Commentary - Alberti’s approach to antiquity in Architecture

Commentary Alberti’s approach to antiquity in Architecture: Interpreting Albert’s declaration of aesthetic appearance and definition of beauty and ornament, in conjunction with Immanuel Kant’s 4 moments of aesthetics judgement in his Critique of judgement raises several epistemological questions pertaining to aesthetics knowledge and its architectural interpretations.

Comparing the two’s propositions, Alberti’s definition of beauty and aesthetical judgement is in line with that of Immanuel Kant’s in that both assert beauty as a character inherent in itself and in which transcends the need for an external purpose or functionality. Alberti seems to imply this self-contained quality of beauty as he postulated that “beauty is something lovely which is proper and innate and diffused throughout the whole…” (Wittkower, 1940). While Immanuel Kant in one of his four moments of aesthetic judgement required that aesthetic assume the quality of “purposiveness without end.” (Kant, 1952) Although Alberti’s emphasized on “objective reasoning” as a criterial for achieving harmony of the whole and thus beauty of the architecture, the reasoning he is referring to here apparently is not a reasoning in the pursuit of an external end purpose for beauty. His proposition of using the Pythagoras system of musical harmony to attain beauty is instead a theoretical formulation of beauty in measurable mathematical. In this sense Alberti’s and Immanuel’s definition of aesthetics are congruent with each other.

However, Alberti’s exertion of “objective reasoning” imparts an element of schematization and categorization that requires a certain understanding and preconception of geometry, music and beauty. According to Kant, this would involve faculties of interpretation beyond pure sensory experience and question of pleasure or displeasure. For Alberti’s proposition that a certain mathematical function ie. Pythagoras ratio is the determinant of beauty involves the faculty of what Kant would call “understanding” as well as “imagination”. As such, it would be reasonable to say that, in terms of Kant’s structuring of human conscience, Alberti’s definition of architectural aesthetics is a product of the interaction between his understanding, imagination and experience. To phrase it in Kant’s words; “the harmony between the faculties of imagination and understanding”. (Kant, 1952) Another characteristic that Alberti and Kant share with regards to their proposition on the nature of aesthetics is the quality of universality. Alberti’s proposition that the universal mathematical proportion ascribed by the Pythagoras’s theorem is a determinant of beautiful proportion, seem to echo with that of Kant, in so far as the two agree the existence of a constant paradigm for beauty that is objective and true regardless of subjective experience.

As Wittkower’s abstraction and distillation (Wittkower, 1940) of Alberti’s ecclesiastical work suggest Alberti did bring his theory into practice. The existence of an abstract diagram in Alberti’s work may very well point to what Alberti himself called the “correct proportion” of Pythagoras system. Perhaps the transformation from classical column to wall architecture that Alberti undertook could be interpreted as an operation that adapt the underlining aesthetical

system of correct proportion in classical architecture to building technology and wall architecture contemporary to his times. Despite’s Alberti dismissal of the column as an ornament, the vertical rhythmic of aesthetics in classical architecture seem to be preserved in the alternate form of the pilasters. The pilaster is essentially the indispensable aesthetic make up of Alberti and other Renaissance’s architecture when its predecessor; the column, is stripped away of its structural function, made obsolete by the structural wall. As Adolf Loos postulated, the image of the architecture in this case, did seem to outlast its material form by reincarnating into the pilaster in Renaissance’s wall architecture. For Alberti thus, when he defined beauty as the harmony of the essential parts which could neither be added or removed, the essentiality he is implying has more to do with the aesthetic rather than the structural function.

Finally, from the concept of aesthetics as harmony and its quality of universality, it is not hard to also notice a striking parallel between Kant’s critique of judgement and his concept of categorical imperative; which can be phrased as “Act only according to that maxim by which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law.” (Kant, 1952) It is perhaps reasonable to say that Kant sees morality as aesthetical in nature, that the human mind is predilected to morality in the same way it is predilected to aesthetics. However, this seems to contradict with our daily experience in so far as from time immemorial to our contemporary times, morality and ethicality is not a nature state of human society or individual’s disposition.

There are apparent situations where without the presence of an external enforcing agent or check and balances, individuals or groups would choose to act in ways that are immoral. With respect to this, there seems to be a divorce in the fundamental nature between morality and aesthetics despite their uncanny parallel evident in Kant’s postulations.

Works Cited Kant, I. &. (1952). The critique of judgement. . Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Wittkower, R. (1940). Albertis approach to antiquity in architecture. London: Verlag nicht ermittelbar.