The Wichita daily eagle., 1891-10-22

| pie, or upon the occasion of fair, may be
quite as strong when the inhabitants num-
Der five hundred as it is in a city the CEN
sus of which mounts into the hundreds OF
thousands. But there is a vast difference
in the amount of money available for the
purpose In the latter case nothing is
easier-nor wiseT-than to employ man
whose training has been such that he is
able to plan the decorations artistically.
! So shall they who pay receive the greatest
return for their money. In the former,
were this course followed, it is probable
! the money subscribed would be paid to the
! decorator or artist and the people be
forced to put up with the knowledge they
had beautiful plans, but no cash to carry
them out 1t is, therefore, we'll that they
should know bow to make artistic decora-
tions for themselves.
Street decoration may be divided into
three parts. There is the decoration of the
houses, the upright or mast decoration and
the arch There are of course many vari-
ants on each of these, but all decorations
resolve themselves finally into one of these
three. House decoration in this country
generally is left to the individual caprice
of the owner, with the result that each
man tries to outdo his neighbor. This am
bition, while praiseworthy, is not accord
ing unto knowledge" and for this reason:
That which we call artistic in effect or that
which pleases the artistic sense within us
is, while apparently the result of personal
taste, really dependent on mathematical
principles. The greatest landscape artist
in the world, such man as Turner for ex-
ample, cannot paint view properly unless
he is governed by the rules of perspective,
and perspective is a purely mechanical
thing based upon certain mathematical
laws.
So if people desire to have the decoration
of the houses along a street beautiful, they
must adopt some pattern governed by that
mathematical law which prescribes the
repetition of given effect, and they must
assign to each house its own peculiar part
of the general plan. Directions for this
however, are thrown away, for it is de
part of American liberty, that right
each man to make his house hideous if he
choose.
But when 1 come to the decorations
which are erected in common there is more
chance that they will be carried out prop
erly. / shall take the arch first because
this is the more common and because much
that applies to it also applies to the mast
or upright.
An arch may be beautiful or the reverse,
and it has always seemed to me much
easier to make it ugly. This is because the
arch depends for its beauty on its proper
tions, and finding these involves-unless
one be gifted with that natural instinct for
proportion which is as rare as it is valua-
ble-exceedingly intricate mathematical
calculations. Architects and some artists
learn the mathematics necessary to secure
the result aimed at, but it is safe to say
that the great majority of US are ignorant
In this regard.
There are, however, very many famous
arches in the world, designed by men of in
finite taste, and from which those proper
tions which result in beauty of form may
be obtained. Roughly speaking, the rule
is that the Eefght of the whole structure,
G to f in the plan, is twice the whole
width. The second rule is that the height
of the interior arch is one and one-half its
width. Just so long as these proportions
are observed she result cannot be wrong |
To connect tie two rules comes the thir
which gives the width of the archway
one-half the whole width.
Let us see how this works out on an |
arch forty feet high. The width becomes
twenty feet, zach side standard being five. |
The width of the open arch in ten feet and |
the height fifteen.