Some images of harmonious views, sea views, waves and light;
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13
I would argue that the aesthetic of harmony in architecture is closely
related to proportion, as in the conjunction of forms
through numbers, and the use of semicircles, wave forms and radiating
patterns, see my book here. This first view is
considered but discounted by Edmund Burke, in his "Philosophical
Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime
and the Beautiful".
"but it is in vain that we search here for any proportion between the
height, the breadth, or anything else concerning the
dimensions of the whole, or concerning the relation of the particular
parts to each other" (Section 2)
In the case of seascapes, the above images appeal to our idea of the
sublime, considered here, but
also to a sense of harmony
due to the conjunction of coastline and islands, the presence of waves,
and the light of the sun striking the sea. Light itself, seen
at sunset can present itself in harmonious geometric patterns. Another
important commentator on aesthetics, George Ruskin, in
"The Seven Lamps
of Architecture" describes beauty as an "aspiration towards God
expressed in ornamentation drawn from
nature, his
creation". Ruskin's naturalism is a good aesthetic critia, but I would
argue that the religous sentiment is less important
than in the
case of the sublime, and unlike Coleridge, fails to use a geometric
analogy.