The Sun.
London, England, 1852-04-23 00:00:00

SUN

SOCIETY OF ARTS.

Ou Wednesday a very crowded assembly attended
in the hall of the society, John-street, Adelphi, Lord
Monteagle in the chair, to hear the lecture of Mr.D igby
Wyatt, on "An attempt to define the principles
which should determine form in the decorative arts."
The lecture, we need har6ly remind our readers,
is one of a series undertaken by the members of
the society to illustrate the objects displayed at
the Great Exhibition. The lecture delivered on this
occasion by Mr. Wyatt was a very elaborate disqui-
sition on the principles exhibited by nature in all the
departments of the physical creation, which must ever
guide the artist in his formative processes, and a dili-
gent study of which, therefore, was indispensable to
success in the decorative arts. The leading prin.
rciples of nature which a diligent observer
would meet with everywhere, and which should
therefore determine form, were thus described
by the lecturer. The first quality with which
the observer must be struck is the infinite
variety of form which pervades creation. When the
moat complex flower is submitted to the test of a
scientific botanical examination, no particles are
found to be adventitious—all are concerned in ful-
filling the appointed functions of vegetable physiology.
As those functions vary with the growth of the plant,
so in every case does it form—changing from
tender bad to blooming flower, and from bloom-
ing flower to reproductive seed-pod, as each suc-
cessive change of purpose progresses. Infinite
variety and unerring fitness thus appear to
govern all form in iature. While the former of
these properties demonstrates her infinite power of
complexity, the latter restrains the former, and binds
es, e structural t the offspring
Pnremicnpegs
all in beautiful simplicity.
permits, the
the every
sicmaspelesot linesrnam i
ornament
agars
ty
necessity alone, and where-
ver
ease consistent with the variety of uses of the
object are adapted,
their normal state,hardy from the ground, in
which spring erect andhus, the principal forest trees,
and uninfluencede by
shoot straight aloft, with
boughs equally balanced on all sides, condi-
tions of lightgrospewienigalsosym
thor. oviform would, in
parerceisely deficonneteh
their r
outline ; and thus
mmoesttriicnaslltya,nethesa,t
eir first appearance,
creep sad wayward lines,
more
the climbing plants,
Planarance,
creep along the ground •
until they reach something stronger
erect than themselves ; to this theyr car
from it they bang e;ithteor
evaecrhticaitlsly character
cling, and
:the
most graceful festoons
form as of purpose—to each the simplest line con-
sistent with its appointed functions and propriety of
expression. While a consideration of the quality of
fitness binds us to simplicity, that of variety, as if in
counterbalance, conducts us to a just recognition of
the value of contrast throughout the works of crea-
tion. Simplicity becomes appreciable only when op-
' posed to complexity, while complexity itself will, on
analyais, be found to cansiet only of the combination
of pert?, individually, of extreme simplicity.
Nature, in working out her harmonies of contrast,
abounds with optical corrections. The infinitely
gentle convexity cf her water sky line is precisely
corrected into perfect apparent horizontality by Con-
trast with any line at right angles to a tangent to its
curve. It is by attention to the optical effects pro-
duced by the impact of lines upon one another in na-
ture, that the artist can alone store his mind with the
most graceful varieties of delicate contrast. Thus it
is alone that be can appreciate the extreme beauty
of her constant, minute, and generally inappreciable
divergence from the precise mathematical figures, in
aPProximation to which simplicity demands, as we