of juxtaposed blocks, if our experience of extension
carried with it essentially the realization of limits.

The aesthetic effect of extensiveness is also entirely different from
that of particular shapes. Some things appeal to us by their surfaces,
others by the lines that limit those surfaces. And this effect of
surface is not necessarily an effect of material or colour; the
evenness, monotony, and vastness of a great curtain of colour
produce an effect which is that of the extreme of uniformity in the
extreme of multiplicity; the eye wanders over a fluid infinity of
unrecognizable positions, and the sense of their numberlessness
and continuity is precisely the source of the emotion of extent. The
emotion is primary and has undoubtedly a physiological ground,
while the idea of size is secondary and involves associations and
inferences. A small photograph of St. Peter's gives the idea of size;
as does a distant view of the same object. But this is of course
dependent on our realization of the distance, or of the scale of the
representation. The value of size becomes immediate only when
we are at close quarters with the object; then the surfaces really
subtend a large angle in the field of vision, and the sense of
vastness establishes its standard, which can afterwards be applied
to other objects by analogy and contrast. There is also, to be sure, a
moral and practical import in the known size of objects, which, by
association, determines their dignity; but the pure sense of
extension, based upon the attack of the object upon the
apperceptive resources of the eye, is the truly aesthetic value which
it concerns us to point out here, as the most rudimentary example
of form.

Although the effect of extension is not that of material, the two are
best seen in conjunction. Material must appear in some form; but
when its beauty is to be made prominent, it is well that this form
should attract attention as little as possible to itself. Now, of all
forms, absolute uniformity in extension is the simplest and most
allied to the material; it gives the latter only just enough form to
make it real and perceptible. Very rich and beautiful materials
therefore do well to assume this form. You will spoil the beauty
you have by superimposing another; as if you make a statue of
gold, or flute a jasper column, or bedeck a velvet cloak. The beauty
of stuffs appears when they are plain. Even stone gives its specific
quality best in great