Architecture is, like music, a metaphysical art. It deals with the
abstract qualities of proportion, balance of form, and direction of
line, but without any imitation of the concrete facts of nature. The
comparison between architecture and music is an exercise of the fancy
which may indeed be pushed too far, but there is really a definite
similarity between them which it is useful to notice. For instance, the
regular rhythm, or succession of accentuated points in equal times,
which plays so important a part in musical form, is discernible in
architecture as a rhythm in space. We may treat a cottage type of
design, no doubt, with a playful irregularity, especially if this
follows and is suggested by an irregularity, of plan. But in
architecture on a grand scale, whether it be in a Greek colonnade or a
Gothic arcade, we cannot tolerate irregularity of spacing except where
some constructive necessity affords an obvious and higher reason for it.
Then, again, we find the unwritten law running throughout all
architecture that a progress of line in one direction requires to be
stopped in a marked and distinct manner when it has run its course, and
we find a similarly felt necessity in regard to musical form. The
repetition so common at the close of a piece of music of the same chord
several times in succession is exactly analogous to the repetition of
cross lines at the necking of a Doric column to stop the vertical lines
of the fluting, or to the strongly marked horizontal lines of a cornice
which form the termination of the height or upward progress of an
architectural design.
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