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Simplicity, without variety is wholly insipid and, at best, does only not displease; but when variety is joined to it, then it pleases, because it enhances the pleasure of variety, by giving the eye the power of enjoying it with ease.

There is no object composed of straight lines which offers very much variety having so few parts. Take a pyramid, for example; it is constantly varying from its base gradually upwards in every angle of the eye, never giving the idea of sameness as the eye moves round it. This fact has allowed it to continue to be esteemed throughout all ages in preference to the cone, which from all views appears nearly the same, being varied only by light and shade.

Steeples, monuments, and most compositions in painting and sculpture are kept within the form of the cone or pyramid as the most eligible boundary on account of their simplicity and variety. For the same reason, equestrian statues are more pleasing than single figures.

The artists – for there were three involved in the work – of as fine a group of figures in sculpture as was ever made, by either ancients or moderns alike, Laocoön and his Sons, willingly chose to commit the guilty and absurd crime of making the sons half the father’s size, even though they have every other mark of manhood, rather than not bring their composition within the boundary of a pyramid. Thus, if a judicious workman were employed to make a case of wood, to preserve it from weather damage or for the convenience of carriage, his eye would soon find that the whole composition would readily fit and be easily packed up in one pyramidal form.

Steeples and the like have generally been varied from the cone, to distract from their too great simplicity. Additionally, instead of their usual circular bases, polygons of different, but even numbers of sides, have been substituted, I suppose, for the sake of uniformity. These forms, however, may be said to have been chosen by the architect with a view to the cone, as the whole compositions might be bounded by it.

Yet, in my mind, odd numbers have the advantage over the even ones, as variety is more pleasing than uniformity, where the same end is answered by both. As in this case, where both polygons may be circumscribed by the same circle, or, in other words, both compositions bounded by the same cone.

And I cannot help observing that nature, in all her works of fancy, if I may be allowed the expression, where it seems immaterial whether even or odd numbers of divisions were preferred, most frequently employs the odd, as, for example, in the indenting of leaves, flowers, blossoms, etc.

The oval also, on account of its variety with simplicity, is as much to be preferred to the circle as the triangle to the square, or the pyramid to the cube. This figure lessened at one end, like the egg, thereby being more varied, is singled out by the author of all variety to bound the features of a beautiful face.

Tiziano Vecellio, known as Titian, Flora, 1515–1517. Oil on canvas, 79.7 × 63.5 cm. Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence.

Diego Velázquez, The Surrender of Breda (Las Lanzas), 1635. Oil on canvas, 307 × 367 cm. Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid.

Tiziano Vecellio, known as Titian, Portrait of Gerolamo (?) Barbarigo, c. 1509. Oil on canvas, 81.2 × 66.3 cm. The National Gallery, London.

When the oval has a little more of the cone added to it than the egg, it becomes more distinctly a compound of those two most simple and varied figures. Take, for example, the shape of the pineapple, which nature has particularly distinguished by bestowing rich Mosaic-like ornaments upon it, composed of contrasted serpentine lines and the pips, as the gardeners call them, which are still varied by two cavities and one round eminence in each.

Could a more elegant and simple form than this have been found, it is probable that the judicious architect, Sir Christopher Wren, would not have chosen pineapples for the two terminations of the sides of the front of St Paul’s. Furthermore, perhaps the globe and cross, though a finely varied figure, which terminates the dome, would not have had the preference of situation if a religious motive had not been the occasion.

Thus we see simplicity gives beauty even to variety, as it makes it more easily understood. It should be ever studied in all works of art, as it serves to prevent perplexity in forms of elegance.