Samuel Colman - Harmonic Proportion and Form in Nature, Art and Architecture

Design for Facade of a Cathedral.-Frontispiece

M ANY years ago I became profoundly interested in the study of the laws governing proportional form, both in Nature and in the arts and sciences, and the further these investigations were pursued the firmer became the conviction that the laws of proportion, as exemplified in Nature, were startlingly uniform, whatever might be the complexity of the application. In the course of these investigations covering a vast number of Natures forms and phenomena, and of the laws governing proportional form, the crystal was found to be their most perfect interpreter, but in the flower, the shell, and many other forms of varying origin or organism, the same constructive principles were recognized, and these it will be my endeavor in this work to explain. As these principles are the fundamental elements by which Nature creates harmony, correlating the parts of her form-compositions into a perfect whole, they must be of interest to the student of beauty and of use to the professional artist. Many of these laws were unquestionably among the valued and guarded secrets of the Masonic Order and of the ancient guilds, and as time went on were, unfortunately, guarded not wisely but so well that for generations they have been lost to the use not only of the world, but to those very architects and masons who most treasured them as well.

It is upon the application of these same ultimate principles of harmonic proportion, governing every natural formation, organic or inorganic, to music, sculpture, painting, and above all to architecture, that consciously or unconsciously man has laid the lasting foundation of all form-beauty in art; and only by the recognition of these principles can we hope to deduce intelligible and universal laws governing the fundamental Harmony of Nature.

In this investigation I have received much help from Mr. Jay Hambidge, the artist, whose work on the proportions of the Parthenon was so warmly recognized by the Hellenic Society of London, and who was among the first students to disclose the true symmetry of shells, and to call attention to the binary principle of Nature.

To Professor Tyndall I owe my knowledge of polar force, which he describes in his lectures on Light, revealing its influence on angular magnitude, lessons of lasting value to the architect as well as to the artist.

I am also much indebted to the writings of D. R. Hay of Edinburgh, who, like Hambidge, gives attention to the binary principle, or the law of octaves, declaring it to be as important a factor in form-composition as in the science of music. He also called my attention to the value of mathematical curves in formal art as well as applied to the human figure.

Professor Raymond of Princeton University, in his remarkable book on Proportion. and Harmony of Line and Color, tells us many truths in his absolutely sound treatise on the theories of this subject, disclosing the influence of the laws of repetition, contrast, variety in unity, etc., on art; and Joseph Gwilt, the English architect, has added greatly to our knowledge of the principles of proportion, which he describes at length in his work On Architecture.

The combined works of these writers leaves little to be desired for one seeking information on the subject, and it might almost be felt that there is small need for further words to illumine it. My purpose in adding to these, however, is that I may adduce proofs where heretofore only theories have been advanced, since the above authors say but little of Natures laws in relation to her forms of growth and production, applying their theories to buildings or other works of art, considered most perfect. Therefore when Gwilt, for example, declares that the square and the cube have been the fundamental forms in past ages for the just development of proportional spaces in art, the words do not impress the mind as of vital value, since no causes or principles of Nature are forthcoming. But the laws of Nature should be the basic element for all theories, and it is chiefly with these laws that I have to deal.

Of late a new light has arisen on the horizon, for the works of Prof. A. H. Church, of Oxford, the distinguished botanist, have disclosed more truth in the relations of plant-growth to proportion than any other of the numerous writers on botany. The principles governing this growth are clearly described in his work on Phyllotaxis in Relation to Mechanical Laws, and it is from this source that much of the material in the chapter on botany is derived.

All of the above men have produced theories which not only stir the imagination but also illuminate the pathway leading to a just understanding of Nature.

S. C.

NEW YORK, December 1st, 1911.