Beacon Lights of History, Volume III - John Lord
The Parthenon, the most beautiful specimen of the Doric, has never been
equalled, and it still stands august in its ruins, the glory of the old
Acropolis and the pride of Athens. It was built of white Pentelic
marble, and rested on a basement of limestone. It was two hundred and
twenty-seven feet in length, one hundred and one in breadth, and
sixty-five in height, surrounded with forty-eight fluted columns, six
feet and two inches at the base and thirty-four feet in height, while
within the peristyle, at either end, was an interior range of columns
standing before the end of the cella. The frieze and the pediment were
elaborately ornamented with reliefs and statues, and the cella, within
and without, was adorned with the choicest sculptures of Phidias, The
remains of the exquisite sculptures of the pediment and the frieze were
in the early part of this century brought from Greece by Lord Elgin,
purchased by the English government, and placed in the British Museum,
where, preserved from further dilapidation, they stand as indisputable
evidence of the perfection of Greek art. The grandest adornment of the
temple was the colossal statue of Minerva in the eastern apartment of
the cella, forty feet in height, composed of gold and ivory; the inner
walls of the chamber were decorated with paintings, and the whole temple
was a repository of countless treasure. But the Parthenon, so regular to
the eye with its vertical, oblique, and horizontal lines, was curved in
every line, with the exception of the gable,--with its entablature,
architrave, frieze, and cornice, together with the basement, all arched
upwards; and even the columns had a slight convexity of vertical line,
amounting to 1/550 of the entire height of shaft, though so slightly as
not to be perceptible. These curved lines gave to the structure a
peculiar grace which cannot be imitated, as well as an effect
of solidity.
Nearly coeval with the Doric was the Ionic order, invented by the
Asiatic Greeks, still more graceful, though not so imposing. The
Acropolis is a perfect example of this order. The column is nine
diameters in height, with a base, while the capital is more ornamented
than the Doric. The shaft is fluted with twenty-four flutes and
alternate fillets (flat longitudinal ridges), and the fillet is about a
quarter the width of the flute. The pediment is flatter than that of
the Doric order, and more elaborate. The great distinction of the Ionic
column is a base, and a capital formed with volutes (spiral scrolls),
the shaft also being more slender. Vitruvius, the greatest authority
among the ancients in architecture, says that "the Greeks, in inventing
these two kinds of columns, imitated in the one the naked simplicity and
dignity of man, and in the other the delicacy and ornaments of woman;
the base of the Ionic was the imitation of sandals, and the volutes of
ringlets." The discoveries of many of the Ionic ornamentations among the
remains of Assyrian architecture indicate the Oriental source of the
Ionic ideas, just as the Doric style seems to have originated in Egypt.
The artistic Greeks, however, always simplified and refined upon
their masters.
The Corinthian order exhibits a still greater refinement and elegance
than the other two, and was introduced toward the end of the
Peloponnesian War. Its peculiarity consists in columns with foliated
capitals modelled after the acanthus leaf, and still greater height,
about ten diameters, surmounted with a more ornamented entablature. Of
this order the most famous temple in Greece was that of Minerva at
Tegea, built by Scopas of Paros, but destroyed by fire four hundred
years before Christ.
Nothing more distinguished Greek architecture than the variety, the
grace, and the beauty of the mouldings, generally in eccentric curves.
The general outline of the moulding is a gracefully flowing cyma, or
wave, concave at one end and convex at the other, like an Italic _f_,
the concavity and convexity being exactly in the same curve, according
to the line of beauty which Hogarth describes.
The most beautiful application of Greek architecture was in the temples,
which were very numerous and of extraordinary grandeur, long before the
Persian War. Their entrance was always from the west or the east. They
were built either in an oblong or round form, and were mostly adorned
with columns. Those of an oblong form had columns either in the front
alone, or in the eastern and western fronts, or on all the four sides.
They generally had porticos attached to them, and were without windows,
receiving their light from the door or from above. The friezes were
adorned with various sculptures, as were sometimes the pediments, and no
expense was spared upon them. The most important part of the temple was
the cell (_cella,_ or temple proper, a square chamber), in which the
statue of the deity was kept, generally surrounded with a balustrade. In
front of the cella was the vestibule, and in the rear or back a chamber
in which the treasures of the temple were kept. Names were applied to
the temples as well as to the porticos, according to the number of
columns in the portico at either end of the temple,--such as the
tetrastyle (four columns in front), or hexastyle (when there were six).
There were never more than ten columns across the front. The Parthenon
had eight, but six was the usual number. It was the rule to have twice
as many columns along the sides as in front. Some of the temples had
double rows of columns on all sides, like that of Diana at Ephesus and
of Quirinus at Rome. The distance between the columns varied from one
diameter and a half to four diameters. About five eighths of a Doric
temple were occupied by the cella, and three eighths by the portico.
That which gives to the Greek temples so much simplicity and
harmony,--the great elements of beauty in architecture,--is the simple
outline in parallelogrammic and pyramidal forms, in which the lines are
uninterrupted through their entire length. This simplicity and harmony
are more apparent in the Doric than in any of the other orders, but
pertain to all the Grecian temples of which we have knowledge. The Ionic
and Corinthian, or the voluted and foliated orders, do not possess that
severe harmony which pervades the Doric; but the more beautiful
compositions are so consummate that they will ever be taken as models
of study.
There is now no doubt that the exteriors of the Grecian temples were
ornamented in color,--perhaps with historical pictures, etc.,--although
as the traces have mostly disappeared it is impossible to know the
extent or mode of decoration. It has been thought that the mouldings
also may have been gilded or colored, and that the background of the
sculptures had some flat color laid on as a relief to the raised
figures. We may be sure, however it was done, that the effect was not
gaudy or crude, but restrained within the limits of refinement and good
taste by the infallible artistic instinct of those masters of the
beautiful.
It is not the magnitude of the Greek temples and other works of art
which most impresses us. It is not for this that they are important
models; it is not for this that they are copied and reproduced in all
the modern nations of Europe. They were generally small compared with
the temples of Egypt, and with the vast dimensions of Roman
amphitheatres; only three or four would compare in size with a Gothic
cathedral,--the Parthenon, the Temple of Olympian Zeus at Athens, and
the Temple of Diana at Ephesus; even the Pantheon at Rome is small,
compared with the later monuments of the Caesars. The traveller is
always disappointed in contemplating the ruins of Greek buildings so far
as size is concerned. But it is their matchless proportions, their
severe symmetry, the grandeur of effect, the undying beauty, the
graceful form which impress us, and make us feel that they are perfect.
By the side of the Colosseum they are insignificant in magnitude; they
do not cover acres, like the baths of Caracalla. Yet who has copied the
Flavian amphitheatre; who erects an edifice after the style of the
Thermae? All artists, however, copy the Parthenon. That, and not the
colossal monuments of the Caesars, reappears in the capitals of Europe,
and stimulates the genius of a Michael Angelo or a Christopher Wren.
The flourishing period of Greek architecture was during the period from
Pericles to Alexander,--one hundred and thirteen years. The Macedonian
conquest introduced more magnificence and less simplicity. The Roman
conquest accelerated the decline in severe taste, when different orders
began to be used indiscriminately.
In this state the art passed into the hands of the masters of the world,
and they inaugurated a new era in architecture. The art was still
essentially Greek, although the Romans derived their first knowledge
from the Etruscans. The Cloaca Maxima, or Great Sewer, was built during
the reign of the second Tarquin,--the grandest monument of the reign of
the kings. It is not probable that temples and other public buildings in
Rome were either beautiful or magnificent until the conquest of Greece,
after which Grecian architects were employed. The Romans adopted the
Corinthian style, which they made even more ornamental; and by the
successful combination of the Etruscan arch with the Grecian column they
laid the foundation of a new and original style, susceptible of great
variety and magnificence. They entered into architecture with the
enthusiasm of their teachers, but in their passion for novelty lost
sight of the simplicity which is the great fascination of a Doric
temple. Says Memes:--
"They [the Romans] deemed that lightness and grace were to be attained
not so much by proportion between the vertical and the horizontal as by
the comparative slenderness of the former. Hence we see a poverty in
Roman architecture in the midst of profuse ornament. The great error was
a constant aim to lessen the diameter while they increased the elevation
of the columns. Hence the massive simplicity and severe grandeur of the
ancient Doric disappear in the Roman, the characteristics of the order
being frittered down into a multiplicity of minute details."
When the Romans used the Doric at all, they used a base for the column,
which was never done at Athens. They also altered the Doric capital,
which cannot be improved. Again, most of the Grecian Doric temples were
peripteral,--surrounded with pillars on all the sides. But the Romans
built with porticos on one front only, which had a greater projection
than the Grecian. They generally were projected three columns, while the
Greek portico had usually but a single row. Many of the Roman temples
are circular, like the Pantheon, which has a portico of eight columns
projected to the depth of three. Nor did the Romans construct hypaethral
or uncovered temples with internal columns, like the Greeks. The
Pantheon is an exception, since the dome has an open eye; and one great
ornament of this beautiful structure is in the arrangement of internal
columns placed in the front of niches, composed of antae, or pier-formed
ends of walls, to carry an entablature round under an attic on which the
cupola rests. The Romans also adopted coupled columns, broken and
recessed entablatures, and pedestals, which are considered blemishes.
They again paid more attention to the interior than to the exterior
decoration of their palaces and baths,--as we may infer from the ruins
of Hadrian's villa at Tivoli and the excavations of Pompeii.
The pediments (roof-angles) used in Roman architectural works are
steeper than those made by the Greeks, varying in inclination from
eighteen to twenty-five degrees, instead of fourteen. The mouldings are
the same as the Grecian in general form, although they differ from them
in contour; they are less delicate and graceful, but were used in great
profusion. Roman architecture is overdone with ornament, every moulding
carved, and every straight surface sculptured with foliage or historical
subjects in relief. The ornaments of the frieze consist of foliage and
animals, with a variety of other things. The great exuberance of
ornament is considered a defect, although when applied to some
structures it is exceedingly beautiful. In the time of the first Caesars
Roman architecture had, from the huge size of the buildings, a character
of grandeur and magnificence. Columns and arches appeared in all the
leading public buildings,--columns generally forming the external and
arches the internal construction. Fabric after fabric arose on the ruins
of others. The Flavii supplanted the edifices of Nero, which ministered
to debauchery, by structures of public utility.
The Romans invented no new principle in architecture, unless it be the
arch, which was known, though not practically applied, by the Assyrians,
Egyptians, and Greeks. The Romans were a practical and utilitarian
people, and needed for their various structures greater economy of
material than was compatible with large blocks of stone, especially for
such as were carried to great altitudes. The arch supplied this want,
and is perhaps the greatest invention ever made in architecture. No
instance of its adoption occurs in the construction of Greek edifices
before Greece became a part of the Roman empire. Its application dates
back to the Cloaca Maxima, and may have been of Etrurian invention. Some
maintain that Archimedes of Sicily was the inventor of the arch; but to
whomsoever the glory of the invention is due, it is certain that the
Romans were the first of European nations to make a practical
application of its wonderful qualities. It enabled them to rear vast
edifices with the humblest materials, to build bridges, aqueducts,
sewers, amphitheatres, and triumphal arches, as well as temples and
palaces. The merits of the arch have never been lost sight of by
succeeding generations, and it is an essential element in the
magnificent Gothic cathedrals of the Middle Ages. Its application
extends to domes and cupolas, to floors and corridors and roofs, and to
various other parts of buildings where economy of material and labor is
desired. It was applied extensively to doorways and windows, and is an
ornament as well as a utility. The most imposing forms of Roman
architecture may be traced to a knowledge of the properties of the arch,
and as brick was more extensively used than any other material, the arch
was invaluable. The imperial palace on Mount Palatine, the Pantheon
(except its portico and internal columns), the temples of Peace, of
Venus and Rome, and of Minerva Medica, were of brick. So were the great
baths of Titus, Caracalla, and Diocletian, the villa of Hadrian, the
city walls, the villa of Mecaenas at Tivoli, and most of the palaces of
the nobility,--although, like many of the temples, they were faced with
stone. The Colosseum was of travertine, a cheap white limestone, and
faced with marble. It was another custom to stucco the surface of brick
walls, as favorable to decorations. In consequence of the invention of
the arch, the Romans erected a greater variety of fine structures than
either the Greeks or Egyptians, whose public edifices were chiefly
confined to temples. The arch entered into almost every structure,
public or private, and superseded the use of long stone-beams, which
were necessary in the Grecian temples, as also of wooden timbers, in the
use of which the Romans were not skilled, and which do not really
pertain to architecture: an imposing edifice must always be constructed
of stone or brick. The arch also enabled the Romans to economize in the
use of costly marbles, of which they were very fond, as well as of other
stones. Some of the finest columns were made of Egyptian granite, very
highly polished.
The extensive application of the arch doubtless led to the deterioration
of the Grecian architecture, since it blended columns with arcades, and
thus impaired the harmony which so peculiarly marked the temples of
Athens and Corinth; and as taste became vitiated with the decline of
the empire, monstrous combinations took place, which were a great fall
from the simplicity of the Parthenon and the interior of the Pantheon.
But whatever defects marked the age of Diocletian and Constantine, it
can never be questioned that the Romans carried architecture to a
perfection rarely attained in our times. They may not have equalled the
severe simplicity of their teachers the Greeks, but they surpassed them
in the richness of their decorations, and in all buildings designed for
utility, especially in private houses and baths and theatres.
The Romans do not seem to have used other than semicircular arches. The
Gothic, or Pointed, or Christian architecture, as it has been variously
called, was the creation of the Middle Ages, and arose almost
simultaneously in Europe after the first Crusade, so that it would seem
to be of Eastern origin. But it was a graft on the old Roman arch, in
the curve of the ellipse rather than the circle.
Aside from this invention of the arch, to which we are indebted for the
most beautiful ecclesiastical structures ever erected, we owe everything
in architecture to the Greeks and Romans. We have found out no new
principles which were not known to Vitruvius. No one man was the
inventor or creator of the wonderful structures which ornamented the
cities of the ancient world. We have the names of great architects, who
reared various and faultless models, but they all worked upon the same
principles, and these can never be subverted; so that in architecture
the ancients are our schoolmasters, whose genius we revere the more we
are acquainted with their works. What more beautiful than one of those
grand temples which the cultivated heathen Greeks erected to the worship
of their unknown gods!--the graduated and receding stylobate as a base
for the fluted columns, rising at regular distances in all their severe
proportion and matchless harmony, with their richly carved capitals
supporting an entablature of heavy stones, most elaborately moulded and
ornamented with the figures of plants and animals; and rising above
this, on the ends of the temple, or over a portico several columns deep,
the pediment, covered with chiselled cornices, with still richer
ornaments rising from the apices and at the feet, all carved in white
marble, and then spread over an area larger than any modern churches,
making a forest of columns to bear aloft those ponderous beams of stone,
without anything tending to break the continuity of horizontal lines, by
which the harmony and simplicity of the whole are regulated! So
accurately squared and nicely adjusted were the stones and pillars of
which these temples were composed, that there was scarcely need even of
cement. Without noise or confusion or sound of hammers did those
temples rise, since all their parts were cut and carved in the distant
quarries, and with mathematical precision. And within the cella, nearly
concealed by surrounding columns, were the statues of the gods, and the
altars on which incense was offered, or sacrifices made. In every part,
interior and exterior, do we see a matchless proportion and beauty,
whether in the shaft or the capital or the frieze or the pilaster or the
pediment or the cornices, or even the mouldings,--everywhere grace and
harmony, which grow upon the mind the more they are contemplated. The
greatest evidence of the matchless creative genius displayed in those
architectural wonders is that after two thousand years, and with all the
inventions of Roman and modern artists, no improvement has been made;
and those edifices which are the admiration of our own times are deemed
beautiful as they approximate the ancient models, which will forever
remain objects of imitation. No science can make two and two other than
four; no art can make a Doric temple different from the Parthenon
without departing from the settled principles of beauty and proportion
which all ages have indorsed. Such were the Greeks and Romans in an art
which is one of the greatest indices of material civilization, and which
by them was derived from geometrical forms, or the imitation of Nature.
The genius displayed by the ancients in sculpture is even more
remarkable than their skill in architecture. Sculpture was carried to
perfection only by the Greeks; but they did not originate the art, since
we read of sculptured images from the remotest antiquity. The earliest
names of sculptors are furnished by the Old Testament. Assyria and Egypt
are full of relics to show how early this art was cultivated. It was not
carried to perfection as early, probably, as architecture; but rude
images of gods, carved in wood, are as old as the history of idolatry.
The history of sculpture is in fact identified with that of idols. The
Egyptians were probably the first who made any considerable advances in
the execution of statues. Those which remain are rude, simple, uniform,
without beauty or grace (except a certain serenity of facial expression
which seems to pervade all their portraiture), but colossal and grand.
Nearly two thousand years before Christ the walls of Thebes were
ornamented with sculptured figures, even as the gates of Babylon were
made of sculptured bronze. The dimensions of Egyptian colossal figures
surpass those of any other nation. The sitting statues of Memnon at
Thebes are fifty feet in height, and the Sphinx is twenty-five,--all of
granite. The number of colossal statues was almost incredible. The
sculptures found among the ruins of Karnak must have been made nearly
four thousand years ago. They exhibit great simplicity of design, but
have not much variety of expression. They are generally carved from the
hardest stones, and finished so nicely that we infer that the Egyptians
were acquainted with the art of hardening metals for their tools to a
degree not known in our times. But we see no ideal grandeur among any of
the remains of Egyptian sculpture; however symmetrical or colossal,
there is no diversity of expression, no trace of emotion, no
intellectual force,--everything is calm, impassive, imperturbable. It
was not until sculpture came into the hands of the Greeks that any
remarkable excellence in grace of form or expression of face was
reached. But the progress of development was slow. The earliest carvings
were rude wooden images of the gods, and more than a thousand years
elapsed before the great masters were produced whose works marked the
age of Pericles.
It is not my object to give a history of the development of the plastic
art, but to show the great excellence it attained in the hands of
immortal sculptors.
The Greeks had an intuitive perception of the beautiful, and to this
great national trait we ascribe the wonderful progress which sculpture
made. Nature was most carefully studied by the Greek artists, and that
which was most beautiful in Nature became the object of their imitation.
They even attained to an ideal excellence, since they combined in a
single statue what could not be found in a single individual,--as Zeuxis
is said to have studied the beautiful forms of seven virgins of Crotona
in order to paint his famous picture of Venus. Great as was the beauty
of Phryne or Aspasia or Lais, yet no one of them could have served for a
perfect model; and it required a great sensibility to beauty in order to
select and idealize what was most perfect in the human figure. Beauty
was adored in Greece, and every means were used to perfect it,
especially beauty of form, which is the characteristic excellence of
Grecian statuary. The gymnasia were universally frequented; and the
great prizes of the games, bestowed for feats of strength and agility,
were regarded as the highest honors which men could receive,--the
subject of the poet's ode and the people's admiration. Statues of the
victors perpetuated their fame and improved the sculptor's art. From the
study of these statues were produced those great creations which all
subsequent ages have admired; and from the application of the principles
seen in these forms we owe the perpetuation of the ideas of grace and
beauty such as no other people besides the Greeks had ever discovered,
or indeed scarcely appreciated. The sculpture of the human figure became
a noble object of ambition in Greece, and was most munificently
rewarded. Great artists arose, whose works adorned the temples of Greece
so long as she preserved her independence, and when that was lost, her
priceless productions were scattered over Asia and Europe. The Romans
especially seized what was most prized, whether or not they could tell
what was most perfect. Greece lived in her marble statues more than in
her government or laws; and when we remember the estimation in which
sculpture was held among the Greeks, the great prices paid for
masterpieces, the care and attention with which they were guarded and
preserved, and the innumerable works which were produced, filling all
the public buildings, especially consecrated places, and even open
spaces and the houses of the rich and great, calling from all classes
admiration and praise,--we cannot think it likely that so great
perfection will ever be reached again in those figures which are
designed to represent beauty of form. Even the comparatively few statues
which have survived the wars and violence of two thousand years,
convince us that the moderns can only imitate; they can produce no
creations equal to those by Athenian artists. "No mechanical copying of
Greek statues, however skilful the copyist, can ever secure for modern
sculpture the same noble and effective character it possessed among the
Greeks, for the simple reason that the imitation, close as may be the
resemblance, is but the result of the eye and hand, while the original
is the expression of a true and deeply felt sentiment. Art was not
sustained by the patronage of a few who affect to have what is called
_taste_; in Greece the artist, having a common feeling for the beautiful
with his countrymen, produced his works for the public, which were
erected in places of honor and dedicated in temples of the gods."