussoir from the arch of truth, the\ntemple itself is shaken, so cunningly are the stones fitted together.\nAll roads lead to Rome, and every symbol is a key to the Great\nMystery: for example, read in the light of these correspondences, the\nalchemist's transmutation of base metals into gold, is seen to be the\nsublimation of man's lower nature into \"that highest golden sheath,\nwhich is Brahman.\"\n\nKeeping the first sequence clearly in mind, let us now attempt to\ntrace another, parallel to it: the feminine of which the first may\nbe considered the corresponding masculine. Silver is a white, ductile\nmetallic element. In coinage it is the synonym for ready cash,--gold\nin the bank is silver in the pocket; hence, in a sense, silver is\nthe _reflection_, or the second power of gold. Just as ruddy gold is\ncorrelated with fire, so is pale silver with water; and as fire is\naffiliated with the sun, so do the waters of the earth follow the\nmoon in her courses. The golden sun, the silver moon: these commonly\nemployed descriptive adjectives themselves supply the correlation we\nare seeking; another indication of its validity lies in the fact that\none of the characteristics of water is its power of reflecting; that\nmoonlight is reflected sunlight. If gold is the mind, silver is the\nbody, in which the mind is imaged, objectified; if gold is flamelike\nlove, silver is brooding affection; and in the highest regions of\nconsciousness, beauty is the feminine or form side of truth--its\nsilver mirror.\n\nThere are two forces in the world, one of projection, the other\nof recall; two states, activity and rest. Nature, with tireless\ningenuity, everywhere publishes this fact: in bursting bud and falling\nseed, in the updrawn waters and the descending rain; throw a stone\ninto the air, and when the impulse is exhausted, gravity brings it to\nearth again. In civilized society these centrifugal and centripetal\nforces find expression in the anarchic and radical spirit which breaks\ndown and re-forms existing institutions, and in the conservative\nspirit which preserves and upbuilds by gradual accretion; they are\nanalogous to igneous and to aqueous action in the formation and\nupbuilding of the earth itself, and find their prototype again in man\nand woman: man, the warrior, who prevails by the active exercise\nof his powers, and woman, \"the treasury of the continued race,\"\nwho conquers by continual quietness. Man and woman symbolize forces\ncentrifugal and centripetal not alone in their inner nature, and\nin the social and economic functions peculiar to each, but in their\nphysical aspects and peculiarities as well, for man is small of flank\nand broad of shoulder, with relatively large extremities, _i.e.,\ncentrifugal_: while woman is formed with broad hips, narrow shoulders,\nand small feet and hands, _i.e., centripetal_. Woman's instinctive\nand unconscious gestures are _towards_ herself, man's are _away from_\nhimself. The physiologist might hold that the anatomical differences\nbetween the sexes result from their difference in function in the\nreproduction and conservation of the race, and this is a true view,\nbut the lesser truth need not necessarily exclude the greater. As\nChesterton says, \"Something in the evil spirit of our time forces\npeople always to pretend to have found some material and mechanical\nexplanation.\" Such would have us believe, with Schopenhauer and\nBernard Shaw, that the lover's delight in the beauty of his mistress\ndwells solely in his instinctive perception of her fitness to be the\nmother of his child. This is undoubtedly a factor in the glamour\nwoman casts on man, but there are other factors too, higher as well as\nlower, corresponding to different departments of our manifold nature.\nFirst of all, there is mere physical attraction: to the man physical,\nwoman is a cup of delight; next, there is emotional love, whereby\nwoman appeals through her need of protection, her power of tenderness;\non the mental plane she is man's intellectual companion, his masculine\nreason would supplement itself with her feminine intuition; he\nrecognizes in her an objectification, in some sort, of his own soul,\nhis spirit's bride, predestined throughout the ages; while the god\nwithin him perceives her to be that portion of himself which he put\nforth before the world was, to be the mother, not alone of human\nchildren, but of all those myriad forms, within which entering, \"as in\na sheath, a knife,\" he becomes the Enjoyer, and realizes, vividly and\nconcretely, his bliss, his wisdom, and his power.\n\nAdam and Eve, and the tree in the midst of the garden! After man and\nwoman, a tree is perhaps the most significant symbol in the\nworld: every tree is the Tree of Life in the sense that it is a\nrepresentation of universal becoming. To say that all things have for\ntheir mother _prakriti_, undifferentiated substance, and for their\nfather _purusha_, the creative fire, is vague and metaphysical, and\nconveys little meaning to our image-bred, image-fed minds; on the\nphysical plane we can only learn these transcendental truths by means\nof symbols, and so to each of us is given a human father and a human\nmother from whose relation to one another and to oneself may be\nlearned our relation to nature, the universal mother, and to that\nimmortal spirit which is the father of us all. We are given, moreover,\nthe symbol of the tree, which, rooted in the earth, its mother, and\nnourished by her juices, strives ever upward towards its father, the\nsun. The mathematician may be able to demonstrate, as a result of a\nlifetime of hard thinking, that unity and infinity are but two aspects\nof one thing; this is not clear to ordinary minds, but made concrete\nin the tree--unity in the trunk, infinity in the foliage--any one\nis able to understand it. We perceive that all things grow as a tree\ngrows, from unity to multiplicity, from simplicity and strength to\nbeauty and fineness. The generation of the line from the point, the\nplane from the line, and from the plane, the solid, is a matter,\nagain, which chiefly interests the geometrician, but the inevitable\nsequence stands revealed in seed, stem, leaf, and fruit: a point, a\nline, a surface, and a sphere. There is another order of truths, also,\nwhich a tree teaches: the renewal of its life each year is a symbol\nof the reincarnation of the soul, teaching that life is never-ending\nclimax, and that what appears to be cessation is merely a change\nof state. A tree grows great by being firmly rooted; we too, though\nchildren of the air, need the earth, and grow by good deeds, hidden,\nlike the roots of the tree, out of sight; for the tree, rain and\nsunshine: for the soul, tears and laughter thrill the imprisoned\nspirit into conscious life.\n\nWe love and understand the trees because we have ourselves passed\nthrough their evolution, and they survive in us still, for the\narterial and nervous systems are trees, the roots of one in the heart,\nof the other in the brain. Has not our body its trunk, bearing aloft\nthe head, like a flower: a cup to hold the precious juices of the\nbrain? Has not that trunk its tapering limbs which ramify into hands\nand feet, and these into fingers and toes, after the manner of the\ntwigs and branches of a tree?\n\nClosely related to symbolism is sacramentalism; the man who sees\nnature as a book of symbols is likely to regard life as a sacrament.\nBecause this is a point of view vitalizing to art let us glance at\nthe sacramental life, divorced from the forms and observances of any\nspecific religion.\n\nThis life consists in the habitual perception of an ulterior meaning,\na hidden beauty and significance in the objects, acts, and events\nof every day. Though binding us to a sensuous existence, these\nnevertheless contain within themselves the power of emancipating us\nfrom it: over and above their immediate use, their pleasure or their\nprofit, they have a hidden meaning which contains some healing message\nfor the soul.\n\nA classic example of a sacrament, not alone in the ordinary meaning\nof the term, but in the special sense above defined, is the Holy\nCommunion of the Christian Church. Its origin is a matter of common\nknowledge. On the evening of the night in which He was betrayed,\nJesus and His disciples were gathered together for the feast of the\nPassover. Aware of His impending betrayal, and desirous of impressing\npowerfully upon His chosen followers the nature and purpose of His\nsacrifice, Jesus ordained a sacrament out of the simple materials of\nthe repast. He took bread and broke it, and gave to each a piece as\nthe symbol of His broken body; and to each He passed a cup of wine,\nas a symbol of His poured-out blood. In this act, as in the washing of\nthe disciples' feet on the same occasion, He made His ministrations to\nthe needs of men's bodies an allegory of His greater ministration to\nthe needs of their souls.\n\nThe sacrament of the Lord's Supper is of such beauty and power that it\nhas persisted even to the present day. It lacks, however, the element\nof universality--at least by other than Christians its universality\nwould be denied. Let us seek, therefore some all-embracing symbol to\nillustrate the sacramental view of life.\n\nPerhaps marriage is such a symbol. The public avowal of love between\na man and woman, their mutual assumption of the attendant privileges,\nduties and responsibilities are matters so pregnant with consequences\nto them and to the race that by all right-thinking people marriage is\nregarded as a high and holy thing; its sacramental character is felt\nand acknowledged even by those who would be puzzled to tell the reason\nwhy.\n\nThe reason is involved in the answer to the question, \"Of what is\nmarriage a symbol?\" The most obvious answer, and doubtless the best\none, is found in the well known and much abused doctrine, common to\nevery religion, of the spiritual marriage between God and the soul.\nWhat Christians call _the Mystic Way,_ and Buddhists _the Path_\ncomprises those changes in consciousness through which every soul\npasses on its way to perfection. When the personal life is conceived\nof as an allegory of this inner, intense, super-mundane life, it\nassumes a sacramental character. With strange unanimity, followers\nof the Mystic Way have given the name of marriage to that memorable\nexperience in \"the flight of the Alone to the Alone,\" when the soul,\nafter trials and purgations, enters into indissoluble union with the\nspirit, that divine, creative principle whereby it is made fruitful\nfor this world. Marriage, then, however dear and close the union, is\nthe symbol of a union dearer and closer, for it is the fair prophecy\nthat on some higher arc of the evolutionary spiral, the soul will meet\nits immortal lover and be initiated into divine mysteries.\n\nAs an example of the power of symbols to induce those changes of\nconsciousness whereby the soul is prepared for this union, it is\nrecorded that an eminent scientist was moved to alter his entire mode\nof life on reflecting, while in his bath one morning, that though each\nday he was at such pains to make clean his body, he made no similar\npurgation of his mind and heart. The idea appealed to him so\nprofoundly that he began to practise the higher cleanliness from that\nday forth.\n\nIf it be true, as has been said, that ordinary life in the world is a\ntraining school for a life more real and more sublime, then everything\npertaining to life in the world must possess a sacramental character,\nand possess it inherently, and not merely by imputation. Let us\ndiscover, then, if we can, some of the larger meanings latent in\nlittle things.\n\nWhen at the end of a cloudy day the sun bursts forth in splendor and\nsets red in the west, it is a sign to the weather-wise that the next\nday will be fair. To the devotee of the sacramental life it holds a\nricher promise. To him the sun is a symbol of the love of God; the\nclouds, those worldly preoccupations of his own which hide its face\nfrom him. This purely physical phenomenon, therefore, which brings\nto most men a scarcely noticed augmentation of heat and light, and\nan indication of fair weather on the morrow, induces in the mystic an\nineffable sense of divine immanence and beneficence, and an assurance\nof their continuance beyond the dark night of the death of the body.\n\nWhen the sacramentalist goes swimming in the sea he enjoys to the full\nthe attendant physical exhilaration, but a greater joy flows from\nthe thought that he is back with his great Sea-Mother--that feminine\nprinciple of which the sea is the perfect symbol, since water brings\nall things to birth and nurtures them. When at the end of a day\nhe lays aside his clothes--that two-dimensional sheath of the\nthree-dimensional body--it is in full assurance that his body in turn\nwill be abandoned by the inwardly retreating consciousness, and that\nhe will range wherever he wills during the hours of sleep, clothed in\nhis subtle four-dimensional body, related to the physical body as that\nis related to the clothes it wears.\n\nTo every sincere seeker nature reveals her secrets, but since men\ndiffer in their curiosities she reveals different things to different\nmen. All are rewarded for their devotion in accordance with their\ninterests and desires, but woman-like, nature reveals herself most\nfully to him who worships not the fair form of her, but her soul. This\nfavored lover is the mystic; for ever seeking instruction in things\nspiritual, he perceives in nature an allegory of the soul, and\ninterprets her symbols in terms of the sacramental life.\n\nThe brook, pursuing its tortuous and stony pathway in untiring effort\nto reach its gravitational centre, is a symbol of the Pilgrim's\nprogress, impelled by love to seek God within his heart. The modest\ndaisy by the roadside, and the wanton sunflower in the garden alike\nseek to image the sun, the god of their worship, a core of seeds and\nfringe of petals representing their best effort to mimic the flaming\ndisc and far-flung corona of the sun. Man seeks less ardently, and so\nmore ineffectively in his will and imagination to image God. In the\nreverent study of insect and animal life we gain some hint of what we\nhave been and what we may become--something corresponding to the grub,\na burrowing thing; to the caterpillar, a crawling thing; and finally\nto the butterfly, a radiant winged creature.\n\nAfter this fashion then does he who has embraced the sacramental life\ncome to perceive in the \"sensuous manifold\" of nature, that one divine\nReality which ever seeks to instruct him in supermundane wisdom, and\nto woo him to superhuman blessedness and peace. In time, this reading\nof earth in terms of heaven, becomes a settled habit. Then, in\nEmerson's phrase, he has hitched his wagon to a star, and changed his\ngrocer's cart into a chariot of the sun.\n\nThe reader may perhaps fail to perceive the bearing of this long\ndiscussion of symbols and sacraments upon the subject of art and\narchitecture, but in the mind of the author the correlation is\nplain. There can be no great art without religion: religion begins in\nconsciousness as a mystic experience, it flows thence into symbols\nand sacraments, and these in turn are precipitated by the artist into\nponderable forms of beauty. Unless the artist himself participates in\nthis mystic experience, life's deeper meanings will escape him, and\nthe work of his hands will have no special significance. Until it can\nbe said of every artist\n\n  \"Himself from God he could not free,\"\n\nthere will be no art worthy of the name.\n\n\n\n\nSELF-EDUCATION[1]\n\n\nI take great pleasure in availing myself of this opportunity to speak\nto you on certain aspects of the art which we practise. I cannot\nforget, and I hope that you sufficiently remember, that the\narchitectural future of this country lies in the hands of just such\nmen as you. Let me dwell then for a moment on your unique opportunity.\nPerhaps some of you have taken up architecture as you might have gone\ninto trade, or manufacturing, or any of the useful professions; in\nthat case you have probably already learned discrimination, and now\nrealize that in the cutting of the cake of human occupations you\nhave drawn the piece which contains the ring of gold. The cake is\nthe business and utilitarian side of life, the ring of gold is the\n\u00e6sthetic, the creative side: treasure it, for it is a precious and\nenduring thing. Think what your work is: to reassemble materials in\nsuch fashion that they become instinct with a beauty and eloquent with\na meaning which may carry inspiration and delight to generations still\nunborn. Immortality haunts your threshold, even though your hand may\nnot be strong enough to open to the heavenly visitor.\n\nThough the profession of architecture is a noble one in any country\nand in any age, it is particularly rich in inspiration and in\nopportunity here and now, for who can doubt that we are about to enter\nupon a great building period? We have what Mr. Sullivan calls \"the\nneed and the power to build,\" the spirit of great art alone is\nlacking, and that is already stirring in the secret hearts of men, and\nwill sooner or later find expression in objective and ponderable\nforms of new beauty. These it is your privilege to create. May the\nopportunity find you ready! There is a saying, \"To be young, to be in\nlove, to be in Italy!\" I would paraphrase it thus: To be young, to be\nin architecture, to be in America.\n\nIt is my purpose tonight to outline a scheme of self-education, which\nif consistently followed out I am sure will help you, though I am\naware that to a certain order of mind it will seem highly mystical and\nimpractical. If it commends itself to your favor I shall be glad.\n\nMany of you will have had the advantage of a thorough technical\ntraining in your chosen profession: be grateful for it. Others, like\nTopsy, \"just growed\"--or have just failed to grow. For the solace of\nall such, without wishing to be understood to disparage architectural\nschooling, I would say that there is a kind of education which is\nworse than none, for by filling his mind with ready-made ideas it\nprevents a man from ever learning to think for himself; and there is\nanother kind which teaches him to think, indeed, but according to some\narbitrary method, so that his mind becomes a canal instead of a river,\nflowing in a predetermined and artificial channel, and unreplenished\nby the hidden springs of the spirit. The best education can do no more\nthan to bring into manifestation that which is inherent; it does this\nby means of some stimulus from without--from books and masters--but\nthe stimulus may equally come from within: each can develop his own\nmind, and in the following manner.\n\nThe alternation between a state of activity and a state of passivity,\nwhich is a law of our physical being, as it is a law of all nature,\nis characteristic of the action of the mind as well: observation and\nmeditation are the two poles of thought. The tendency of modern life\nand of our active American temperament is towards a too exclusive\nfunctioning of the mind in its outgoing state, and this results in\na great cleverness and a great shallowness. It is only in moments of\nquiet meditation that the great synthetic, fundamental truths reveal\nthemselves. Observe ceaselessly, weigh, judge, criticize--this order\nof intellectual activity is important and valuable--but the mind must\nbe steadied and strengthened by another and a different process. The\npower of attention, the ability to concentrate, is the measure of\nmental efficiency; and this power may be developed by a training\nexactly analogous to that by which a muscle is developed, for mind\nand muscle are alike the instruments of the Silent Thinker who sits\nbehind. The mind an instrument of something higher than the mind: here\nis a truth so fertile that in the language of Oriental imagery, \"If\nyou were to tell this to a dry stick, branches would grow, and leaves\nsprout from it.\"\n\nThere is nothing original in the method of mental development here\nindicated; it has been known and practised for centuries in the East,\nwhere life is less strenuous than it is with us. The method consists\nin silent meditation every day at stated periods, during which the\nattempt is made to hold the mind to the contemplation of a single\nimage or idea, bringing the attention back whenever it wanders,\nkilling each irrelevant thought as it arises, as one might kill a\nrat coming out of a hole. This turning of the mind back on itself is\ndifficult, but I know of nothing that \"pays\" so well, and I have never\nfound any one who conscientiously practised it who did not confirm\nthis view. The point is, that if a man acquires the ability to\nconcentrate on one thing, he can concentrate on anything; he increases\nhis competence on the mental plane in the same manner that pulling\nchest-weights increases his competence on the physical. The practice\nof meditation has moreover an ulterior as well as an immediate\nadvantage, and that is the reason it is practised by the Yogis of\nIndia. They believe that by stilling the mind, which is like a lake\nreflecting the sky, the Higher Self communicates a knowledge of Itself\nto the lower consciousness. Without the working of this Oversoul in\nand through us we can never hope to produce an architecture which\nshall rank with the great architectures of the past, for in Egypt, in\nGreece, in mediaeval France, as in India, China, and Japan, mysticism\nmade for itself a language more eloquent than any in which the purely\nrational consciousness of man has ever spoken.\n\nWe are apt to overestimate the importance of books and book learning.\nThink how small a part books have played in the development of\narchitecture; indeed, Palladio and Vignola, with their hard and fast\nformul\u00e6 have done the art more harm than good. It is a fallacy that\nreading strengthens the mind--it enervates it; reading sometimes\nstimulates the mind to original thinking, and _this_ develops it,\nbut reading itself is a passive exercise, because the thought of the\nreader is for the time being in abeyance in order that the thought\nof the writer may enter. Much reading impairs the power to think\noriginally and consecutively. Few of the great creators of the world\nhave had use for books, and if you aspire to be in their class you\nwill avoid the \"spawn of the press.\" The best plan is to read only\ngreat books, and having read for five minutes, think about what you\nhave read for ten.\n\nThese exercises, faithfully followed out, will make your mind a fit\nvehicle for the expression of your idea, but the advice I have\ngiven is as pertinent to any one who uses his mind as it is to the\narchitect. To what, specifically, should the architectural student\ndevote his attention in order to improve the quality of his work?\nMy own answer would be that he should devote himself to the study of\nmusic, of the human figure, and to the study of Nature--\"first, last,\nmidst, and without end.\"\n\nThe correlation between music and architecture is no new thought; it\nis implied in the famous saying that architecture is frozen music.\nVitruvius considered a knowledge of music to be a qualification of the\narchitect of his day, and if it was desirable then it is no less so\nnow. There is both a metaphysical reason and a practical one why\nthis is so. Walter Pater, in a famous phrase, declared that all art\nconstantly aspires to the condition of music, by which he meant to\nimply that there is a certain rhythm and harmony at the root of every\nart, of which music is the perfect and pure expression; that in\nmusic the means and the end are one and the same. This coincides with\nSchopenhauer's theory about music, that it is the most perfect\nand unconditioned sensuous presentment known to us of that undying\n_will-to-live_ which constitutes life and the world. Metaphysics\naside, the architect ought to hear as much good music as he can, and\nlearn the rudiments of harmony, at least to the extent of knowing the\nsimple numerical ratios which govern the principal consonant intervals\nwithin the octave, so that, translating these ratios into intervals of\nspace expressed in terms of length and breadth, height, and width, his\nwork will \"aspire to the condition of music.\"\n\nThere is a metaphysical reason, too, as well as a practical one, why\nan architect should know the human figure. Carlyle says, \"There is but\none temple in the world, and that is the body of man.\" If the body\nis, as he declares, a temple, it is no less true that a temple, or any\nwork of architectural art is in the nature of an ampler body which\nman has created for his uses, and which he inhabits, just as the\nindividual consciousness builds and inhabits its fleshly stronghold.\nThis may seem a highly mystical idea, but the correlation between\nthe house and its inhabitant, and the body and its consciousness is\neverywhere close, and is susceptible of infinite elaboration.\n\nArchitectural beauty, like human beauty, depends upon a proper\nsubordination of parts to the whole, a harmonious interrelation\nbetween these parts, the expressiveness of each of its functions, and\nwhen these are many and diverse, their reconcilement one with another.\nThis being so, a study of the human figure with a view to analyzing\nthe sources of its beauty cannot fail to be profitable to the\narchitectural designer. Pursued intelligently, such study will\nstimulate the mind to a perception of those simple yet subtle laws\naccording to which nature everywhere works, and it will educate\nthe eye in the finest known school of proportion, training it to\ndistinguish minute differences, in the same way that the hearing of\ngood music cultivates the ear.\n\nIt is neither necessary nor desirable to make elaborate and carefully\nshaded drawings from a posed model; an equal number of hours spent in\ncopying and analyzing the plates of a good art anatomy, supplemented\nwith a certain amount of life drawing, done merely with a view to\ncatch the pose, will be found to be a more profitable exercise, for it\nwill make you familiar with the principal and subsidiary proportions\nof the bodily temple, and give you sufficient data to enable you to\nindicate a figure in any position with fair accuracy.\n\nI recommend the study of Nature because I believe that such study\nwill assist you to recover that direct and instant perception of\nbeauty, our natural birthright, of which over-sophistication has\nso bereft us that we no longer know it to be ours by right of\ninheritance--inheritance from that cosmic matter endowed with\nmotion out of which we are fashioned, proceeding ever rationally and\nrhythmically to its appointed ends. We are all of us participators in\na world of concrete music, geometry and number--a world, that is, so\nmathematically constituted and co-ordinated that our pigmy bodies,\nequally with the farthest star, throb to the music of the spheres. The\nblood flows rhythmically, the heart its metronome; the moving limbs\nweave patterns; the voice stirs into radiating sound-waves that pool\nof silence which we call the air.\n\n  \"Thou canst not wave thy staff in air,\n    Or dip thy paddle in the lake,\n  But it carves the bow of beauty there,\n    And ripples in rhyme the oar forsake.\"\n\nThe whole of animate creation labours under the beautiful necessity of\nbeing beautiful. Everywhere it exhibits a perfect utility subservient\nto harmonious laws. Nature is the workshop in which are built\n_beautiful organisms_. This is exactly the aim of the architect--to\nfashion beautiful organisms; what better school, therefore, could he\nhave in which to learn his trade?\n\nTo study Nature it is not necessary to go out into the fields and\nbotanize, nor to attempt to make water colours of picturesque scenery.\nThese things are very well, but not so profitable to your particular\npurpose as observation directed toward the discovery of the laws which\nunderlie and determine form and structure, such as the tracing of the\nspiral line, not alone where it is obvious, as in the snail's shell\nand in the ram's horn, but where it appears obscurely, as in the\ndisposition of leaves or twigs upon a parent stem. Such laws of nature\nare equally laws of art, for art _is_ nature carried to a higher power\nby reason of its passage through a human consciousness. Thought and\nemotion tend to crystallize into forms of beauty as inevitably, and\naccording to the same laws, as does the frost on the window pane. Art,\nin one of its aspects, is the weaving of a pattern, the communication\nof an order and a method to lines, forms, colors, sounds. All very\npoetical, and possibly true, you may be saying to yourselves, but\nwhat has it to do with architecture, which nowadays, at least, is\npre-eminently a practical and utilitarian art whose highest mission\nis to fulfil definite conditions in an economical and admirable way;\nwhose supreme excellence is fitness, appropriateness, the perfect\nadaptation of means to ends, and the apt expression of both means\nand ends? Yes, architecture is all of this, but this is not all of\narchitecture; else the most efficient engineer would be the most\nadmirable architect, which does not happen to be the case. Along with\nthe expression of the concrete and individual must go the expression\nof the abstract and universal; the two can be combined in a single\nbuilding in the same way that in every human countenance are\ncombined a racial or temperamental _type_, which is universal, and a\n_character_, which is individual. The expression of any sort of cosmic\ntruth, of universal harmony and rhythm, is the quality which our\narchitecture most conspicuously lacks. Failing to find the cosmic\ntruth within ourselves, failing to vibrate to the universal harmony\nand rhythm, our architecture is--well, what it is, for only that which\nis native to our living spirit can we show forth in the work of our\nhands.\n\nYour work will be, in the last analysis, what you yourselves are. Let\nno sophistry blind you to the truth of that. There are rhythms in the\nworld of space which we find only in the architecture of the past, and\nenamoured of their beauty we repeat them over and over (off the key\nfor the most part), on the principle that all the songs have been\nsung; or we just make a noise, on the principle that noise is all\nthere is to architecture anyway. It is not so. Those systems of\nspatial rhythms which we call Egyptian, Classic, Gothic, Renaissance\narchitecture and the rest, are records all of the living human spirit\nenergizing in the stubborn matter of the physical plane with joy, with\nconviction, with mastery. When that undying spirit awakes again in\nyou, stirred into consciousness by meditation, which is its prayer;\nby music, which is its praise; by the contemplation of that fair\nform which is its temple; and by communion with nature, which is its\nlooking-glass; you will experience again that ancient joy, hold again\nthat firm conviction, and exercise again that mastery to transfuse the\ngranite and iron heart of the hills into patterns unlike any that the\nhand of man has made before.\n\n[Footnote 1: An address delivered before the Boston Architectural Club\nin April, 1909.]","title":"Architecture and Democracy","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":36239}