The Antiquities of Orissa v1.c9.197.2

v1.c9.197.2

With the exception of some of the lowest forms of organization, every animal is externally a compound of two symmetrical halves. Those halves may be so artfully united at the mesian line as to produce one individual, whose double character does not become manifest until after careful study, still the double character Is nowhere wanting ; and what is more, the beauty of the form is in a great measure dependent upon it. Take away an eye or an arm from the finest figure, and its beauty is at once destroyed ; even the alteration by a hair's breadth of one side of the most exquisitely shaped mouth will induce an amount of deformity not easy to be defined. And what is true as regards the human form, is equally so in works of art, for imitation of nature forms the cardinal principle of beauty in art, and she advances towards perfection the more closely she copies nature ; to quote William Hazlitt : " the highest art is the imitation of the finest nature, or, in other words, of that which conveys the strongest sense of pleasure or power, of the sublime or beautiful ".⁸⁴ Doubtless in architecture, where the proportions are large, very slight differences are not so easily perceptible as in small objects, but the principle is not thereby in the least affected. In Greek architecture this attempt to copy nature by adhering closely to the laws of respective symmetry is most prominent.