The Columns of Alberti and Perrault Essay

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Order in Renaissance & Neo-Classical Architecture

Alberti and Perrault thought differently about the role of the column in architecture. Alberti was a Renaissance architect—and like many others of the Renaissance era, he was inspired by the symmetrical beauty, mathematical precision, and classical guidelines of the ancients. Alberti used the column in architecture to give a sense of harmony and wholeness. Perrault, who designed architecture some two centuries after Alberti in the 17th century, was standing on different shoulders. Whereas Alberti had been operating in a world of wholeness prior to the wreck of Europe that was the Protestant Reformation, which tore the Continent apart, Perrault grew up in an Age where Christian nations were divided. Thus, the same love of wholeness and harmony that Alberti displayed in his use of columns was not felt by Perrault. Perrault focused less on mathematical precision and more on the concept of beauty and how space could be used to give a maximum impression of order. Just as the ancient Greeks performed optical illusions with their spacing of columns, Perrault too employed this concept to create an effect on the viewer that was rich, rewarding and romantic—in short, architecture that was Baroque. This paper will use Alberti’s S. Maria Novella (1457-70) and Perrault’s East Façade of the Louvre, Paris (1667-74) to examine their different positions and to answer the question: How does the column relate to the composition of the façade in each case, and what meaning does it carry? The answer this paper argues is that Alberti used mathematical harmony to create a sense of order, symmetry, and overall cohesion; Perrault used spatial dimensions to create impressions of depth and richness with his use of columns.

In On the Art of Building, Alberti stated that ornament and beauty could produce a “graceful and pleasant appearance,” which is certainly applicable to the façade of Alberti’s S. Maria Novella.[footnoteRef:2] Alberti noted that Vitruvius was the sole survivor of the ancient world in terms of an architect who had written on theory and practice—yet the former also pointed out that the latter’s works were not very efficient in conveying a clear application of theory to practice. Alberti addressed that issue with his On the Art of Building. Like Sullivan, who quipped that “form must ever follow function,” Alberti stressed that function and ornament should be united as one in any structure, for the two were part of the same essence of the architectural construction. In S. Maria Novella, this is most apparent, as the church is patterned gorgeously with a repeating motif of squares in the Roman classical tradition and columns that embellish the façade but do not overwhelm it or exist to give an illusory impression of depth. The columns are there to serve the grandeur of the function of the building—not to act as an end in and of themselves—i.e., as the endpoint of beauty. Perrault, with his East Façade of the Louvre, uses the column to do just the opposite—to draw the eye and hold it. Alberti’s columns help to direct the eye upward along the façade of the church, which is meant to lift men’s minds and hearts upward to God. Thus, the column in Alberti’s church facilitates the purpose and function of the church. Perrault’s column does not so much direct the eye as capture it and hold it, the columns acting like sentries along the colonnade. Perrault’s columns create a sense of drama—a sense of epic grandeur and importance that was perfectly suited to the Baroque. [2: Alberti, Leon Battista. “Book Six” In On the Art of Building. 154- 188 and 244-290 (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1980), 155.]

Alberti’s use of the column relates to the composition of the façade in S. Maria Novella by supporting the façade rather than overwhelming it or serving as the main highlight. Perrault’s column is the main attraction: the columns in his colonnade of the East Façade of the Louvre do not support the façade structurally or mathematically; instead, they serve as a type of loud trumpet announcing the importance of the structure that they stand in front of. Perrault’s columns relate to the composition of the façade of the Louvre by acting as a herald—a messenger communicating the grand, eloquent and mysterious aura of the Louvre’s interior.

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Perrault’s façade does not so much reflect the proportionate balance of parts that Alberti and Vitruvius admired in nature (though of course there is proportionality in Perrault’s façade). Perrault’s use of columns reflects the architect’s belief that beauty exists in the actual balance of variation with proportion, with the former serving as the most important element of design. Perrault wrote, “the beauty of a building, like that of the human body, lies less in the exactitude of unvarying proportion and the relative size of constituent parts than in the grace of its form, wherein nothing other than a pleasing variation can sometimes give rise to a perfect and matchless beauty without strict adherence to any proportional rule.”[footnoteRef:3] By giving variation to the façade of the Louvre, Perrault broke up the monotony of the building’s exterior and produced a tantalizing effect that could mesmerize and hypnotize. Perrault provided proportion and variation to the east façade of the Louvre through his use of columns down the length of the colonnade. The columns stand out triumphantly above all, supported by a base—whereas in Alberti’s church, the columns support the rest of the façade and are there to serve the façade—just as man is meant to serve the church and the church is there to serve God. Everything is ordered in Alberti’s structure and the idea of the building is united to the idea of the façade. Instead of using the column as a support, Perrault used the column to visually effect a sense of grace: his façade is given a graceful appearance primarily because of the colonnade.[footnoteRef:4] [3: Perrault, Claude. “Preface”. In Ordonnance, 47-63. (Santa Monica: Getty Center for the History of Art and the Humanities, 1993), 47.] [4: Allais, Lucia. “Ordering the Orders”. Future Anterior 2, No 2 (2005): 53-74.]

Alberti’s column helps support the concept of ordonnance that was important in classical design, as described by Vitruvius. Damisch notes that the Romans “linked structure to continuous masonry.”[footnoteRef:5] Continuation of design was important to achieve the proper aesthetic according to the Roman conception of beauty. Alberti’s façade contains a systematic arrangement of parts. Its beauty is based on organization, cohesion, and a continuation of parts. Just as the four sides of the square represent equality on all sides, Alberti’s façade is replete with a sense of equal parts: it contains ordonnance throughout. Perrault rejected the idea that ordonnance could only be achieved by a systematic ordering of parts.[footnoteRef:6] Perrault embraced the notion of the swirling, imperfect, dramatic exuberance of life. After all, Perrault was operating during the Baroque era when artists were emphasizing the beauty of imperfection over the systematic ordering of parts. For him, as a Baroque artist, finding the simple beauty through balance with a mindful attention given to the rule of the ancients but also with an intuitive sense given to the simple appreciation of harmony and beauty in nature was really all an architect had to do to achieve beauty as a whole in design: [5: Damisch, Hubert. “The Column and the Wall.” In Architectural Design Profile 21: Leonis Baptiste Alberti 49, no. 5-6 (1979): 18.] [6: Rykwert, Joseph. “Positive and….....

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