ng unity will
dominate the expression in his work; and how far it will be overlaid and
hidden behind a rich garment of variety.

But both ideas must be considered in his work. If the unity of his
conception is allowed to exclude variety entirely, it will result in a
dead abstraction, and if the variety is to be allowed none of the
restraining influences of unity, it will develop into a riotous
extravagance.

XVI

RHYTHM: PROPORTION

Rules and canons of proportion designed to reduce to a mathematical
formula the things that move us in beautiful objects, have not been a
great success; the beautiful will always defy such clumsy analysis. But
however true it is that beauty of proportion must ever be the result of
the finer senses of the artist, it is possible that canons of
proportion, such as those of the human body, may be of service to the
artist by offering some standard from which he can depart at the
dictates of his artistic instinct. There appears to be no doubt that the
ancient sculptors used some such system. And many of the renaissance
painters were interested in the subject, Leonardo da Vinci having much
to say about it in his book.

Like all scientific knowledge in art, it fails to trap the elusive
something that is the vital essence of the whole matter, but such
scientific knowledge does help to bring one's work up to a high point of
mechanical perfection, from which one's artistic instinct can soar with
a better chance of success than if no scientific scaffolding had been
used in the initial building up. Yet, however perfect your system, don't
forget that the life, the "dither," will still have to be accounted for,
and no science will help you here.

The idea that certain mathematical proportions or relationships
underlie the phenomena we call beauty is very ancient, and too abstruse
to trouble us here. But undoubtedly proportion, the quantitative
relation of the parts to each other and to the whole, forms a very
important part in the impression works of art and objects give us, and
should be a subject of the greatest consideration in planning your work.
The mathematical relationship of these quantities is a subject that has
always fascinated scholars, who have measured the antique statues
accurately and painstakingly to find the secret of their charm. Science,
by showing that different sounds and different colours are produced by
waves of different lengths, and that therefore different colours