Esther M. Zimmer Lederberg
Renaissance Architecture and Harmony
Palladio introduced the use of Classical orders from ancient Greece and
ancient Rome. "Plato's preferred mode or style was that of the Dorians:
the Dorian or Doric style, in all the arts, was considered to be noble,
manly, dignified, and restrained." Furthermore, "By the sixth century BC
the styles of Greek monumental architecture were classified according to
these tribal or ethnic distinctions into three principal modes (genera):
the prestigious Dorian or Doric; the Ionic (a more feminine style from
eastern Greece); and the Corinthian, an elaborate variant of the Ionic
which appeared during the fifth century BC." Lastly, "The crucial
connection between the architectural and the musical genera is found in
the concepts of 'mode' and 'ethos'. The Greek theorists recognized that
each tribe or ethnic tradition had its own distinctive style or mode of
poetry, song, music, dance, architecture, and other arts; and, having
distinguished the regional or ethnic modes in the musical and plastic
arts, they tried to codify the specific ethos in Dorian music and
architecture - a characteristic found in the pitch, tuning, and rhythm
of Dorian music (and a fortiori dance), as well as in the construction
and decoration of the Dorian or Doric style of architecture. Certain
features of this regional or ethnic character were eventually defined
in precise measures: in the proportions of the Dorian musical scale
(harmonia) and rhythm and in the forms and proportions of Doric architecture."
The result was as follows. "Having identified three different scales
used by the Greeks - the Diatonic, the Chromatic, and the Enharmonic -
the theorists arrived at very exact measures for each tuning system, as
well as attempting a general description of their respective ethos or
character. Thus they formulated the 'Ethos of the Genera': the diatonic
genus as 'natural, masculine and more austere'; the Chromatic as 'sweet
and plaintive,' and Enharmonic as 'exciting and gentle.' They also measured
the specific rhythms of song and dance in metrical 'feet' divided into long
and short (double and single) units and tried to define the ethos of each
rhythmic pattern as noble or ignoble, serious or gay, tragic or comic, et
cetera." The Greeks saw architecture as 'frozen music.'
1
Quintilian's views concerning rhetorical gesture were extended
to architecture. Thus Daniele Barbaro was interested in architecture viewed
as "... the anatomy of a building." 2
"Vasari, describing the qualities of a well-proportioned building, said that
it should 'represent' the human body both as a whole and in all its parts.
The facade should have the symmetry of the human face, the door placed like
the mouth, the windows like eyes,... staircases...are the arms and legs of
the building."2 Thus
making use of the rhetorical trope of prosopopoeia. Palladio also
viewed architecture as one would view the human body.
1 Alberti's theory of
architecture was based upon dimensions that created musical harmony and the
physical proportions found in god's greatest creation: man (see the Vitruvian
man). However, not everone agreed with Alberti's views concerning architecture.
Two examples of architecture that could be in close proximity: one building of
a pagan (ancient Greek) temple in purposeful disrepair in a rustic setting, but
nearby, a church, with garden carefully maintained, the church in perfect
condition. The stark difference was a rhetorical device to show the victory of
Christianity over the pagan religion. However, as time passed, another major
viewpoint emerged, that was based upon the views of Longinus in his book,
"Peri Hypsous" ("On The Sublime"). This new viewpoint allowed for the unity
or combination of divergent "styles"(for example, the architectural
styles of the Renaissance, the Baroque, the Gothic, unities of "male" with
"female": harmony with deliberate disharmony), to create an aesthetic of fear,
horror, and excess: a radical destruction of assumptions. Thus it
should not be surprising that different parts of a building might strongly
clash or appear discordant with each other.
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