An Ordinary Street in the London Suburb of Hanwell

After the last view of Nashua, NH mainstreet here are some views of Hanwell in west London. They were taken over the summer when I was on my way to Heathrow airport. When I teach the class on harmony and proportion in architect at Thomas More College, we do study the traditional principles as manifested in the great buildings of the past, but I am as anxious to establish in the idea also that this is not just something for cathedrals and grand civic buildings. Even the buildings that we use in everyday life - affordable mass housing, the shops, offices, businesses and factories  can conform to these simple principles and create a beautiful and livable environment. I believe that cities are where most of us are meant to live - the future is not, and nor ought to be, one of a new high-tech agrarianism. However, I do not believe that modern cities need be the inhuman places that we tend to think is inevitable. This is where the consideration of the beauty of ordinary things and places becomes so important.

I stopped at a roadside cafe for an English breakfast on my to catch my plane home and it was a sunny morning. What was interesting to note was that the basic structures of the all the buildings conformed to traditional harmonious proportions. I am guessing they were built around the turn of the last century. As you look at each one you can see the triple layered proportion with each storey a different size in the traditional manner. These were never grand buildings, just ordinary high street buildings built for every day use. Even though the modern businesses that occupy them have made no attempt to accentuate or conform to the harmonious proportions in their modifications, what remains still makes Hanwell High Street nice enough for the Big Bites Cafe to put tables outside so that patrons could enjoy the sunshine. I would always maintain that if they knew it, they would attract even more business if only they would take this into account. The beautification of the high street is one of the main ways that towns seek to preserve the town centres and fight against the out-of-town malls to maintain a community feel. This is known, but rarely is this aspect of how it might be done understood.

For the curious I have included a photo of the menu, I chose the Tradition English complete with B. Pudding, ie Black Pudding...ah how I miss England.

The Old Library, Nashua, New Hampshire and the Richmond Court Apartments, Brookline, Massachusetts

Here are two building designed by the same American architect, Ralph Adams Cram. Nashua, New Hampshire is the town I live in. Most days I drive past the old library - the Hunt Memorial Library -  and always notice the proportions of its design. I am teaching a class at Thomas More College (which is in nearby Merrimack, NH) at the moment on traditional ideas of harmonious proportion and how they have been used (or ignored) in architecture over the centuries from ancient Greece up to the present day. We are studying original architectural sources such as the Roman architect, Vitruvius; and Alberti from the High Renaissance; and writings on proportion and harmony that influenced architecture such as De Musica and De Arithmetica by Boethius. As an exercise, we will take a walk down the main street of Nashua and consider how these shops, banks and offices incorporate proportion, or not. the main street is a mixture of late 19th century and early 20th century, where architects use traditional proportion in some way; and more recent where it is ignored. I am trying to train the students to be able to recognise and will challenge them to consider how those modern buildings might be improved by the addition of proportion.

As part of my research for this, I recently discovered that the old library is listed on the national register of buildings in the US and was designed by architect Ralph Adams Cram. The building was completed in 1903 and this style is neo-gothic described as 'Elizabethan Gothic'. Notice how Cram has used white stone, inlaid into the brickwork, to break up the verticals into different sized portions. This is most obvious in the corner tower in which there is a clear rhythmical progression as each successive layer gets smaller.

Cram was a very well known architect who designed much of the Princeton University campus, Rice Univerisity campus in Texas and the cathedral of St John the Divine in New York City. Here however I feature far less grand buildings - this town library and an apartment block in Brookline, a suburb of Boston. These demonstrate, I feel, that is possible to bring the same grace and beauty into the ordinary buildings of everyday living as it is the great showcase buildings of our cities and universities.

and now Richmond Court. This is earlier, dating from about 1890

The old library building ceased to be used as a library in 1971. Without further comment except to say that I include the following by way of contrast, here is the current Nashua library....

From Sacra Liturgia, Rome: Beauty is a language without words and must be present in art and architecture

Here is a report of the presentation on architecture and art by Fr Michael Lang of the Brompton Oratory at the Sacra Liturgia 2013. I hope I have done it justice. Once again this was posted first on Catholic Education Daily. This is blog of the Cardinal Newman Society which seeks to spur on liturgical renewal in Catholic higher education, so I was very happy to be asked to report on the conference for them; and to make NLM readers aware of the efforts they are making in this direction as well as what went on in the report.

In this presentation Fr Lang stressed the need for liturgical forms that are in harmony with with well directed worship and for informed patronage; and a dialogue between artist and patron in the planning stages. In his presentation he did not rely on personal opinion as to the quality of the architecture he was showing (the opinions expressed in the article about particular churches are mine not his). Rather, he laid out the processes by which the architect was commissioned, and told us the (often absurd and grandiose) aims articulated by the architect. Then, dispassionately, he compared the stated aims with the requirements of the traditions of Church pointing out differences and contradictions if they occurred. Then without further comment after this analysis he presented us with a photograph of the final product, allowing us to make up our minds. The laughter of the audience said it all. I did not notice Fr Lang even crack a smile as he did this, which just seemed to add to the deadpan humour.

He finished by giving us some guiding principles that he felt that patrons should focus on when commissioning art and artchitecture and that might avoid some of the errors of the last 100 year.

Once again, the full article is here.

How You Can Add Proportion to a Building Through Decoration

Take a look at these photographs of a farmhouse in Groton, Massachusetts. This is a 19th century house on the site that eventually will become the new campus for Thomas More College of Liberal Arts. Look first at the gable end in which there are three windows, one on each floor. Notice how the first is bigger than the second. The second is, in turn bigger than the vent at the top that aerates the loftspace. There is a sense of rhythmical progression as we go up, the first relates to the second as the second relates to third.  The are three objects and two relationships. Each relationship, for example how the first window relates to the second, can be described as a mathematical ratio between two magnitudes - the magnitude of each window. Due proportion is defined as a consonant relationship between two or more ratios. When the proportion is appropriate ('due') for what contains it, in this case a house, then is pleasing to the eye. We can think of due proportion therefore as a harmonious relationship between two or more relationships. Now look at the bay windows that are built into the wall at right angles to the gable end, which are painted  a yellow cream. The windows are not the same size and so look as though they could be completed with a third which is smaller still, like those just around the corner. This implied proportion is common in buildings - you can't always afford to build three storeys (or in this case, three bay windows).  So this is good, it is like having two notes that are different but still harmonious. You can't have harmony between identical things, that is why in modern buildings in which all the windows are the same size, it looks dull and sterile. However, as I look at these bay windows, something isn't quite right. Although the windows look in harmony, the top storey looks top heavy. This is because the adorning strip of wood that separates one floor from the other is placed at a level that is too low. Although the windows are of different size, the storeys are of equal size. When I look, it see something that would look more natural if the the upper storey was smaller that the lower, (just as the trunk of a tree gets smaller as you go up, it gives a sense of stability). It is a shame that this is off, because everything else seems right.

However there is something that could be done to restore harmony without any new building at all. We are just in the process of repainting the house (you can see the sanded garage door and its surround painted slate grey). The whole house will be this colour and the trim will be cream. The answer is to repaint these bay windows so that the lower floor is separated from the upper, perhaps if it is painted this slate grey colour, separate them with a trim band. You paint the band of cream perhaps 10 inches wide above the wooden rail that now appears. The final photograph shows how painting can be used to create harmony even when the windows are identical in size. It is of a hotel on the seafront in Llandudno in North Wales, close to where I grew up.

This harmony of three is just as it is in the area that you think of first when harmony is mentioned - music. We hear harmony between two notes, for example a perfect fourth, a perfect fifth or an octave and it is pleasing. And this is good on its own. However, whenever I ask any musician if this is the full chord, they will always tell me that it is incomplete. You need to third note to create a second interval, so we know if we are hearing part of a major chord, or a minor chord.

 

This is the Somerset Hotel on the promenade at Llandudno, north Wales.

A Country House and Grounds - a Model of Manmade Harmony and Order

And how a 'marvel of Renaissance verse' describes precisely this, by Corey French. This article started out as a simple description of a country house that I visited on a recent trip to Britain. It is in North Wales and is called Bodysgallen Hall.  I was introduced to the house by a friend who took me there for the very British event of afternoon tea. What a delight that was! A number of things struck me about it. First was the harmony between house and grounds and the surrounding countryside. The gardens are more formally laid out close to the house, then they change into the less formal English cottage style and planting (a la Gertrude Jeckyll) and then into managed woods. Even the vegetable garden was arranged in an ordered and beautiful fashion, everything in its proper place. From the grounds we could see  and sheep fells on the Welsh mountains in the distance, beyond the Conway valley.

Second, is that every aspect of what we see is man made. There is no part that has not been shaped by the activity of man. This is not the untamed beauty of nature, but something even greater: nature conforming to a higher order. It has been raised up by the work of man.

Another aspect of note is the date in which the house was made. Or rather, dates. The various wings of the house were built over centuries ranging from the 17th to the 19th centuries. I could tell because each wing year of construction placed visibly on it. Despite this there is a unity to the whole because each part uses traditional proportions. These are the proportions that go back to the ancient Greeks and are derived from observation of the order and beauty of the cosmos. (There is one part that is an exception, it seems - the tall tower in the centre, which has even sized windows).

I was just contemplating this when I received an email from Corey French, who is currently working on his doctorate in English Literature at the University of Virginia, with a focus on 17th century British poetry. He had attended the first summer retreat of the Way of Beauty Atelier this year. I mentioned to him that I am a literary philistine with little regard for poetry. Undaunted he told insisted that his specialist area would be of interest to me. This is because, he said, they often refer to the ideal of beauty and harmony that I had been talking about in my lectures.  He told me that many even have and 'architecture' (ie structure) that incorporates he sacred number theory that I had mentioned. This piqued even my interest and I had asked him to send more information.

Here is the first poem he sent me. It is called Penshurst and it is by Ben Jonson. There is a link to the poem itself here. It is the subject matter, rather than the form which is of interest here. It describes how the country house is a model of beauty. In his letter to me Corey describes how it reflects exactly the ideas I had been discussing of the liturgy of the Church as an ordering principle of cosmic beauty. You can see what he has written below in italics. Before that here is the closing stanza of the poem:

Now, Penshurst, they that will proportion thee

With other edifices, when they see

Those proud, ambitious heaps, and nothing else,

May say their lords have built, but thy lord dwells.

'The poem itself is a marvel of Renaissance verse and inaugurated a minor school of English poetry--the country house poem.  (Although there were other country house poems before "Penshurst," such as Emelia Lanyer's "Description of Cooke-ham," Jonson's poem establishes the conventions of the trope through the seventeenth and early-eighteenth centuries.)  In any event, the overall schematic of the poem traces a movement from the grounds around Penshurst Place (ranging from the copses of Gamage and Sidney to the Medway) into the manor-house itself, culminating in the middle of the poem with a depiction of a feast and then launching into an excursus on the hospitality of the Sidneys.

First of all, the poem begins with a meditation on the virtues of Penshurst Place as an edifice compared with the "prodigy houses" of more recent construction.  As the poem presents it, Penshurst's architecture manifests an organic harmony that extends through time, pulling together through a unified tradition both its ancient and more modern aspects.  In this way, the house becomes an emblem of the virtues which reside therein and which subsist in the Sidney family.  The other houses, "built to envious show," are merely objects of conspicuous consumption, discordant in their architectural programs and intended only to display wealth.  Penshurst's own harmoniousness extends to the natural world as well, and we find the entire natural order revolving around life in the manor house, even offering itself sua sponte for the enrichment of the manor's tables.  As we travel around the grounds, the poem leads us through the natural topography of the place, yet it insists upon our simultaneously recognizing it as a moral topography.  The concord of the land reflects the virtuous concord of its landholders.

Then the poem takes us into the feast, and we find that it is the feast that resides at the heart of Penshurst, the energy which drives its entire harmony.  Now, I'm absolutely convinced that Jonson intends this feast to be an image of the Eucharist.  He spent several years as a recusant Catholic before reverting to Anglicanism, and I cannot help but think that he understood the intrinsic necessity of the liturgy.  Indeed, what I see in this poem is precisely your concept of the liturgy as the ordering principle of the cosmos, as the source and summit of human life.  The entire poem centers around this scene of feasting in which "all come in" and all are fed to satiety with "thy lord's own meat."  I've written some on this poem, and to my surprise, no one has argued substantively for a reading of the poem as a profoundly liturgical and sacramental poem.  Even Harp's article [see below], which raises and considers the Eucharistic elements of the poem does not, I think, unravel the full implications of this reading.

Additionally, the history of "Penshurst" criticism is a bit of a case study in the deformations of modernism.  The reigning scholarly interpretation of the poem (though one that has met with its share of push-back in recent years) is the Marxist reading put forward by Raymond Williams and Don Wayne.  They attack Jonson for colluding with the structures of power represented in the manor house and thereby using his poem to "write out" the inequalities of labor by depicting the land as offering itself up without human intervention and by suggesting that the life of the tenant farmer was little more than attending soirées at the manor.  Immediately one realizes how truly malicious such an interpretation is; indeed, like most contemporary literary theory, it manages to base an entire interpretation of the poem on what isn't there rather than what is.  Richard Harp produced a rather admirable essay in which he dismantles the Williams/Wayne approach entirely and points to the poem as a poem of festival.  He suggests that Jonson hasn't "overlooked" labor to suit the ends of power but has chosen to write instead a type of Sabbath poem in which labor is given its reward of rest.  The Williams/Wayne reading simply demonstrates the inevitable consequence of having recourse to no other worldview than one in which "labor" is the defining mark of human life and in which transcendence ceases to be possible.

How the Way of Beauty Atelier has helped an Aspiring Architect

An architecture student who attended the Way of Beauty program at Thomas More College in New Hampshire tells how what he learnt about traditional proportion has improved his designs and enabled him to get a prestigious scholarship. Last summer an young Catholic architecture graduate, Geoff Yovanovic attended one of the Way of Beauty Atelier. As well as improving his drawing, he hoped that what he would learn might give him insights in to how architecture can conform to a culture of beauty; and give him an edge in his search for placements with architecture firms that had more traditional work. He was recently graduated from university, looking for a placement to work towards full profession qualification.

The lectures and talks were given helped him, but also because he expressed this interest to me. In response, I did my best to give him as much additional reading as I could and we began a dialogue in which we discussed how this information might be applicable to his particular situation. I encouraged him to believe that using traditional proportion would allow his work to stand out in the pack even if he was doing mundane projects, as I wrote in the article Proportion Adds Value to Property. He took what I said seriously, did work to learn more about his (even writing an article for this blog during the year, here). Then just this past week I got the following email from him describing his latest success which he attributes, in part, to what he learnt on the course. Here it is:

'Dear David

Last fall I did a little design exercise for a local priest friend who's parish is relocating.  At the time, there was no real design concept so he gave me permission to work on a conceptual design for a church and school on the stipulation that it was an exercise.  Having learned about Oxford University courtyards last summer from your class, I integrated into the design the academic courtyard with the chapel and cafeteria opposite from each other.  I explained to him the philosophy/ theology behind the arrangement.  I also integrated a garden into the design.  He loved the design, especially the courtyard and garden, and wanted to bring me on as the design architect for the project.  Unfortunately, once the diocese got involved, they brought in their "approved" architect and dismissed any idea the priest had of me as architect.

Tonight, I visited the church and saw the design which the architect had done, and there was no mistaking the influence that my exercise had.  The design, in particular, the site plan is quite different from the ordinary work in this architect's online portfolio.  The entire church campus in his design is built around the idea of the courtyard and garden. (I have attached my design exercise) And where the diocese and the earthly church did not compensate me, Christ has made sure that I was paid monetarily and spiritually.  I put this church design in my portfolio for graduate school, and I was awarded a fellowship with full scholarship and teaching stipend to Notre Dame.  I will begin at the end of July with a one month watercolor and hand drafting crash course.  Last summer, this course was taught by David Mayernik, who in emailing back and forth last fall suggested that I should apply to ND.

I hope you are doing well as the semester wraps up.  I just wanted to share with you how rewarding last summer has and continues to be.

Best Regards,

Geoff Yovanovic'

Harmonious Proportion in the Architecture of Annapolis, Maryland

Here are some photographs of buildings and streets in Annapolis, Maryland. Annapolis is the state capitol and one of the oldest cities in the US. In common with all state capitals it has at its centre a domed capitol building which is the home of the state government. It has a large number of houses in the colonial style. What interests me is that many of the buildings still display the classic threefold proportion. Have a look at the window sizes particularly and you see that rhythmical progression of gradually decreasing size as you go up for three layers (or more), with the first relating the second and the second relating to the third. Many houses from this period have had the windows replaced in standard sizes as the wooden frames rot. Double glazing usually comes in standard sizes and these do not correspond to the traditional range of proportions. When this is done it destroys so much of the beauty of the old houses.

Annapolis is the home of the US naval officers college and and old port.

The proportions of these buildings are derived from those used by the ancient Greeks which were subsequently used by the Romans and then Christian culture up to about 1900.American colonial architecture is similar to the British Georgian style, which is based upon Italian Palladian architecture of the High Renaissance. The proportions for this came from the rediscovery of a text book on architecture written by a Roman architect called Vitruvius. The Roman text book was published in England in the 17th century, in translation (although given a Latin title) under the name 'Vitruvius Brittanicus'. As a British colony, this style was used in America (with the addition of French style window shutters!) and then retained after independence.

If there are any architects reading this who are looking to make a name for themselves, then take note. A modern building could as easily be built using these proportions as any other, and the beauty of the buildings that use them always attracts attention. So any architects reading this, here is a way of raising your reputation as an architect, and adding value to buildings at very little extra cost.

It's not always possible to have three storeys in a house - but even if you have two, the basement window is made (through the size of the glass panels within it) to look as though we are seeing the top section of a much larger window that projects below ground, so mainting this sense of threefold rhythm.

You can see the state government house in the distance with the dome.

Actually (just in case any were going to comment on the fact) this isn't in Annapolis, but in Frederick, Maryland, which is smaller town of similar age.  I took these photos on the same trip to Maryland.

A Course about Traditional Proportion in Architecture, by Geoff Yovanovic

Geoff Yovanovic is a young architectural intern (with an architecture degree from the University of Miami who came to our Way of Beauty summer program last year. He recently attended a course of proportion run by the ICAA (The Institute of Classical Architecture called Theory of Proportion: A Perennial Pathway of Beauty. What he described sounded interesting so I asked him to give us a brief write up about it. If you want to know more about this, then do contact him on g.yovanovic@gmail.com. He is especially keen to here from any architects working in a traditional field who are looking to take on an intern! Before we read it a couple of things are worth pointing out. First that word 'Perennial'. This is referring here to a particular worldview - the Perennialist philosophy. This is a modern analysis of traditional cultures which seeks common principles based upon the premise that each is offering alternative routes to the same God. Perennialists tend to join one religion or school of thought and take a traditionalist path, in order to follow what they seek to be the pure, original revelation, as it was presented before man diluted it. I have met Christian, Islamic and even Platonist perennialists. In my experience, Plato and Platonists such as Plotinus, are presented as authorities. However, for all the fact that they outwardly look like very traditionalist adherents to a religion to the degree that they hold to the perennialist philosophy, they sit outside the religions that they claim to follow (certainly this true for Christianity). It can be confusing at times, because they will draw heavily on the authorities of the religion in question when it is consistent with the philosophy (for example often citing scripture)  but in their own interpretation (through a perennialist prism so to speak), and not fully consistent with the magisterium (although they will often give the impression that they are in agreement with each religions).  The people to look for who formulated this perennialist outlook are names such as Titus Burckhardt, Rene Guenon, Ananda Coomeraswamy and Frithjof Schuon. Because of their great respect for tradition and the religions of the world, they have done much good work in redirecting many genuine adherents to their own traditions. For example, It was perennialists at the Prince of Wales's school of tradition arts in London who made me aware of traditional Christian ideas of harmony and proportion. The teacher of the course below, incidentally, was taught at the Royal College of Art in London by the founder and first principal of the Prince's School.

Second, consistent with the fact that this is a modern philosophy they will tend, in my view, to overemphasise the importance of the Golden Section in traditional design. Those who are interested to more about my views on this can read the article 'Golden or Fallen - a Note on Phi' in the articles page of this blog.

With these caveats in mind, the course Geoff describes seems to be worthy of consideration. Here is what he wrote:

'I attended recently a one day intensive on the theory of proportion presented by the Institute of Classical Architecture and Art.  It was called Theory of Proportion: A Perennial Pathway of Beauty. The ICAA describes itself as an organization which is "dedicated to advancing the classical tradition in architecture, urbanism and their allied arts".  With chapters throughout the USA, the ICAA presents educational opportunities ranging from the Beaux Arts Atelier in New York City to walking tours through historic neighborhoods to a variety of classes like the one on proportion which I attended in Atlanta hosted by the Southeast Chapter.

The intensive was taught by Steve Bass an architect from New York City, and a Fellow at the Institute of Classical Architecture and Art.  Mr. Bass was trained in the modern practice of architecture, but soon found it empty, he told us, and searched for a deeper meaning in design.  This lead to study at the Royal College of Art in London which has a focus on the ancients such as Plato and Plotinus (a Platonist from the 3rd century AD) and their ideas on geometry, presented through the prism of the modern Perennialist philosophy.

Starting with a rapid survey of ancient history and philosophy, the class soon settled on a discussion of beauty and its importance. Drawing from the writings of Plotinus, connections were quickly made between beauty and the good: "This is the soul's ugliness, not being pure and unmixed, like gold, but full of earthiness; if anyone takes the earthy stuff away the gold is left and is beautiful, when it is singled out from other things and is alone by itself."

For the ancient Greek, described by Plotinus, beauty was the memory of unity.  It was the joyous state of the soul as it remembers unity.  In our Christian tradition, beauty is our recognition of God.

The foundation for the rest of the class was laid with an introduction classical number theory described in detail by Plato and attributed to Pythagoras.  Using this theory and tying it to Genesis and Plato's Timaeus, Mr Bass presented a symbolic story of creation using the arithmetical ideas of the monad, oneness, the dyad, twoness, the triad, threeness, and on through the decade.  For example, fourness or the tetrad was connected with the fourth day of creation in Genesis.  On the fourth day, "God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear."  Geometrically, the tetrad or fourness is represented by the four sided polygon or a square.  Applying these theories into recognizable form in architecture, we can look at a dome in a church especially an early Christian church such as the Hagia Sophia.  A dome is a sphere resting upon a cube.  In an even simpler geometric study, we see a circle and a square.  Geometrically, the dome is composed of a square, the tetrad, meeting a circle, the monad.  Applying Genesis to the dome in a church, a dome is the location where heaven, the monad or oneness, meets the dry land, the tetrad or square.  Therefore, the geometry symbolizes the meeting of Heaven and earth, or the meeting of the Communion of Saints which occurs during each Mass.  In some early churches, this union of Heaven and earth was emphasized by the decoration on the pendentives which were the four triangular transition supports between the vertical columns and the dome. Depictions of this unity such as the Annunciation of Mary, the Nativity, and other Christmas scenes were painted on the pendentives to emphasize this symbolic geometric parallel.

The class transitioned into a study of the evolution of different geometric creations and their  integration into architecture.  From a circle, different geometric creations were derived such as the 45-45-90, 30-60-90 triangles, .618 or phi, and finally arriving at the golden section.  Using the golden section as the primary tool, it was proposed that the ancient Greek temples were designed through geometric derivations of a circle.  Demonstrations using a few simple drafting tools such as a 45 degree triangle, a compass, and a scaler showed the evolution of a Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian temple originating from a circle.  The entire temple from the overall recognizable temple form to the acanthus leaves in the Corinthian capital were derived starting with a single circle.

While the primary goal of the class was to emphasize the importance of beauty in design, it was not presented through a Christian perspective.  It focused on many ancient ideas which, for a large part, were eventually baptized by St. Augustine and integrated into Christian thought.  Despite the differences, both schools of thought present proportion and geometry as a path to beauty.  And beauty is an essential thing.

Japanese Gardens

Here are some photographs of Japanese gardens, recently sent to me (by Shawn Tribe my colleague at the New Liturgical Movement). I do not remember what we were discussing (no doubt something seriously liturgical!) when as a complete non-sequitur he started sending a string of photos to me with a 'How do you like these?'. He said he had just found them and thought they were beautiful and that was his only justification for sending them. I do not know anything about the Japanese philosophy of gardening and so haven't got much to offer beyond the photos themselves - I post these for sheer enjoyment. Looking at them though, there is so much more to these than the Zen raked-gravel-with-single-profound-boulder garden (typical of many of the 'Japanese' recreations in Western museums that I have seen). My uninformed speculation is that they reflect a desire to create idealised rural landscapes  - a sense of what nature ought to be. In this respect not dissimilar to the 18th century English landscaped gardens of designers such as Capability Brown.

The following passage is taken from a website produced by Columbia University, here. If it is a fair overview, then it what it describes is consistent with the Christian belief that the untamed wilderness is not the perfect standard of beauty (which is what so many modern Westerners seem to believe). Rather, that man,  through God's grace (for the Christian) can improve the wilderness and mould it into something closer to what it ought to be. Buildings, therefore, are not to be thought of as unnatural aberrations but (provided they are built well) as another aspect of properly ordered nature.

The Japanese garden embodies native values, their cultural beliefs and religious principles. This is why there is no one prototype for the Japanese garden, just as there is no one native philosophy or aesthetic. In this way, similar to other forms of Japanese art, landscape design is constantly evolving because of the influx of mainland, namely Chinese, influences as well as the changing aesthetic tastes and values of the patrons.

Edo Period	Heian Period	Ukiyo- e

The line between garden and its surrounding landscape is not distinct. The two embody each other in that every aspect of the landscape is in itself a garden. Also, when observing the garden, the visitor should not distinguish the garden from its architecture. Gardens incorporate natural and artificial elements and thus, fuse the elements of nature and architecture.

In order to appreciate and understand the Japanese garden, the viewer should consider nature as a picture frame into which the garden, or the man- made work of art, is inserted. It is in this way the garden also helps the visitor understand his surroundings.

I do not know the location of every picture. I give details for those that I do.

Himeji-jo Castle, Himeji, Kinki

Garden Staircase, Kyoto, Japan

Kinkakuji Temple, Kyoto, Japan

Ninnaji Temple, Kyoto

And, having been so rude about Western attempts to recreate Japanese gardens, here is one that proves me wrong! It is at the University of British Columbia.

Perhaps the maples shown in the last photo are not Japanese but Canadian. It reminds me of a story from when I was eleven. We had a beautiful ornamental Japanese maple in our garden at home. I used to ask my dad about it so often that as a joke he taught me the Latin name for it - acer palmatum dissectum atropurpureum. I can remember him laughing when I parroted the phrase back at him. About a week later I was in the garden of a family friend who by coincidence was watering a red-leafed Japanese maple that looked just like the one at home. 'Ah,' I said solemnly. 'I see you have an acer palmatum dissectum atropurpureum.' He looked at me in astonishment. What an insufferable little boy I must have been. (And before anyone says it, still am no doubt!)

The Proportion of the Ark of the Covenant

And how it can be a principle of design of buildings. Most of my reading of scripture comes through the liturgy – that is the readings from both the Mass and the Liturgy of the Hours. I do my best to do some lectio divina each day (reading Shawn Tribe’s wonderful piece on the ‘Four Pillars’ of the new liturgical movement has given a recent boost to this effort) and even for this I draw on the liturgy, tending to use the readings from Mass for that day. What is amazing is how often the scripture or the commentary by the Church Fathers speaks to me about something that is on my mind. I have always thought that perhaps this is because the principles contained within scripture are applicable in every area of life and so any given passage is likely to contain lessons for my particular concern, if I am ready to look for them. Scripture is rooted in Truth, which is a single jewel, so to speak, but one that is seen that is seen as a multifaceted prism and one facet will be facing me square on no matter which direction I observe from. Enough of my musings of scripture – I am already out of my depth here. The point is of this article is not a profound lesson in life, but of one of a little help to my art. A passage from the Office of Readings for Friday of the 3^rd week of Lent caught my eye in regard to, of all things, principles of proportion in gothic cathedrals; which in turn become a consideration for me in the composition design of works of art. The passage was Exodus 37 and it described the dimensions with which the Ark of the Covenant were to be constructed by an extraordinarily talented man called Bezalel (who seemed to good at just about everything to do with fine art). In cubits these were: 2.5 x 1.5 x 1.5. Similar dimensions were proscribed for the mercy seat on which it was to stand. The same week I heard a description of measurements of gothic cathedrals in which the ratio of 5:3 appears very often (within the bounds of accuracy when measuring the dimensions of a cathedral).

Interestingly, this ratio (5:3) appears also in the description of the construction of the Noah’s ark. St Augustine directly links the dimensions of Noah’s ark to the perfect proportions of a man, exemplified he says, in Christ. This echoes the classical proportions of the perfect man as described by the Roman Vitruvius in his textbook for architects. Furthermore, Boethius, in his book De Arithmetica, lists a series of 10 perfect proportions that he says came from Pythagoras, Plato, Aristotle and ‘later thinkers’. The final proportion of the series, called the Fourth of Four contains right at the beginning this ratio. (The references for these can be found in an article Harmonious Proportion in the Christian Tradition, here.)

Does this mean that this is the reasoning the gothic architects had in mind when they used this proportion? Perhaps. I am not aware of a gothic architect’s manuscript in which the connection is made directly so am hesitant to say so definitively. But we do know that geometry and proportion were important to them and they did use tradition which in turn drew on scripture, arithmetic and observation of nature to govern the use of those proportions. This all amounts to pretty strong evidence that, at the very least, it might be so.

Some suggest that as this ratio approximates to that contained within the Golden Section, and that this was what the gothic masons were aiming for. Again, this might be the case although I have not read of any account dating from this period or before that indicates that this proportion had symbolic meaning at the time or was used by masons. I would be very happy to be directed to any that readers might be aware of.

And does this mean that we should use the ratio 5:3 now? All of this does suggest to me that we should give it a try. If we accept the idea that some proportions are objectively more beautiful than others (as all architects did up to the 20^th century), then this points to the idea that due proportion would include this ratio.

The final and most important test when deciding this is as follows: are things that are constructed to incorporate this dimension beautiful? That is down to each person to answer. I for one, when looking at those gothic cathedrals would say yes (whatever the symbolism in the mind of the architect was); and this is why is seek to use it in the design of my art. If I was an architect, I would incorporate it into my designs too.

Images: above, The Sacrifice of the Old Covenant, by Rubens; and below: Leornardo's rendition of the Vitruvian man; and details of Amiens cathedral.

Excavation of 1,500 year-old Church in Israel

Here are some photos of a recently excavated church in Israel, close to Jerusalem, that is thought to have been active between the 5th and 7th centuries AD. it has appeared in the a number of news sites. The account by AP, here comments on the floor mosaics of a lamb, cockerels, lions, fish and peacocks. When I saw the photographs, the geometric patterns in the floor design caught me eye too.

Below is a floor mosaic from a Roman villa in Aldborough, North Yorkshire, England.

A decorative border from a mosaic in Pompeii

Glory Be to God for the Brompton Oratory

The magazine Dappled Things asked me to write about an occasion when I had been affected by the beauty of a sacred place. I decided to write about my first ever experience of the liturgy at the London Oratory (also known at the Brompton Oratory). This sublime experience opened the door first to my conversion and then, beyond that inspired me to try to contribute to the re-establishment of a Catholic culture of beauty rooted in the liturgy. (I have always had an attitude that if you aim high then even if you only make it half way, that that's still quite good.) Normally people have to subscribe to their online edition, but they decided to make an exception for this special edition. It is one of the features under the heading Sacred Places.

Summary of the Kenrick Seminary talks on art

By Mark Scott Abeln on his Rome of the West blog For any who are wondering whether or not it's worth the effort to watch them, here is a summary of the four talks at the Kenrick-Glennon seminary by Mark Scott Abeln. His blog is worth a look. He is a skilled photographer and he has insights how the principles I have been articulating in art and architecture apply in the art of photographer. The 'Rome of the West' for those of you, like me, who didn't know is his home town of St Louis. Photograph: the Cathedral Basilica of  St Louis, in St Louis, Missouri.

Four talks on Sacred Art at Kenrick Seminary, St Louis

This autumn I was invited to address the seminarians at the Kenrick Seminary in St Louis. I gave four lectures on sacred art and liturgy. Here are four podcasts, posted on the seminary website. They are enhanced -  you hear my voice and see the slides I am describing. Harmony and Proportion - linking culture to the cult

Iconographic art

Baroque art

Gothic art

How Golden is the Golden Section?

Whenever I talk about proportion and harmony in art and architecture, many assume that I am referring to the proportion known as the Golden Section (often indicated by the Greek letter Φ). When I started to investigate these things, I assumed that the Golden Section was important too. However, to my surprise, my investigations lead me to believe that although it was known to past societies and cultures, it was not as important as we assume today. In fact, the idea that it was used by the ancient Greeks, the medievals or masters of the High Renaissance is, as far as I can work out, largely a myth. I have described in detail in my course, the Way of Beauty at www.Pontifex.University and in my book of the same name, how important symbolic number, proportion and harmony (expressed numerically or geometrically) was for artists and architects in the Christian tradition and how they were seen as a manifestation of the cosmic liturgy. But, surprisingly, it seems that the Golden Section, Φ, isn’t part of that tradition. It is proportion based upon the mathematics of music that was much more important. Most of the books that I read justify their argument with a diagram, like the one shown left. In this diagram a grid is placed over a copy of Leonardo's self portrait drawing. The grid, to my knowledge, is not taken from information given by Leonardo himself in regard to this drawing, but is a modern superimposition. To me it looks like an array different rectangles, no doubt all relating to to Φ is some way, but otherwise arbitrarily chosen until their combination coincides with the main features of the drawing...and not very well at that. The eyes, the mouth, the tip of the nose, the chin (which is hidden) do not coincide with the lines drawn. This  misfit is typical. When you look at it, given the margin of error that required to make it fit, you could justify just about any proportion you chose to apply.

My feeling is that today's overemphasis of the historical importance of Φ results from a modern, neo-pagan worldview in which the natural world is seen as the ideal of beauty. This is in contrast with the tradition Christian view that the world, although good and beautiful, is fallen and points us to something greater. The Christian interest has always focused more on what the created world ought to be, rather than what it is; and to what it points us to, that is the ultimate standard of Beauty, God.

I have found no historical evidence where contemporary sources say that Φ was used in the design of any building before the 20th century. It was known to the ancient Greeks, but I don't see anywhere that they considered a proportion of great beauty. I have seen plenty of analyses of old buildings by modern commentators which claim that their analysis of the dimensions of the building support the hypothesis, but the margins of error are so great that these claims are not credible to me. Moreover, there are other traditional proportions, for example those referred to by Boethius, Plato, and Augustine which would fit more closely and we do have evidence that they were used in the design of buildings from the pre-Christian era up to the early 20th century.

If we assume that I am right and that the use of Φ in the past has been exaggerated in modern accounts of art history. Does this mean that it shouldn’t be used today? In my opinion, not at all! However, if we do decide to use it, it should be done so with discernment. We need to consider what precisely we feel that it symbolizes and how it relates to the rest of the Christian tradition of harmonious proportion. If we consider it, for example, as a symbol of a fallen, imperfect world, then it should not be used in isolation, but should always be used in conjunction with other proportions that allow it, to use a musical terminology, to resolve to a more perfect harmony. The ultimate test of its value, however, is not the theory that justifies it, it is the beauty of the buildings that employ it.

I have described the reasons why I am so skeptical about the use of the Golden Section much greater detail in the chapter Golden or Fallen? in my book, the Way of Beauty.

My mind is not closed on the matter - if someone can produce an account from an architect of any historical period who describes how he used this proportion in his design, then of course I will change my mind!