It’s Science and its Forms

By Gardner, Robert

New York, University Press, 1925. First Edition. Folio ( 20” x 14”), Gray cloth covered boards. 21pp., with 11 full-page plates including one double-page plate. One of only 700 copies printed by William Edwin Rudge. A Fine copy in unusually well-preserved condition. Scarce.

The question of whether or not a geometrical law is manifest in Greek art and architectural works at the time of the height of Athenian civilization has been argued since the eighteenth century. If such a law existed, it could be expected to pervade the whole of Athenian art, and to represent a compelling conformity to the Hellenic ideal. It was Gardner’s opinion regarding the Parthenon that all parts are expressed in terms of a geometrically progressing series, founded upon the standard units of the Attic foot and stadion. Gardner develops a series of Theorems upon which the entire architecture of the Parthenon is believed to rest, illustrating his points with a magnificent series of eleven intricately drawn plates that only a virtuoso of architectural delineation could have drawn. All in all, a fascinating excursion into the minutia of ancient Greek architecture.

$450.00 -