Ernest Flagg Quotes

Ridge-dormers have many other advantages. In winter, when closed... it is nature's own method of lighting. Ridge-dormers greatly reduce the height of the building; because bringing into use space heretofore wasted, the eaves may be correspondingly lowered.

A master in art need not go into the highways and byways for affects; he knows the straight course and follows it.

The qualities called personal... and the ability to impart them, in greater or less degree, is the gage of genius in art.

The chief difficulty in designing small houses is to avoid an excessive appearance of height. ...the ridge-dormer or its equivalent, the ridge skylight, would open a whole new field of opportunity...

Many women do not like to sleep on the ground floor, being afraid to leave their windows open at night. With ridge-dormers standing open, the lower windows may be kept closed and locked, while the room will be perfectly ventilated without them.

For more than two thousand years architectural design by the use of a modulus, except in the case of the classic orders, had been a lost art.

The Parthenon stands as a reproach to the rest of the world. May not this be because the rest of the world has forgotten, or never knew, the principles which made the Parthenon possible and of which harmony of proportion... was one?

The best art, and the only art which will ever lead to great results, must have for its basis the interpretation of beauty in nature.

When, in architecture, one uses a fixed unit and combinations of it, to produce harmony, the effect should be most striking and apparent... as it is in music by the measured beat and in poetry by the cadence and rhythm.

The most perfectly constructed object in nature, and also the most beautiful object in nature, is the human form as it approaches perfection. This, then, is the criterion of construction as it is of design. The study of its beauties is the veritable key to art...

With dignity and simplicity come repose... the natural state of one at home in his surroundings and sure of his ground. Repose is a distinguished characteristic of Greek art.

Unity. ...Unity of purpose is shown by continuity, or the proper relationship of the parts with each other, and with the whole as one sees it best expressed in the human form. Unity of mass is obtained by giving predominance of mass to some one feature...

How few people, even among the supposedly well educated, can give an intelligent explanation of the qualities of a design! ...the essential ones ...are necessary in order that the design may be worthy to be classed at all as a work of art. Among the essential qualities are reason, unity, harmony, clarity, and variety. Among the desirable qualities are imagination, interest, refinement, simplicity, dignity, and style.

As in poetry and music, even the unskilled ear may be offended by a mistake in measure, without discerning the cause, may not also a mistake in the harmony of dimensions unconsciously offend us in design?

Clarity or Decision. ...without it there is uncertainty, hesitation, obscurity, instability... incomparable with good art. The meaning and object of the design should be clear... it should be frank, as the French say.