_By CLARENCE WARD_
_Professor of Architecture, Rutgers College_
Beauty in architecture is as difficult to define as beauty in nature.
No single factor renders a building beautiful. Size and proportion,
style and decoration, age and setting, all enter into account. And
moreover there is the power a building possesses to appeal to the
ideals of the beholder, to his mind as well as to his sight and touch.
Even when judged from this broad viewpoint, the number of beautiful
buildings in the world is legion. It would be impossible to point to
anyone as the finest, or even to select a dozen without leaving a dozen
more that were equally beautiful. Every age, and every nation, has left
to us some crowning achievements of the builder's art. The following
are therefore merely selections from this storehouse, illustrating to
some degree the wealth of architectural treasures that is our heritage.
Few if any buildings in the world have been the subject of such praise
as that bestowed upon the Taj Mahal ("Gem of Buildings"). Travelers,
painters, authors, and poets have all sought to express in word or
color the indefinable charm of this gem of Indian art. Built at Agra,
in India, by the great mogul of Delhi, Shah Jahan, as a tomb for his
favorite wife, Mumtaz Mahal, the Taj is a veritable translation into
stone of human remembrance and affection. It was begun in 1632, and
was completed in twenty-two years. The material of which it is built
is pure white marble, and inlaid in its walls are jaspers, agates, and
other stones in marvelous designs. But it is perhaps the dome that
gives the greatest beauty to this tomb. Of typical Eastern shape, it
rises a mass of white against the deep blue of the Indian sky, or
shines like silver in the radiance of the Indian moon.
[Illustration: THE TAJ MAHAL
_The approach through the splendid gardens seen in the foreground is
bordered by dark cypress trees, which contrast admirably with the color
of the marble domes beyond._]