Mr. & Mrs. Horace A. Scott 2208 North Ross Street Santa Ana, California 92706 C. X. S. C. IRequireD Xiterature for 1892*93. GRECIAN HISTORY. J. R. Joy. $1.00 CALLIAS, AN HISTORICAL, ROMANCE. A. J. Church. 1.00 THE UNITED STATES AND FOREIGN POWERS. W. E. Curtis. . . 1.00 GREEK ARCHITECTURE AND SCULPTURE. Smith and Bedford. .50 CLASSIC GREEK COURSE IN ENGLISH. Tr. C. Wilkinson. 1.00 A MANUAL OF CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. G. P. Fisher. .50 THE CHAUTAUQUAN (12 numbers). - 2.00 Cbautauqua "Reading Circle literature GREEK ARCHITECTURE P,Y T. ROGER SMITH, F. R. I. B. A. AND GREEK SCULPTURE BY GEORGE REDFORD, F. R. C. S. WITH AN" INTRODUCTION* HV WILLIAM H. GOODYEAR "CClitb /fcang 1f llustrations MKADYILI.K PI'.XNA KI.OOI) AM) \-INCKNT Cbe Chautauqtia.-Ccnturn press 1892 The required books of the C. L. S. C. are recommended by a Council of six. It must, however, be understood that recom- mendation does not involve an approval by the Council, or by any member of it, of every principle or doctrine con- tained in the book recommended. Published by arrangement with Sampson Low, Marston and Com- pany, Limited, London. The Chautauqua- Century Press, Meadvillc, Pa., U. &'. A. Electrotyped, Printed, and Bound by Flood & Vincent. sra URt PREFACE. THE customary discrimination and wisdom of the mana- gers of the Chuutauqua Literary and Scientific Circle are apparent in their choice of the compendiums on Greek architecture and Greek sculpture which are united in this book. Both are written by English scholars of distin- guished reputation. Both are written in a scientific spirit and in such manner as to supply much exact matter-of-fact infor- mation, without sacrificing popular quality. Some slight additions and corrections, made necessary by discoveries or by revisions of scientific opinion, dating since the original books were written, have been entered in an ap- pendix. My duty in the preparation of a preface is to point out, first, that this work on Greek architecture and sculpture is part of a course of reading on Greek history ["Grecian History," by James II. Joy] and to remark that the general historical in- formation supplied by this other book is a most essential intro- duction to the present work. All interest in ancient art presupposes an interest in ancient history as well as some general knowledge about it. On the other hand it is true that ancient art is a most valuable means itself of teaching ancient history. Not only is the impulse offered to the imagination by the actually existing relics and tangible remnants of the past a point to be considered ; but these relics are themselves illustrations of the lives of the Greeks which are superior to any verbal or literary descriptions of a bygone age. The life of a nation cannot be described by a chronicle of events. IV PREFACE. Greek life is not only suggested by works of Greek art, but it was also actually incorporated in them. Since printing has displaced the arts of form as a means of conveying ideas, it is difficult for us to realize from our own conceptions of art considered as a fact in modern life how much the arts of design were bound up with the everyday lives and everyday needs of ancient peoples. The superiority of ancient Greek art to our own is explained by the fact that its mission was superior ; that it was a means of ideal national expression and popular national instruction, which has now been displaced by printed literature. The technical quality of an art is dependent on the amount of public patronage and of public practice. Whatever is done much is done well, and the only stable condition of good art is a large public demand for it. In Greek sculpture and relief, the Greeks had their Bible ; they expressed in them their religious beliefs and ideals. These arts were also the counterpart and summary of their whole national literature. These arts were moreover an epit- ome and reproduction of that life of the gymnasium and of physical exercise which was the basis of their whole political existence, and which was originally called into being by their system of military training. It is therefore as a means to a knowledge of the Greeks themselves that we should consider the study of Greek art im- portant. Considering that the Greeks are the fathers of politi- cal self-government, that their system of individual training and state education was of unsurpassed excellence, that their refinement and simplicity of taste have furnished models for all later time, and that the development of European history and European civilization began with them, and con- sidering also that their art has a comprehensive significance for their history at large it is clear that its study is a really necessary branch of liberal culture. Although the direct relations of Greek art to Greek life and religion are most obvious in their statuary and reliefs, and although the implications of their refinement and thoughtful minds are perhaps not so immediately obvious in their archi- tecture, this is only because the connection between cause and effect in this case requires some explanation and presupposes PREFACE. V a not always recognized, but very positive, relation between a nation's life and a nation's arcbitecture. Aside from its relations to Greek life, the study of Greek architecture is undoubtedly the best means of reaching the important principle that all good constructive art, of whatever time or nation, implies and demands constructive thought and constructive common sense. Aside from this value of the study of Greek architecture as a means to establishing artistic principles for construction in general, it should also be remem- bered that multitudes of modern buildings exhibit Greek con- struction or employ Greek details that these details are often misused and corrupted, and that a study of the original forms is essential to the criticism of such misuses and corruptions. Such study is also essential to comprehension of the matter-of- fact history of modern architectural styles. This point has, however, been developed sufficiently by the author of the compendium of Greek architecture. I have so far emphasized the importance of the studies furthered by this book as being a branch of history, because it is a common thing to consider the Greeks as having had a special aptitude for "art," with implication of corresponding deficiencies in other fields of life ; whereas the fact is that their art represents their aptitudes, character, and life in general. Let me finish my preface by pointing out that all book studies of Greek art, and all reading about Greek art, or any other art, are the very least part of the matter in hand, which is to know the monuments themselves. All books on the sub- ject are purely a means to this end. The objects themselves are the things which must train the taste and train the eye, and this training of taste and eye cannot in the least degree be achieved through any book. In fact the whole aim and object of art training is to supplement literature, not to make literature; to exalt the importance of forms and pictures, not to exalt the importance of reading and writing about them. If this be so, it is clear that a reader or a student who has finished this book may still have the all important work before him quite- unfinished, which is to know the ob- jects which the book describes. Undoubtedly engravings are an assistance to some extent, and these the work has very liberally furnished, but these are rather a means to illustrating VI PREFACE. the book, and are not to be considered in any sense as making a knowledge of the originals less important. It is true that we cannot all make travels in Greece to inspect Greek ruins, and that we cannot all make visits to the European museums which contain the works of the Greek chisel. By a knowledge of the actual objects I understand, however, a knowledge of photographs, casts, and models of them. Book engravings are inadequate because they cannot possibly represent the multitude of objects, and because they lack the veracity of photographs and casts. Every possible access to the various cast collections which are being so numerously founded in this country is an indispensable accompaniment to the study of this book. In default of such access it must be said that photographs will very ably make good this deficiency, but that contact at least with abundant photographic illustration is really indispensable. I should therefore define the practical aim of this book to be that of bringing the reader in contact with photographs or casts of Greek sculpture, and to be that of bringing the reader in contact with models and casts and photographs of Greek architecture. These casts, in the case of architecture, must naturally be confined to details that is, to simple capitals, shafts, bases, sections of entablature, etc. The largest and best American collections of casts of Greek architecture and Greek sculpture are, at date of writing, in New York and Boston. The New York Museum has by far the largest collection of models and casts in architecture. The Boston Museum has by far the best and largest collection of casts in sculpture (1892). I have no doubt that the Chau- tauqua Circle will take proper means to recommend and make accessible good collections of photographs. WM. H. GOODYEAR. CONTENTS GREEK ARCHITECTURE Chapter Page I. BUILDINGS OF THE DORIC ORDER ... 9 II. BUILDINGS OK TIIK IONIC AND CORINTHIAN OR- DERS 28 III. ANALYSIS OK GREEK ARCHITECTURE . . 4_! GREEK SCULPTURE IV. V. VI. VII. SCULPTURE IN GENERAL .... ARCHAIC- GREEK SCULPTURE TEMPLE DECORATION . 59 . 67 . 79 99 VIII. EXAMPLES APPENDIX . 11-5 . 137 143 FK; 1. UitEKK HONEYSUCKLE GREEK ARCHITECTURE AND SCULPTURE. CHAPTEE I. GREEK ARCHITECTURE. Riiildings of the Doric Order. THE architecture of Greece has a value far higher than that attaching to any of the styles which preceded it, on account of the beauty of the buildings and the astonishing refinement which the best of them display. This architecture has a further claim on our attention as being virtually the parent of that of all the nations of "Western Europe. We cannot put a finger upon any features of Egyp- tian, Assyrian, or Persian architecture the influence of which has survived to the present day except such as were adopted by the Greeks. On the other hand, there is no feature, no ornament, nor even any principle of design which the Greek architects employed that can be said to have now become obsolete. Not only do we find direct reproductions of Greek architecture forming part of the practice of every European country, but we are able to trace to Greek art the parentage of many of the forms and features of Roman, Byzantine, and Gothic architecture, especially those connected with the column and which grew out of its artistic use. Greek archi- tecture did not include the arch and all the forms allied to it, such as the vault and the dome; and, so far as we know, the Greeks abstained from the use of the tower. Examples of both these features were, it is almost certain, as fully 10 GREEK ARCHITECTURE AND SCULPTURE. within the knowledge of the Greeks as were those features of Egyptian, Assyrian, and Persian buildings which they employed ; consequently it is to deliberate selection that we must attribute this exclusion. Within the limits by which they confined themselves, the Greeks worked with such power, learning, taste, and skill that we may fairly claim for their highest achievement the Parthenon that it ad- vanced as near to absolute perfection as any work of art ever has been or ever can be carried. Greek architecture seems to have begun to emerge from the stage of archaic simplicity about the beginning of the sixth century before the Christian era (600 B.C. is the reputed date of the old Doric Temple at Corinth). All the finest examples were erected between that date and the death of Alexander the Great (323 B. C.), after which period it de- clined and ultimately gave place to Roman. The domestic and palatial buildings of the Greeks have decayed or been destroyed, leaving but few vestiges. We know their architecture largely from ruins of public build- ings and, to a limited extent, from sepulchral monuments remaining in Greece and in Greek colonies. By far the most numerous and excellent among these buildings are temples. The Greek idea of a temple was different from that enter- tained by the Egyptians. The building was to a much greater extent designed for external than internal effect. A compara- tively small sacred cell was provided for the reception of the image of the divinity, usually with one other cell behind it, which seems to have served as treasury, or sacristy ; but there were no surrounding chambers, gloomy halls, or en- closed courtyards, like those of the Egyptian temples, visible only to persons admitted within a jealously guarded outer wall. The temple, it is true, often stood within some sort of precinct, but it was accessible to all. It stood open to the sun and air; it invited the admiration of the passer-by; its most telling features and best sculpture were on the ex- terior. Whether this may have been, in some degree, the case with Persian buildings, we have few means of knowing, but certainly the attention paid by the Greeks to the outside of their temples offers a striking contrast to the practice of the Egyptians and to what we know of that of the Assyrians. THE UOK1C OKUEK. 11 The temple, however grand, was always of simple form with a gable at each end and in this respect differed entirely from the series of halls, courts, and chambers of which a great Egyptian temple consisted. In the very smallest temple FIG. 2. PLAN OF A SMALL GREEK TKMPLE IN ANTIS. at least one of the gables was made into a portico by the help of columns and two pilasters (Fig. 2). More important temples had a larger number of columns and often a portico at each end (Figs. 3 and 10). The most important had columns on the flanks as well as at the front and rear, the sacred cell bring, in fact, surrounded by them. It will be apparent from this that the column, together with the superstructure which FlO. ;?. Pl.AX OF A SMALL GKEKK TEMTLK. rested upon it, must have played a very important part in Greek temple architecture and an inspection of any represen- tations of Greek buildings will at once confirm the impression. We find in Greece three distinct manners, distinguished 12 GREEK ARCHITECTURE AXD SCULPTURE. largely by the mode in which the column is dealt with. These it would be quite consistent to call " styles," were it not that another name has been so thoroughly appropriated to them that they would hardly now be recognized were they to be spoken of as anything else than "orders." The Greek orders are named the Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian. Each of them presents a different series of proportions, moldings, features, and ornaments, though the main forms of the build- ings are the same in all. The column and its entablature (the technical name for the frieze, architrave, and cornice, forming the usual superstructure), being the most prominent features in every such building, have come to be regarded as the index or characteristic from an inspection of which the order and the degree of its development can be recognized, just as a botanist recognizes plants by their flowers. By reproducing the column and entablature, almost all the characteristics of either of the orders can be copied ; and hence a technical and somewhat unfortunate use of the word "order" to signify these features only has crept in and has overshadowed and to a large extent displaced its wider meaning. It is difficult in a book on architecture to avoid employing the word "order" when we have to speak of a column and its entablature because it has so often been made use of in this sense. The student must, however, always bear in mind that this is a restricted and artificial sense of the word and that the column belonging to any order is always accompanied by the use throughout the building of the appropriate proportions, ornaments, and moldings belonging to that order. The origin of Greek architecture is a very interesting subject for inquiry, but, owing to the disappearance of almost all very early examples of the styles, it is necessarily obscure. Such information, however, as we possess, taken together with the internal evidence afforded by the features of the matured style, points to the influence of Egypt, to that of Assyria and Persia, and to an early manner of timber construction the forms proper to which were retained in spite of the abandon- ment of timber for marble -as all contributing to the formation of Greek architecture. In Asia Minor a series of monuments, many of them rock- cut, has been discovered, which throws a curious light upon the THK DORIC ORDER. 13 early growth of architecture. We refer to tombs found in Lycia and attributed to about the seventh century B. C. In these we obviously have the first work in stone of a nation of shipbuilders. A Lycian tomb such as the one now to be seen, accurately restored, in the British Museum represents a structure of beams of wood framed together, surmounted by a roof which closely resembles a boat turned upside down. The planks, the beams to which they were secured, and even a ridge similar to the keel of a vessel, all reappear here, showing that the material in use for building was so universally timber that when the tomb was to be "graven in the rock forever" the Fir.. !. ANCIENT GKEEK WAI..I.. OF UNWKOUGIIT STONE KKOM SAMOTHRACE. forms of a timber structure were those that presented them- selves to the imagination of the sculptor. In other instances the resemblance to shipwrights' work disappears and that of the carpenter is followed by that of the mason. Thus we find imitations of timber beams framed together and of overhang- ing low-pitched roofs, in some cases carried on unsquared rafters lying side by side, in several of these tombs. What happened on the Asiatic shore of the /Egean must have occurred on the (Jreek shores; and, though none of the very earliest specimens of reproduction in stone of timber structures has come down to us, there are abundant traces, 14 GREEK ARCHITECTURE AND SCULPTURE. as we shall presently see, of timber originals in buildings of the Doric order. Timber originals were not, however, the only sources from which the early inhabitants of Greece drew their inspiration. Constructions of extreme antiquity and free from any ap- pearance of imitating structures of timber mark the sites of the oldest cities of Greece, Mycense and Orchomenos, for example, the most ancient being Pelasgic city walls of un- wrought stone (Fig. 4). The so-called Treasury of Atreus at Mycenae, a circular underground chamber 48 feet 6 inches in diameter, and with a pointed vault, is a well-known specimen of more regular yet archaic building. Its vault is constructed of stones corbeling over one another and is not a true arch FIG. 5. PijANOF TREASURY OF ATKEUS AT MYCENAE. Fro. (i. SECTION OF THE TREASURY OF ATRKUS AT MYCKM.E. (Figs. 5, 6). The treatment of an ornamental column found here and of the remains of sculptured ornaments over a neigh- boring gateway called the Gate of the Lions is of very Asiatic character and seems to show that whatever influences had been brought to bear on their design were Oriental. A wide interval of time and a great contrast in taste separate the early works of Pelasgic masonry and even the chamber at Mycenro from the rudest and most archaic of the re- maining Hellenic works of Greece. The Doric temple at Corinth is attributed, as lias been stated, to the seventh century B. C. This was a massive masonry structure with extremely short, stumpy columns and strong moldings, but presenting the main features of the Doric style, as we know it, THE DORIC OKDEK. 15 ill its earliest and rudest form. Successive examples (Figs. 7, 8, and 9) show increasing slenderness of proportions and re- finement of treatment, and are accompanied by sculpture which approaches nearer and nearer to perfection ; but in the later and best buildings, as in the earliest and rudest, certain forms are retained for which it seems impossible to account except on the supposition that they are reproductions in stone or FIG. 7. GKKEK DORIC CAPI- TAL FROM SELIXUS. FIG. 8. GREEK DORIC CAPI- TAL, FROM THE THESEUM. Fli:. !>.<"; 11KEK DoiUO C'APITAL FROM 8AMOTHRACF. marble of a timber construction. These occur in the en- tablature while the column is of a type which it is hard to believe is not copied from originals in use in Egypt many cen- turies earlier. We will now proceed to examine a fully developed Greek Doric temple of the best period and in doing so we shall be able to recognize the forms referred to in the preceding 16 GREEK ARCHITECTURE AND SCULPTURE. paragraph as we come to them. The most complete Greek Doric temple was the Parthenon, the work of the architect CD it- FIG. 10. PLAX OF THE PARTHENON AT ATHENS. IctimiR, the temple of the Virgin Goddess Athene (Minerva) at Athens, and on many accounts this building will be the best to select for our purpose (Frontispiece). THE DORIC ORDER. 17 The Parthenon at Athens stood on the summit of a lofty rock and within an irregularly shaped enclosure, something like a cathedral close, entered through a noble gateway, called the Propylsea. The temple itself was of perfectly regu- lar plan and stood quite free from dependencies of any sort. It consisted of a cella, or sacred cell, in which stood the statue of the goddess, with one chamber (the treasury) be- hind. In the cella and also in the chamber behind there were columns. A series of columns surrounded this building, p t s, ^ % 6 r~v S 1 r X s s -v , # -^ * S, S x ** t >, S V S S , * S > S ^v v ' > ..' S / S 1 S s S > v . -V S '-. s *s r. **s { f. S V v ; r /v, Mm mm FIG. 11. THE ROOF OF A GREEK DORIC TKMPLE, SHOWING THE MARBLE TILES. and at either end was a portico, eight columns wide and two deep. There were two pediments, or gables, of flat pitch, one at each end. The whole stood on a basement of steps ; the building, exclusive of the steps, being 228 feet long by 101 feet wide and 64 feet high. The columns were each 84 feet, 3 inches high and more than (> feet in diameter at the base ; a portion of the shaft and of the capital of one is in the British Museum, and a magnificent reproduction, full size, of the column and its entablature may be seen at the Ecole des Beaux Arts, Paris. The ornaments consisted almost exclusively of sculpture of FIG. 12. A CONSTRUCTIONAL YJF.W OF TUP: PARTHENON. THE DOK1O OltDEK. 19 the very finest quality, executed by or under the superintend- ence of Phidias. Of this sculpture many specimens are now in the British Museum. They are called the " Elgin Marbles," after Lord Elgin, who brought them from Greece in 1816 and afterwards sold them to the British government. The construction of this temple was of the most solid and durable kind, marble being the material used ; and the work- manship was most careful in every part of which remains have come down to us. The roof was, no doubt, made of timber and covered with marble tiles (Fig. 11), carried on FIG. 13. SECTION OF THE GKEEK DOKIC TEMPLE AT PJESTU.M. As RESTORED UY BOTTICIIEI:. a timber framework, all traces of which have entirely per- ished ; and the mode in which it was constructed is a subject upon which authorities differ, especially as to what provision was made for the admission of light. The internal columns, found in other temples as well as in the Parthenon, were no doubt employed to support this roof, as is shown in Bot- ticher's restoration of the Temple at IVstum, which we reproduce (Fig. U>), though without pledging ourselves to its accuracy; for, indeed, it seems probable that something more 1 or less like the clerestory of a Gothic church must have been ' for- f Ovolo. nice | Corona. Pediment. .". . Mutules T rr ~ J I 1 1 Frieze vf\ t h -^ triglyphsand " metopes B ^ J 1 Fillet w i t h ^Tkja, gutta? (fisSSUui rvi'A's -i i s -;' : k < h ' lt ii s:s. 's'. \i S'CSlSlilS'JlSl^SlSlStSlSlS'SJ^'" sib Architrave. . . artiz: f tj. ^J^T^TJ- (.Echmuh. ^^)\yj^^ ^^MM^ i _i 1 ii Shaft or Column. . . . i . --- Stylobatf. . . . ! 1 Fi<;. 11. THE CREEK DORIC ORDER FROM THE THESEUM. TICK DORIC ORDER. 21 employed to admit light to these buildings, as we know was the case in the Hypostyle Hall at Karnak. But this structure, if it existed, has entirely disappeared. The order of the Parthenon was Doric, and the leading proportions were as follows : The column was 5.56 diameters high ; the whole height, including the stylobate, or steps, might be divided into nine parts, of which two go to the steps, FIG. 16. THE FILLETS UNDER A GREEK DORIC CAPITAL. FIG. 15. PLAN OF A GKEEK DORIC COLUMN. six to tne column, and one to the entablature, or super- structure. The Greek Doric order is without a base ; the shaft of the column springs from the top step and tapers toward the top, the outline being not, however, straight, but of a subtle curve, known technically as the cntaxis of the column. This shaft is channeled with twenty shallow channels,* the ridges separat- ing one from another being very fine lines. A little below the molding of the capital, fine sinkings, forming lines round the shaft, exist, and above these the channels of the flutes are stopped by or near the commencement of the projecting molding of the capital. This molding, which is of a section calculated to convey the idea of powerful support, is called the rr-hiniifi, and its lower portion is encircled by a series of fillets (Fig. 1(5), which are cut into it. Above the echinus, which is circular, like the shaft, comes the highest member the abacutt (Fig. 14), a square, stout slab of marble, which completes the capital of the column. The whole is most skillfully designed to convey the idea of sturdy support and yet to clothe the support with grace. The- strong proportions of the shaft, the * In a few instances a smaller number is found. 22 GREEK ARCHITECTURE AND SCULPTURE. slight curve of its outline, the lines traced upon its surface by the channels, and even the vigorous, uncompromising planting of it on the square step from which it springs, all contribute to make the column look strong. The check given to the vigor- ous upward lines of the channels on the shaft by the first sinkings and their arrest at the point where the capital spreads out, intensified as it is by the series of horizontal lines drawn round the echinus by the fillets cut into it, all seem to convey the idea of spreading the supporting energy of the column outward ; and the abacus appears naturally fitted, itself inert, to receive a burden placed upon it and to transmit its pressure to the capital and shaft below. FIG. 17. CAPITAL OF A GREKK DORIC COI.TJJIX FROM .EG WITH COL.OKED DECORATION. The entablature which formed the superstructure consisted first of a small square beam the architrave, which, it may be assumed, represents a square timber beam that occupied the same position in the primitive structures. On this rests a second member called the frieze, the prominent feature of which is a series of slightly projecting features, known as triglyphs (three channels) (Fig. 20), from the channels running down their face. These closely resemble, and no doubt actually represent, the ends of massive timber beams, which must have connected the colonnade to the wall of the cell in earlier buildings. At the bottom of each is a row of small pend- ants, known as (jititw, which closely resemble wooden pins, such as would be used to keep a timber beam in place. The THE DORIC OKIJKK. 23 panels between the triglyphs are usually as wide as they are high. They are termed metopes and sculpture commonly FIG. 18. SECTION OF THE ENTABLATURE OF THE GREEK DORIC OKDER. FIG. lit. 1'i.AN, LOOKING IT, OF PART OF A URKKK DORIC I'KRISTVLK. occupies them. The third division of the entablature, the cor- nice, represents the overhanging eaves of the roof. The cornices employed in classic architecture may be almost 24 GREEK ARCHITECTURE AXD SCULPTURE. invariably subdivided into three parts : the supporting part, which is the lowest, the projecting part, which is the middle, and the crowning part, which is the highest division of the cornice. The supporting part in a Greek Doric cornice is extremely small. There are no moldings, such as we shall find in almost every other cornice, calculated to convey the idea of contributing to sustain the projection of the cornice, but there are slabs of marble, called mutules (Fig. 21), drop- ping toward the outer end, of which one is placed over each triglyph and one between every two. These seem to recall, by their shape, their position, and their slope alike, the ends of rr n FIG. 20. DETAILS OF THE TKIGI.YPH. FlG. 21. IVFTAI'LS OF THE MUTCLES. the rafters of a timber roof ; and their surface is covered with small projections, which resemble the heads of wooden pins, similar to those already mentioned. The projecting part, in this as in almost all cornices, is a plain upright face of some height, called " the corona," and recalling probably a "facia," or flat, narrow board such as a carpenter of the present day would use in a similar position, secured in the original structure to the ends of the rafters and supporting the eaves. Lastly the crowning part is, in the Greek Doric, a single con- vex molding, not very dissimilar in profile to the ovolo of the capital and forming what we commonly call an eaves-gutter. At the ends of the building the two- upper divisions of the THE DORIC ORDER. 25 cornice namely, the projecting corona and the crowning ovolo are made to follow the sloping line of the gable, a second corona being also carried across horizontally in a man- ner which can be best understood by inspecting a diagram of the corner of a Greek Doric building (Fig. 14) ; and the tri- angular space thus formed was termed a pediment, and was the position in which the finest of the sculpture with which the building was enriched was placed. In the Parthenon a continuous band of sculpture ran around the exterior of the cell near the top of the wall. One other feature was employed in Greek temple archi- tecture. The anta was a square pillar or pier of masonry attached to the wall and corresponded very closely to our pilaster ; but its capital always differed from that of the col- umns in the neighborhood of which it was employed. The untce of the Greek Doric order, as employed in the Parthenon, H ?i%! 81 -: K-i._y{; Lr2L:i : :iL^ FlG. 22. ELEVATION ANT) SECTION OK THE CAPITAL OF A GKKEK ANTA, WITH COLOKED DECORATIONS. have a molded base, which it will be remembered is not the case with the column, and their capital has for its principal feature an under-cut molding, known as the bird's beak, quite dissimilar from the ovolo of the capital of the column (Fig. 2'2). Sometimes the portico of a temple consisted of the side walls prolonged and ending in two antce with two or more columns standing between them. The Parthenon presents examples of the most extraordinary refinements in order to correct optical illusions. The delicacy and subtlety of these are extreme, but there can be no manner of doubt that they existed. The best known correction is the diminution in diameter, or taper, and the rfY/x/x, or convex curve of the tapered outline of the shaft of the column. With- out the taper, which is perceptible enough in the order of this building, and much more marked in the order of earlier build- 26 GREEK ARCHITECTURE AND SCULPTURE. ings, the columns would look top-heavy ; but the entasis is an additional optical correction to prevent their outline from appearing hollowed, which it would have done had there been no curve. The columns of the Parthenon have shafts that are over 34 feet high and diminish from a diameter of 6.15 feet at the bottom to 4.81 feet at the top. The outline between these points is convex, but so slightly so that the curve departs at the point of greatest curvature not more than three fourths of an inch from the straight line joining the top and bottom. This is, however, just sufficient to correct the tendency to look hollow in the middle. A second correction is intended to overcome the apparent tendency of a building to spread outward toward the top. This is met by inclining the columns slightly inward. So slight, however, is the inclination, that were the axes of two columns on opposite sides of the Parthenon continued upward till they met, the meeting point would be 1,952 yards, or in other words, more than one mile from the ground. Another optical correction is applied to the horizontal lines. In order to overcome a tendency which exists in all long lines to seem as though they droop in the middle, the lines of the architrave, of the top step, and of other horizontal features of the buildings fire all slightly curved. The difference between the outline of the top step of the Parthenon and a straight line joining its two ends is at the greatest only just over two inches. The last correction which it is necessary to name here was applied to the vertical proportions of the building. The principles upon which this correction rests have been demon- strated by Mr. John Pennethorne ;* and it would hardly come within the scope of this volume to attempt to state them here ; suffice it to say that small additions, amounting in the entire height of the order to less than five inches, were made to the heights of the various members of the order, with a view to secure that from one definite point of view the effect of foreshortening should be exactly compensated and so the building should appear to the spectator to be perfectly pro- portioned. The Parthenon, like many, if not all Greek buildings, was * "Geometry and Optics of Ancient Architecture." THK DORIC OKDKK. 27 profusely decorated with colored ornaments, of which nearly every trace has now disappeared, but which must have con- tributed largely to the splendid beauty of the building as a whole, and must have emphasized and set off its parts. The ornaments known as Doric frets were largely employed. They consist of patterns made entirely of straight lines interlacing, and, while preserving the severity which is characteristic of the style, they permit of the introduction of considerable rich- ness. The principal remaining examples of fragments of Greek Doric may be enumerated as follows : IN* GHEECE. Temple of (?) Athene, at Corinth, ab. 6oO B. C. Temple of (?) Zeus, in the island of ^Egina, ab. 5-50 B. C. Temple of Theseus (Theseum), at Athens, -IGo B. C. Temple of Athene (Parthenon), on the Acropolis at Athens, fin. 438 B. C. The Propylcea, on the Acropolis at Athens, 436-431 B. C. Temple of Zeus at Olympia. Temple of Apollo Epicurius, at Bassre,* in Arcadia (designed by Ictinus). Temple of Apollo Epicurius, at Phigalia, in Arcadia (built by Ictinus). Temple of Athene, on the rock of Sunium, in Attica. Temple of Nemesis, at Rhamnus, in Attica. Temple of Demeter (Ceres), at Eleusis, in Attica. IN SICILY AND SOUTH ITALY. Temple of (?) Zeus, at Agrigentum, in Sicily (begun B. C. 480). Temple of Egesta (or Segesta), in Sicily. Temple of (?) Zeus, at Selinus, in Sicily (? ab. 410 B. C.). Temple of (?) Athene, at Syracuse, in Sicily. Temple of Poseidon, at Pajstum, in South Italy (? ab. 5-50 B. C.). *? Exterior Doric Interior Ionic. FIG. 23. PALMETTE AND HONEYSUCKLE. CHAPTER II. GREEK ARCHITECTURE. buildings of the Ionic and Corinthian Orders. THE' Doric was the order in which the full strength and the complete refinement of the artistic character of the Greeks were most completely shown. There was a great deal of the spirit of severe dignity proper to Egyptian art in its aspect ; but other nationalities contributed to the formation of the many-sided Greek nature, and we must look to some other country than Egypt for the spirit which inspired the Ionic order. This seems to have been brought into Greece by a dis- tinct race and shows marks of an Asiatic origin. The feature which is most distinctive is the one most distinctly Eastern the capital of the column, ornamented always by volutes, i.e. scrolls, which bear a close resemblance to features similarly employed in the columns found at Persepolis. The same resemblance can be also detected in the molded bases and even the shafts of the columns, and in many of the ornaments em- ployed throughout the buildings. In form and disposition an ordinary Ionic temple was similar to one of the Doric order, but the general proportions are more slender and the moldings of the order are more numerous and more profusely enriched. The column in the Ionic order had a base, often elaborately and sometimes singu- T1IK IONIC AND COHINTHIAX OUUKKS. 29 larly molded (Figs. 31, 32). The shaft (Figs. 24, 26) is of more slender proportions than the Doric shaft. It was fluted, but its channels are more numerous and are separated from one another by broader fillets than in the Doric. The distinctive feature, as in all the orders, is the capital (Figs. 25, 20), which is recognized at a glance by the two remarkable ornaments FIG. 2^. SHAFT OF IONIC COLUMN SHOWING THE FLUTINGS. FIG. 26. IONIC CAPITAL. SIDE ELEVATION. FIG. 2"). IONIC C.vi'iTAi,. FRONT KI.F.V.VTION. already alluded to as like scrolls and known as volutes. These generally formed the faces of a pair of cushion-shaped features, which could be seen in a side view of the capital; but some- times volutes stand in a diagonal position, and in almost every building they differ slightly. The dlxicus is less deep than in the Doric, and it is always molded at the edge, which was Fro. 27. THE loxic ORDER. FROM PRIENE, ASIA MINOR. nd. Frieze. _J Architrave with Facias. Capital. Stylobat Fio. 2S. IONIC OKDKI:. FKOM TIIK KUKCTIIKTM, ATIIKNS. 32 GREEK ARCHITECTURE AXD SCULPTURE. never the case with the Doric abacus. The entablature (Fig. 27) is, generally speaking, richer than that of the Doric order. The architrave, for example, has three facias instead of being plain. On the other hand, the frieze has no triglyphs, and but rarely sculpture. There are more members in the cornice, several moldings being combined to fortify the sup- porting portion. These have sometimes been termed "the bed moldings" ; and among them occurs one which is almost FIG. 29. NORTH-WEST VIEW OF THE ERECHTHEUM, IN TIME OF PERICLES. typical of the order, and is termed a dentil band. This mold- ing presents the appearance of a plain square band of stone, in which a series of cuts had been made dividing it into blocks somewhat resembling teeth, whence the name. Such an orna- ment is more naturally constructed in wood than in stone or marble, but if the real derivation of the Ionic order, as of the Doric, be in fact from timber structures, the dentil band is apparently the only feature in which that origin can now be THE IONIC AND CORINTHIAN OKDEKS. traced. The crowning member of the cornice is a partly hollow molding, technically called a cyma recta, less vig- orous than the convex ovolo, of the Doric : this molding, and some of the bed moldings, were commonly enriched with Kia. 80. PLAN OF THE ERECTHEUM. Fro. 31. IONIC BASK FROM THK TKMIM,K OF THK WINOI,F.SS VICTORY (NiKEAPTKKOS). Fir,. 32. IONIC BASK MOLDINGS FROM PKIKNK. carving. Altogether more slenderness and loss vigor, more carved enrichment and less painted decoration, more reliance on architectural ornament and less on the work of the sculptor, appear to distinguish those examples of Greek Ionic which have come down to us, as compared with Doric buildings. 34 GREEK ARCHITECTURE AND SCULPTURE. The most numerous examples of the Ionic order of which remains exist are found in Asia Minor, but the most refined and complete is the Erechtheum at Athens (Figs 29, 30), a com- posite structure containing three temples built in juxtaposition, but differing from one another in scale, levels, dimensions, and treatment. The principal order from the Erechtheum (Fig. 28) shows a large amount of enrichment introduced with the most refined and severe taste. Specially remarkable are the ornaments (borrowed from the Assyrian honeysuckle) which encircle the upper part of the shaft at the point where it passes into the capital and the splendid spirals of the volutes (Figs. 25, 26). The bases of the columns in the Erech- theum. example are models of elegance and beauty. Those of some of the examples from Asia Minor are overloaded with a vast number of moldings, by 110 means always producing a pleasing effect (Figs. 31, 32). Some of them bear a close resemblance to the bases of the columns at Persepolis. The most famous Greek building which was erected in the Ionic style was the Temple of Diana at Ephesus. This temple has been all but totally destroyed, and the very site of it had been for centuries lost and unknown till the energy and sagacity of an English architect (Mr. Wood) enabled him to discover and dig out the vestiges of the building. Fortunately sufficient traces of the foundation have remained to render it possible to recover the plan of the temple completely ; and the discovery of fragments of the order, together with representa- tions on ancient coins and a description by Pliny, have rendered it possible to make a restoration on paper of the general appearance of this famous temple, which must be very nearly, if not absolutely, correct. The walls of this temple enclosed, as usual, a crlla (in which was the statue of the goddess), with apparently a treasury behind it ; they were entirely surrounded by a double series of columns with a pediment at each end. The exterior of the building, including these columns, was about twice the width of the cclla. The whole structure, which was of marble, was planted on a spacious platform with steps. The account of Pliny refers to thirty-six columns, which he describes as l< columme <-clat) was the type, do not seem to have prevailed in a later period or, so far as we know, to have been succeeded by any similar covering or vault of a more scientific construction. It is hardly necessary to add that the Greek theaters were not roofed. The Romans shaded the spectators in their 46 GREEK ARCHITECTURE AND SCULPTURE. theaters and amphitheaters by means of a velarium, or awn- ing, but it is extremely doubtful whether even this expedient was in use in Greek theaters. The Openings. The most important characteristic of the openings in Greek buildings is that they were flat^topped, covered by a lintel of stone or marble, and never arched. Doors and window open- ings were often a little narrower at the top than the bottom and were marked by a band of moldings, known as the archi- trave, on the face of the wall, and, so to speak, framing in the opening. There was often also a small cornice over each (Figs. 39, 40). Openings were seldom advanced into promi- nence or employed as features in the exterior of a building ; in fact, the same effects which windows produce in other styles were in Greek buildings created by the interspaces between the columns. The Columns. These features, together with the superstructure or entabla- ture, which they customarily carried, were the prominent parts of Greek architecture, occupying as they did the entire height of the building. The development of the orders (which we have explained to be really decorative systems, each of which involved the use of one sort of column, though the term is constantly understood as meaning merely the column and entablature) is a very interesting subject and illustrates the acuteness with which the Greeks selected from those models which were accessible to them, exactly \vhat was suited to their purpose and the skill with which they altered and refined and almost redesigned everything which they so selected. During the whole period when Greek art was being developed, the ancient and polished civilization of Egypt con- stituted a most powerful and most stable influence, always present, always, comparatively speaking, within reach, and always the same. Of all the forms of column and capital exist- ing in Egypt, the Greeks, however, only selected that straight- sided, fluted type of which the Beni-Hassan example is the best known, but by no means the only instance. We first meet with these fluted columns at Corinth, of very sturdy pro- ANALYSIS OF G KKEK ARCHITECTURE 47 portions and having a wide, swelling, clumsy molding under the abacus by way of a capital. By degrees the proportions of the shaft grew more slender and the profile of the capital more elegant and less bold, till the perfected proportions of the Greek Doric column were attained. This column is the original to which all columns with molded capitals that have been used in architecture, from the age of Pericles to our own, may be directly or indirectly referred ; while the Egyptian types which the Greeks did not select such, for example, as the lotus-columns at Karnak have never been perpetuated. A different temper or taste, and partly a different history, led to the selection of the West Asiatic types of column by a Fir,. 39. GREEK DOORWAY, SHOW- ING COKNICE. FIG. 10. GREEK DOORWAY, FRONT VIEW. (FROM THE ERECHTHECM.) section of the Greek people ; but great alterations in propor- tion, in the treatment of the capital, and in the management of the molded base from which the columns sprang, were made, even in the orders which occur in the Ionic buildings of Asia Minor. This was carried further when the Ionic order was made use of in Athens herself, and as a result the Attic base and the perfected Ionic capital are to be found at their best in the Erechtheum example. The Ionic order and the Corinthian, which soon followed it, are the parents, -not, it is true, of all, but of the greater part of the columns with foliated capitals that have been used in all styles ami periods of archi- 48 GREEK ARCHITECTURE AND SCULPTURE. tecture since. It will not be forgotten that rude types of both orders are found represented on Assyrian bas-reliefs, but still the Corinthian capital and order must be considered as the natural and, so to speak, inevitable development of the Ionic. From the Corinthian capital an unbroken series of foliated capitals can be traced down to our own day ; almost the only new ornamented type ever devised since being that which takes its origin in the Romanesque block capital, known to us in England as the early Norman cushion capital ; this was certainly the parent of a distinct series, though even these owe not a little to Greek originals. We have alluded to the Ionic base. It was derived from a very tall one in use at Persepolis and we meet with it first in the rich but clumsy forms of the bases in the Asia Minor ex- amples. In them we find the height of the feature as used in Persia compressed, while great, and to our eyes eccentric, elaboration marked the moldings ; these the refinement of Attic taste afterwards simplified, till the profile of the well- known Attic base was produced a base which has had as wide and lasting an influence as either of the original forms of capital. The Corinthian order, as has been above remarked, is the natural sequel of the Ionic. Had Greek architecture con- tinued till it fell into decadence, this order would have been the badge of it. As it was, the decadence of Greek art was Roman art, and the Corinthian order was the favorite order of the Romans ; in fact all the important examples of it which remain are Roman work. If we remember how invariably use was made of one or other of the two great types of the Greek order in all the buildings of the best Greek time, with the addition toward its close of the Corinthian order, and that these orders, a little more subdivided and a good deal modified, have formed the substratum of Roman architecture and of that in use during the last three centuries ; and if we also bear in mind that nearly all the columnar architecture of Early Christian, Byzantine, Saracenic, and Gothic times, owes its forms to the same great source, we may well admit that the invention and perfecting of the orders of Greek architecture has been with one exception the most important event in the archi- ANALYSIS OF GUEEK AKCHITECTUKK. 49 tectural history of the world. That exception is, of course, the introduction of the Arch. Ttic Ornaments. Greek ornaments have exerted the same wide influence over the whole course of Western art as Greek columns ; and in their origin they are equally interesting as specimens of Greek skill in adapting existing types and of Greek invention where no existing types would serve. Few of the moldings of Greek architecture are to be traced to anterior styles. There is nothing like them in Egyptian work and little or nothing in Assyrian ; and though a sug- gestion of some of them may no doubt be found in Persian examples, we must take them as having been substantially originated by Greek genius, which felt that they were wanted, designed them, and brought them far toward absolute per- fection. They were of the most refined form and when enriched were carved with consummate skill. They were executed, it must be remembered, in white marble a material having the finest surface and capable of responding to the most delicate variations in contour by corresponding changes in shade or light in a manner and to a degree which no other material can equal. In the Doric, moldings were few and al- most always convex ; they became much more numerous in the later styles and then included many of concave profile. The chief are the oi'olo, which formed the curved part of the Doric capital and the crowning molding of the Doric cornice ; the cyma ; the birds bc<(k, employed in the capitals of the antce ; the fillets under the Doric capital ; the hollows and torus moldings of the Ionic and Corinthian bases. The profiles of these moldings were very rarely segments of circles, but lines of varying curvature, capable of producing the most delicate changes of light and shade and contours of the most subtle grace. Many of them correspond to conic sections, but it seems probable that the outlines were drawn by hand and not oMained by any mechanical or mathematical method. The moldings were some of them enriched, to use the technical word, by having such ornaments cut into them or carved on them as, though simple in form, lent themselves 50 GREEK ARCHITECTURE AND SCULPTURE. well to repetition. Where more room for ornament existed, and especially in the capitals of the Ionic and Corinthian orders, ornaments were freely and most gracefully carved and very symmetrically arranged. Though these were very vari- ous, yet most of them can be classed under three heads. (1.) FRETS (Figs. 73 to 77). These were patterns made up of squares or L-shaped lines interlaced and made to seem intri- cate, though originally simple. Frequently these patterns are called Doric frets from their having been most used in build- ings of the Doric order. (2.) HONEYSUCKLE (Figs. 51 and 68 to 71). This ornament, admirably conventionalized, had been used freely by the Assyrians, and the Greeks only adopted what they found ready to their hand when they began to use it ; but they refined it at the same time losing no whit of its vigor or effectiveness, and the honeysuckle has come to be known as a typical Greek decorative motif. (3.) ACANTHUS (Figs. 41, 42). This is a broad-leaved plant, the foliage and stems of which, treated in a conventional manner, though with but little departure from nature, were found admirably adapted for floral decorative work and accordingly were made use of in the foliage of the Corinthian capital and in such Fir.. 41. THE ACAXTHUS LEAF AND STALK. ornaments as, for example, the great finiifl which forms the summit of the Choragic Monument of Lysicrates (Fig- 3o). The beauty of the carving was, however, eclipsed by that highest of all ornaments sculpture. In the Doric temples, as, for example, in the Parthenon, the architect contented ANALYSIS OK (JKEKK ARCHITECTURE. 51 himself with providing suitable spaces for the sculptor to occupy ; and thus the great pediments, the metopes (Fig. 43), or square panels, and the frieze of the Parthenon were occupied by sculpture, in which there was no necessity for more con- ventionalism than the amount of artificial arrangement needed in order fitly to occupy spaces that were respectively triangular, square, or continuous. In the later and more voluptuous style of the Ionic temples we find sculpture made into an architectural feature, as in the famous statues, known as the caryatids (page 35), which support the small- est portico of the Erechtheum, and in the enriched columns of the Temple of Diana at Eph- esus. Sculpture had already been so employed in Egypt and was often so used in later times ; but the best opportu- nity for the display of the finest qualities of the sculp- tor's art is such a one as the pediments, etc., of the great Doric temples afforded. There is little room for doubting that all the Greek temples were richly decorated in colors, but traces and indications are all that remain ; these, however, are sufficient to prove that a very large amount of color was employed and that probably ornaments (Figs. 62 to 77) were painted upon many of those surfaces which were left plain by the mason, especially on the cornices, and that mosaics (Fig. 44) and colored marbles and even gilding were freely used. There is also ground for believing that as the use of carved enrichments increased with the increasing adoption of the Ionic and Corinthian styles, less use was made of painted decorations. Architccturul ( '/ict r<-f< r. Observations which have been made during the course of this and the previous chapters will have gone far to point out FHJ. 42. THE ACANTHUS LEAF 52 GREEK ARCHITECTURE AND SCULPTURE. the characteristics of Greek art. An archaic and almost for- bidding severity, with heavy proportions and more strength than grace, marks the earliest Greek buildings of which we have any fragments remaining. Dignity, sobriety, refinement, and beauty are the qualities of the works of the best period. The latest buildings were more rich, more ornate, and more slender in their proportions, and to a certain extent less severe. Most carefully studied proportions prevailed and were FIG. 43. METOPE FROM THE PARTHENON. CONFLICT BETWEEN A CENTAUK AND ONE OF THE LAPITHJE. wrought out to a pitch of completeness and refinement which is truly astounding. Symmetry was the all but invariable law of composition. Yet in certain respects as, for example, the spacing and position of the columns a degree of freedom was enjoyed which Roman architecture did not possess. Repetition ruled to the almost entire suppression of variety. Disclosure of the arrangement and construction of the building was almost complete and hardly a trace of concealment can be detected. Simplicity reigns in the earliest examples, the ANALYSIS OK GUKKK ARCHITECTURE. 53 elaboration of even the most ornamental is very chaste and graceful, and the whole effect of Greek architecture is one of harmony, unity, and refined power. A general principle seldom pointed out which governs the application of enrichments to moldings in Greek architecture may be cited as a good instance of the subtle yet admirable concord which existed between the different features ; it is as FIG. 44. MOSAIC FROM THE TEMPLE OF ZEUS, OL.YMPIA. follows : T7tc outline of each enrichment in relief was ordinarily described by the name line as the profile of the molding to ichieh it was applied. The egg enrichment (Fig. 47) on the ovolo, the water-leaf on the c>/ma rererxa (Figs. 48, 54), the honeysuckle on the cyma recta (Fig. f>l), and the aiiittoche (Fig. 57) on the turm, are examples of the application of this rule one which obviously tends to produce harmony. 54 (JREEK ARCHITECTUHK AND SCULPTURE. P"IG. 4"). SECTION OF THE POKTICO OF THE ERECHTHET'M. FIG. 46. PLAN OF THE PORTICO LOOK i NO rr. EXAMPLES OF GREEK ORNAMENT IN THK NORTHERN PORTICO OF THE KKECHTHEITM SHOWING THE ORNAMENTATION OF THE CEIT.INO. ANALYSIS OF OKKKK ARCHITECTURE. FIQ. 47. EGG AND DART. Fir,. 48. LEAF AND DART. FIG. 49 .--HONEYSUCKLE. FIG. 50. CAPITAL OF ANT.*: FROM THE FlC. 51. HONEYSUCKLK. KXA.MPLES OF (iKFFK ORNAMENT IN KEI.IEF. GREEK ARCHITECTURE AND SCULPTURE. FIG. 52. ACANTHUS. FIG. 53. ACANTHUS. FIG. 54. LEAF AND TONGUK. FIG. 55. LEAF AND TONGUE. FIG. 50. OAKLAND. FIG. 57. GTJTLLOCHE. FIG. 60. TORUS MOLDING. FIG. 01. TORUS MOLDING. EXAMPLES OF GREEK ORNAMENT IN RELIEF. ANALYSIS OF GREEK ARCHITECTURE. 57 FIG*. 62, HONEYSUCKLE. FIG. 61. HONEYSUCKLE. FIG. 65. FIGS. (O, flo. FACIAS WITH BANDS OF FOI,IAGK. FIG. 06. LEAF AND DART. FIG. 67. EGG AND DART. EXAMPLES OF GREEK ORNAMENT IN COLOR. 58 GHEEK AKCHITECTUKE AXD SCULPTURE. FIG. FIG. 69. ***ii>" ^*'^ *Sl Q51 FIG. 72. GUIL- LOCHE. F'IGS. 68 TO 70. EXAMPLP:S OF THE HONEYSUCKLE. FIG. 71. COMBINATION ov THE FKKT, THE EGG AND DAKT, THE BEAD AND FII.I-KT, AND THE HONEYSUCKLE. FIG. 75. FIG. 76. FIG. 77. P^IGS. 7:> TO 77.- EXAMPLES OF THE FRET. EXAMPLE* OF GREEK OKN'AMENT IN COLOR. BAS-RELIEF IN MARBLE FROM THE TEMPLE OF APOLLO AT PHIGALIA. CONTEST OF CENTAURS AND In the British Museum. CHAPTER IV. SCULPTURE IN GENERAL. THE word "sculpture," derived from the Latin sculpo, I carve, is applicable to all work cut out in a solid material in imitation of natural objects. Thus carvings in wood, ivory, stone, marble, metal, and those works formed in a softer material, not requiring carving, such as wax and clay, all come under the general denomination of sculpture. But sculpture, as we are about to consider it, is to be distin- guished by the term " statuary," from all carved work belong- ing to ornamental art, and from those beautiful incised gems and cameos which form the class of glyptics, a word derived from the Greek glypho, I carve. It must be borne in mind, however, that the sculptor docs not generally carve his work directly out of the marble; he first makes his statue or bas- relief in clay or sometimes in wax. It is scarcely necessary to say that the most primitive sculptor naturally took clay for his work, as the potter did for his " wheel." This method enabled him to "sketch in the clay" and to perfect his work in this obedi- ent material. Michelangelo and such great masters could dispense with this and when they chose could carve at once 60 GREEK ARCHITECTURE AND SCULPTURE. the statue from the block. The ancient Egyptian sculptors, and after them the Assyrians, carved their gigantic figures from the living rock. The rock-cut temples of India show similar work. Carving is, however, of secondary consideration with the exception of the special work of great masters just referred to and it is the modeling in the clay which is the primary work. Sculpture is therefore properly styled "plastic art," from plasso, I fashion or mold. The " model," as it is termed technically, is afterwards to be " molded " by the exact appli- cation of liquid plaster of Paris in a proper manner. By means of the mold thus formed, a cast of the original clay statue or bas-relief is taken by a similar use of the liquid plaster. This liquid plaster has the property of solidifying, or " setting," as it is technically called, by a kind of crystalliza- tion, and it thus takes any form to which it is applied. The clay model, therefore, is like the original drawing of a painter, a master work. It is something more ; it is the result of a pre- vious step, for the sculptor has probably made a drawing before taking the clay in hand. The sculptor, therefore, is less a carver than a designer, draughtsman, and modeler. This being so, he invented a method of mechanical measurement by which most of the carving could be done by skilled labor. That this was an ancient practice is shown by an example in the Museum of St. John Lateran at Rome of an unfinished statue of a captive, which has been left with the "points " on the surface ; so placed by the master as a guide for the workman. In the process of "pointing," the model and the block of marble are each fixed on a base called a scale-stone, to which a standard vertical rod can be attached at corresponding centers, having at its upper end a sliding needle so adapted by a movable joint as to be set at any angle and fastened by a screw when so set. The master sculptor having marked the govern- ing points with a pencil on the model, the instrument is applied to these and the measure taken. The standard being then transferred to the block-base, the "pointer," guided by this measure, cuts away the marble, taking care to leave it rather larger than the model, so that the general proportions are kept, and the more important work is then left for the master hand. SCULPTURE IN GENERAL. 01 Hard Stones. Greek and Roman sculptors made many statues and bas-reliefs in hard stones. There are fine examples in the Vatican collection, but, as might be expected from the nature of the material, none that equal in beauty of form and expression the works in marble and bronze. The Vatican also contains the most remarkable collection of sculpture of this kind in existence, in the groups of animals, all in the most spirited actions of sport or combat, placed in what is called "the Hall of the Animals." The extremely difficult nature of such work may be understood when it is seen that the ordinary method of the chisel and mallet in the most skillful hands would be quite unavailing in this hard material and upon so small a scale. The treadle-wheel, the drill, and ihff file are brought to aid the chisel, and even these re- quire the use of emery upon the wheel of the lapidary, in the method by which the hardest gems are cut. Terra Cotta. Clay, modeled and dried in the sun or hard- ened by the fire, was naturally one of the early forms in which sculpture was developed. At once ready to hand and easily modeled, it was adopted for the same reasons that made clay convenient for the ordinary vessels of everyday use. So we find countless numbers of ancient figures of deities, animals, grotesque monsters, in baked or simply sun-dried clay, all more or less barbaric and archaic in style, whether found in Mexico or Cyprus, in Egypt or Assyria, in Etruria or the Troad. These have escaped destruction chiefly on account of their not being of any value, as bronze and marble were, and partly from their great durability in resisting decay. Terra cotta was obviously chosen by the sculptors of Greece and Rome, as it is by modern artists, with the view of preserv- ing the exact spirit and freedom of the original, whether as a sketch or as a finished work. Although some shrinking under the action of the fire has to be allowed for, and occasionally an accidental deformity may occur from this cause, yet what is well-baked is certain to possess the excellence of the \vork in the fresh clay, as it escapes the chances of overfinish and the loss of truth and animation, which too often befall bron/.e and marble. As it left the hand of the master the fire fixed it, converting the soft clay into a material as hard as marble and more capable of resisting damp and heat. 62 GREEK ARCHITECTURE AND SCULPTURE. Ivory. Another ancient form of sculpture to be noticed, though no examples of it remain, is very important as it is known to have been that employed by the greatest master of the art Phidias, for his grand colossal statues of Zeus and Athene in the temples of those gods. This is called Chrysele- phantine, on account of the combined use of gold (chrysos} and ivory (elephas), the nude parts of the figure being of ivory, with color applied to the flesh and features, and the drapery of gold. The statue was substantially but roughly made in marble with wood perhaps upon it ; the ivory being laid on in FIGS. 78, 79, 80. SHOWING THE SUPPOSED METHOD OF WORKING IVORY IX PIECES LAID ON. thick pieces (Figs. 78, 79, 80). Much interesting research has been given to this form of sculpture, by De Quincy especially, but it is not necessary to enter into details which are so largely conjectural. Wood. Statues of wood of various kinds were made by the most ancient sculptors of Egypt, Assyria, and Greece. The Greeks called their wood statues zoana, from zeo, I polish or carve. The statue of a god was called agalma kion, (an image column) a column is taken to mean also a statue (Plutarch). Castor and Pollux were represented by the Lace- daemonians simply as two pieces of wood joined by a ring, hence the sign n for the twins in the Zodiac. The small figures of men and animals, called by the Greeks Dccdalidcs as supposed to be made by Dtedalus (a name derived from daidallo, I work skillfully) and his school of artificers, were carved in wood. SCULPTURE IN GENERAL. 63 Bronze. This was one of the most important forms of an- cient statuary. Unfortunately we have to rely almost entirely upon ancient writers for any descriptions of the great works of the Greek sculptors in bronze and upon those copies of them in marble which tradition tells us are such. The original bronze works have long since perished, some by fire and others by the hand of the spoiler. The ancient bronze workers sought to obtain effects of color. Pliny states that Aristonidas made a statue of "Athamas" that showed the blush of shame in the face, by the rusting of the iron mixed with the bronze. Plutarch mentions a "Jocasta dying," the face of which was pale, the sculptor Silanion having mixed silver with the bronze. A representa- tion of the "Battle of Alexander and Porus" was like a pic- ture, from the different colors of the metal employed. Possibly these effects were obtained by inlaying with metals of differ- ent colors. The primitive bronze workers began by hammering solid metal into shapes, before they arrived at the knowledge of casting. The "toreutic" art, although not definitely known at present, was probably that of hammering, punching, and chiseling plates of metal, either separately or with a view to fixing them upon stone or wood. Much ancient work was of this kind, as the famous shield of Achilles, described by Homer ; the chest of Cypselus, made about 700 B. ('. ; and the ornamental work of the temple of Jerusalem. The Greek word for hammer, sphyra, gave the name of sfthyrclaton to work of this kind. The casting of metal in molds of a very simple kind for small ornaments like rings, the pendants of necklaces, buttons, and bosses, must have followed upon the discovery that metals could be melted in the fire. There are many allusions to this in the Bible (Job xxviii. 1, 2), and to the refiner and purifier of " gold seven times purified." As the sculptor improved in his art of modeling he would be able to make better molds. He would soon observe that his solid statue was not only a costly work but a very heavy one. He would find that solid arms broke off at the trunk from mere weight or t but his whole figure hud collapsed from the same simple cause. Thus he would be led to seek some means 64 GREEK ARCHITECTURE AND SCULPTURE. of overcoming these defects in his cast statues, which, though an improvement upon his hammered ones in their correctness of form, were not so durable. This was accomplished by the discovery of a contrivance for casting metal in a hollow form. It was done very much as it is at the present day. The Various Forms Adopted in Sculpture. Having described the various materials and methods em- ployed in sculptural art, we are in a condition to classify the different forms adopted, and arrange them under the proper terms. All sculpture is measurable ; and it has three dimensions height, width, and depth. Sculpture in "the round," I. e. statuary proper, has also circumference, or girth, that may be measured. Sculpture in Relief. Bas-relief, or basso-relievo, is the term used when the work projects from the general plain surface, or ground, the FIG. 81. AI/TO-REI.TKVO. ONE OF THE METOPES OF THE PARTHENON. SCULPTURE IX GENERAL. Go forms being rounded as in nature. If the work is very little raised, the forms being not so projecting as in nature, it is called flat-relief or stiacciato. If more raised, but not free from the ground in any part, it is described as half-relief, or mezzo-relievo, as in the Parthenon and other friezes. If the relief is still higher it becomes fall-relief, or alto- relievo, in which parts of the figures are entirely free from the ground of the slab ; as in the metopes of the Parthenon (Fig. 81). Sunk-relief, or cavo-rclievo in which the work is re- cessed within an outline but still raised in flat relief not pro- jecting above the surface of the slab as seen in the ancient Egyptian carvings. The beauty and character of bas-relief depend much upon the representation of outline. The projection is small in pro- portion to the distinctness and continuity of line enforced by this method, so conspicuously seen, in its most masterly style, in the frieze of the Parthenon. Statuary. Statuary proper, which is so called from the Latin stare, to stand, is sculpture in the round. A statue is therefore seen on every side. Statues are 1. Standing. 2. Seated. 3. Re- cumbent. 4. Equestrian. They are classed into five forms as to size : 1. Colossal above the heroic standard. Heroic above six feet, but under the colossal. 3. Life Size, 4. Small Life Size. 5. Statuettes half the size of life, and smaller. The ancient sculptors represented with great beauty the various mythological creatures described in their fables ; some of which are of the human form varied as the Amazon, the Faun, the Syren, the Nereid, the Cyclops, the Janus, or bifrons (double-faced), and the Hermaphrodite, uniting the characteristics of Hermes and Aphrodite. In other instances they invented the combinations of the human with the brute form of fabulous creatures described in ancient mythology. These are : (a) Sphin.r lion with head of man or woman ; 66 GREEK ARCHITECTURE AXD SCULPTURE. (6) man with eagle or hawk head ; (c) Minotaur man with head or body of the bull ; (d) Centaur man with part of trunk and limbs of the horse ; (e) Satyi man with hind quarters of a goat; (/) Triton man with fish-tail; (g) The Giants men with serpents for legs ; (h) Harpy woman and bird. Other strange creatures were of brutes only, as the Hippocamp horse and fish, with fins at the hoofs ; the Chimcera, Griffin, Dragon, Dog Cerberus, with many heads, etc. Different Marbles Used by Greek Sculptors. Many varieties of fine marbles were plentiful in Greece and Asia Minor ; they take names from the mountains where they were quarried. Soft Marbles sedimentary rocks of limestone. Pentelic marble, from Mount Pentelicus in the neighborhood of Athens, is found white, with a fine fracture, brilliant and sparkling, obtaining with exposure, after having received the surface polish from the hand of the sculptor, a beautiful warm tone comparable to ivory. This effect is seen in the Parthenon and other temples in Athena built of this marble, which have an extraordinary richness in their golden tint, especially under bright sunlight and seen against a blue sky. The yellow color is said to be caused by oxidation of some salt of iron contained in the marble. The statues in Athens and many others now in various museums are also of the same marble. Parian is the marble from the island of Paros. The marble usually called Parian has a coarse, sparkling grain, which, however, takes a high finish ; but there is reason to suppose that the true Parian marble was of extremely fine grain, easy to work, and of a creamy white. Phigalian a gray marble, seen in the bas-reliefs from Phigalia. ^Eginetan a grayish marble, seen in the statues of the pedi- ment of the Temple of Athene, now in the museum of Munich. Black marble found at Cape Tenaros. Verde antico found at Taygetos. FIG. 82. THE GATE OF LIONS AT MYCENJE. 10 feet high and 15 feet wide ; of greenish limestone. CHAPTER V. ARCHAIC GREEK SCULPTURE. THE origin of the arts of Greece 1ms been generally ascribed by her own early records and traditions to Egyptian influences. The evidence derived from the style of art followed at this early period tends to confirm tra- dition. The earliest coins of Greek work with the head of Athene show a striking resemblance to the heads of Isis. There are many examples of vases, painted with figures representing in the most primitive forms the oldest mytholog- 68 GREEK ARCHITECTURE AND SCULPTURE. ical heroes and deities, which closely resemble the Egyptian cavi relievi and paintings ; they are in profile with the eye full and the feet turned both in the same direction or, when the figure is full-face as in some bas-reliefs, the feet are in the impossible position of profile and both on the same plane. In painting, the absence of all attempt to represent shadow, either in the forms or in the cast shadow, and the use of a strong black outline, sometimes incised and having the color filled in as a flat tint, are other points of affinity between the early Greek work and the Egyptian. But it is important to bear in mind, in a historical considera- tion of the question, that it was in Ionia that the arts were promoted long before Athens had begun to show any advance ; and all the names, handed down by the traditions taken up by Diodorus Siculus, Pausanias, Pliny, and the late Greek writers, are those of sculptors working in the islands near the Asiatic shore and in the towns upon the mainland. Thus in the FIG. 83. EARLY COIN OF ATHENS, FIG. 81. COIN OK ATHENS AFTER HEAD OF ATHENE; THE EVE THE TIME OF PHIDIAS. WITH FULL, AS IN EGYPTIAN THE HELMET INTRODUCED RELIEFS. BY PHIDIAS. objects found by Cesnola in Cyprus, consisting of statues and other sculptures, incised gems, and metal work of the hammered-out or repousse kind, the resemblance to the art of Assyria is remarkable. But besides the workmanship there is more decisive evidence in the choice and treatment of the subjects ; these tend to con- firm the same view. The bas-reliefs upon the Harpy tomb (Fig. 80), as it is called, which was discovered in 1838 by Sir C. Fellows, were at first supposed by Gibson the great sculptor and student of classic ARCHAIC GREEK SCULPTURE. GO FIG. 85. BAS-RELIEF ON THE HAKPY TOMB. THE FIGUKES IN PROFILE, AND WITH THE PRIMITIVE DRAPERIES. In the British Museum. sculpture, to have for their subject the Harpies flying away with the daughters of King Pandarus, as related by Homer ("Odys." lib. xx.). Pandarus was king of Lycia. But archae- ologists are not agreed upon the point ; more recent opinions conjecture that the subject is simply funereal, and the Harpies emblematic of untimely death are bearing off the souls of mortals. The Harpy figures are more especially Assyrian in the character of the work. The date of these Lycian sculp- tures is not later than 500 B. C. In the other reliefs which are now on the walls of the New Lycian room, in the British Museum, there are sieges, chariots, processions, and many figures in the energetic action so remarkable in, the Nineveh sculptures. The two lions sculptured in the round resemble the Assyrian lions in style. All this is told in the same graphic manner as on the Nineveh slabs, and it is most inter- esting to compare these two series of sculptures in the British Museum. It will be observed that most of the figures are in profile and that the eyes are nevertheless shown in full ; the same peculiar smile prevails in all, which is a distinguishing feature in Etruscan works and in the JEirinetan and otlier 70 GREEK ARCHITECTURE AXD SCULPTURE. sculptures we shall have to notice. This is also seen in the coins of the time and is a feature which has, of course, some similarity to the Egyptian, but not less to the Assyrian style. The long, straight folds and zigzag edges of the draperies are also archaic forms which belong to these Lycian. sculptures, as well as the sculptures found at Selinus in Sicily ; and to a draped figure found on the Acropolis at Athens in the ruins of temples and buildings which were erected there before the Parthenon. These were destroyed by the Persians in the early battles of the Athenians against their old enemy. Their date FIG. 86. BAS-KELIEFS ON THE HARPY TOMB. In the Jiritish Museum. is considered to be about 560 190 B. C., when Pisistratus was ruler at Athens and later. The archaic "Artemis" of the Naples Museum in marble (Fig. 87) shows the zigzag form of drapery, which is also seen on a similar figure in the Dresden collection. It has been said these archaic statues are Egyptian in style, yet it is difficult to see this character in them beyond the general rigidity and the calm smiling look of the features. But in this respect they are equally like the Assyrian, and for the simple reason that to give any expression to the countenance requires a higher exercise of art and this these sculptors w^ere not sufficiently skilled to do. The Egyptians could perhaps have done it, but FIG. 87. ARTEMIS, FOUND AT POMPEII. Nlimving the archaic style of draper}/ folds. In the Naples Museum. 72 GREEK ARCHITECTURE AND SCULPTURE. it was not in keeping with their intention and the genius of their art. The Assyrians were very rough expressionists, rather vulgar and puerile in their imitative sculpture, but, as we have observed, inventive, and with more feeling for design than the Egyptians in their ornament. Seeking for other signs of Egyptian teaching in early Greek sculpture, it is remarkable that not a single example can be pointed out of cavo-relievo (page 65), such as the Egyptians adopted so univer- sally. Though effective, durable beyond all other forms, and capable of carrying color, yet it never was employed by Greek carvers or architects early or late ; nor, as has been pointed out, was the cavo-relievo ever employed in the Assyrian reliefs. Turning next to the statues the seated and standing figures carved universally with some supporting part of the work at the back and not in the round the examples of similar statues in Greece are extremely rare. There are as yet only the head- less seated Athene in the Museum at Athens, and ten draped, seated statues found in 18.38, by Mr. Newton, at Miletus on the Asiatic shore of the ^Egean, all headless but one. It may be observed that among the small objects found in Greece there are none of those miniature figures of deities precisely like the large Egyptian statues which abound in Egypt. To these some importance must have been attached, since they are found in every mummy case, often rolled up with the cerecloths, and probably intended as amulets or pro- tecting charms. From all that we learn of the Egyptians, through such exhaustive researches as those of Sir G. Wilkinson, it would seem that the sculptors and the carvers of hieroglyphics were a distinct class or caste, descending from father to son, and always under the close control of the priestly rule. It is not likely that they would ever become colonists and travel away from their city. Those who did wander off with Cecrops and Cadmus were not any of them sculptors or we should have found some trace of their work. The Egyptians were a re- ligious, not a commercial, people, and not colonizers. They devoted themselves to a life of ease and luxurious repose ; they were dreamers over the abstract and only entered into wars to defend themselves and their territory. The PhuMiicians are sometimes spoken of as teachers; but FIG. 88. COLOSSAL, 34 INCHES HIGH. Km. 89.-STONE, 9> 2 FIG. 90. STONK, 1U 1NTHKS HIGH. INCHES HIGH. FIG. 91. STONK, It INCHKS mr;n. HEADS FOUND BY OFKNOLA IN THE TEMPLE OF GOLOOI, CYPRUS' 74 GREEK ARCHITECTURE AND SCULPTURE. they never developed any art in the direction either of beauty of form or energy of expression. As the earliest and most expert metal workers, they taught their neighbors and carried the materials both along the coast and to the islands of the JEgean. In Cyprus abundant examples have been found in the discoveries of General Cesnola of Phoenician and Grseco- Phreiiician work. Let us endeavor to trace in other monuments that remain, the influence of Egyptian and Assyrian art, as shown in the work of the Pelasgi and Etrusci. Those which are simply barbaric, as we have already pointed out, have no value for sculptural art in helping us to identify any foreign influ- ence, since they belong to 110 individual style. Neither is much to be learned from sepulchral structures such as the tumuli common to the plains of Troy and the far west of Europe, as well as the far east of India ; nor from the under- ground structures known as treasuries. Sculptural art did not take its great spring in advance from any of these, as no statues of any value in art have ever been found in them. At Mycense, once, perhaps in the days of Homer (850 800 ? B. C.), the most important city of Greece, there are sculptural works in the remains of two lions over the entrance gate (Fig. 82), which are examples of Pelasgic art. The height of these is about 10 feet and the width 15 feet. The stone is a greenish limestone. The holes show where the metal pins held the heads, long since decayed. Fragments as they are, they show an Assyrian rather than an Egyptian influence in the strong marking of the muscles and joints, softened though it is by decay, and in the erect attitude, which denotes action such as is not seen in Egyptian art of this kind. Whether it is a column they support or an altar is doubtful ; but the four round projections above the capital resemble the wood struc- ture of the Lycian tombs. The peculiar tail of the lions, with the knob at the tip, is exactly such as we see in the Assyrian lions. These lions should be compared also with the wounded lion in the British Museum, Nineveh collection (Fig. 94). Of this "gate of the lions," which has long been known as a most ancient work of early Greek sculpture, it must be noticed that it is not in the round but only in high relief. And this is the case with all the earliest works, just as it is ARCHAIC GREEK SCULPTURE. 75 with the Assyrian sculptures. They tend to show therefore that the Greek sculptor had not yet learned to model and carve in the round in marble and stone. There are early records of statuary being made in marble. Pliny says the first of all distinguished for marble carving were Dipoenus and Scyllis, who worked together at Sicyon. They were born in. the island of Crete during the existence of the empire of the Medes, before Cyrus began his reign in Persia, about the fiftieth Olympiad (about 580 B. C.). They gill LJ I L FIG. 92. PERSEUS KILLING ME- DUSA. SELINUS METOPE. In the Museum at Palermo. Cast in the British Museum. FIG. 93. HERCULES CARRYING OFF TIIK CKCROPES (robbers). SELINUS METOPE. Cast in the British Museum. are named by Clemens of Alexandria as the sculptors of statues of Castor and Pollux at Argos, of Hercules at Tiryns, and Diana at Sicyon. It is also related by Cedrenus that, in the time of the Emperor Theodosius at By/antium, was to be seen a statue of Minerva Lindia of ' smaragdus' stone (rcrde antico?} four cubits high, the work of Scyllis and Dipoenus, which had formerly been sent by Sesostris, the Egyptian tyrant, to Cleobulus of Lindus. These references are so far interesting and important as showing with fail- probability that these statues were sculptures in the round. Numerous examples of archaic sculpture in brou/e and Fia. 95. WARRIOR OF MARA- THON. Inscribed "Work of Aristoclex.' 1 Pound in Attica. In Athens Museum. FIG. 96. ULYSSES (?) MARBLE. Inscribed in Oscan Characters. In Xaples Museum. 78 GREEK ARCHITECTURE AND SCULPTURE. marble, some of hammered-out work, are to be seen in all the museums, a large proportion of which are bas-reliefs represent- ing the figiu-e in profile. Good examples are Figs. 95, 96, which show a general resemblance to the Assyrian rather than Egyptian sculptures, as well as those found at Selinus (Fig. 92). The sharp features with the turned-up nose and smiling mouth and the short, crisp, formal curls at the forehead are characteristic of archaic Greek work and are seen again in the small full-length Apollo represented in Fig. 97 where we also notice the stiff attitude with one leg slightly advanced. The important point to bear in mind is the general archaic condition of sculpture prevailing at a time extending from the first Olympiad, 776 B. C., to the middle of the sixth century B. C. ; examples of which, all more or less resembling each other, have been found at Mycenae, Xan- thus, Miletus, Ephesus, the islands of Cyprus and Rhodes on the Asiatic side of the JEgean ; at Seh'nus in Sicily, and throughout Magna Grsecia ; in Italy at Palestrina, Perugia, Cervetri, as well as in all Etruria far up on the west coast of Italy ; in Greece proper, in. the Pelopon- nesus at Sparta, Sicyon and Argos, Ath- ens, and TEgina then an independent island and always possessing a very vig- orous school of sculpture, in bronze especially, though des- tined to yield the palm when Athens rose to her high state. FIG. 97. APOLLO OF TK.NKA. Munich ^fHKfitm. CHAPTEE VI. GREEK SCULPTURE. Temple Decoration.* IN ^Egina a temple of Athene was begun about B. C. 480 478, therefore about twenty-six years before the Parthe- non was begun at Athens and about the same time as the victories of the Greeks over the Persians at Plata?a and Mycale and the battles of Thermopylae and Salamis. The temple was built of sandstone and coated with stucco in a method resem- bling that employed in the temple at Selinus in Sicily. Its gable statues and those of the Parthenon are the only examples as yet found of a complete pediment series, as they were de- signed to fill the architectural space. The Niobe figures in the Florence Museum are supposed to have formed a similar com- position ; but this is not yet a settled point, though they have been placed in this form. The JEginetan statues (Fig. 98) are of marble and were purchased by the late King Ludwig of Ba- varia and placed in the Glyptothek at Munich after having been very much restored by Thorwaldseii at Rome. The west- ern pediment is that given in our illustration ; and the subject, formerly thought to be the contest for the body of Patroclus, is now thought to be the fight of Greeks and Trojans around the body of Achilles, who lies at the feet of Athene. These eleven figures are in better preservation than those of the eastern pediment, which was so far destroyed that only five could be put together. Those of the east pediment are rather larger. They represent either Hercules and his companions fighting over the body of Laomedoii or an incident of the expedition of Hercules and Tt'lamon against Troy. Athene is represented *For a description of temple architecture see pages 9 >3. 80 GREEK ARCHITECTURE AND SCULPTURE. closely after the hieratic type, con- siderably larger than the other fig- ures, with her feet turned sideways, but her face to the front, while the mortal combatants are placed in various attitudes of strong action, but with most of the heads in pro- file. These statues are all carved in the round and are consequently most interesting as showing the great step in advance that had been made in technic capabilities. The study of the figure will be noticed as singularly accurate, even to the veins and tendons and the anatomy of the joints. This vigorous naturalism is carried out also in the spirited atti- tudes and in the fallen and falling combatants. The remarkable style in which the athletic points of the figures are displayed by the sculptor, has been attributed to the knowledge of the figure which he gained when he witnessed the Olympic games, the victors in which were honored by having statues made of them, often at the expense of their city or state, to be placed in the groves of the temples. Still greater realism was obtained by making the weap- ons spears and bows (shown, as replaced by modern ones in the cut) as well as other parts of the details, of bronze. On some of the figures of the eastern pediment the hair of the beards was .finished witli curls ' of metal wire attached, while the eyes were painted, and the bloody wounds were also colored. This may have been an. improvement of a TEMPLE IJECOKATION. 81 later taste, but, whenever applied, portions of the color are still to be seen. The figures of sturdy, robust, and gladiatorial forms are short in the proportions and are under the size of life. The heads are particularly significant of the art of the time, carved with artistic skill, but all of one type, and having no other expression than the same complacent smile. Whether attacking to the death or whether in. the last agony, there is the same smile. This was so probably because the sculptor did not allow himself to depart from the received type of the heroic countenance. It was not that he was incapable, or how could he have modeled the body so exactly with an accuracy that FIG. 99. METOPE ; FROM THE TEMPLE OF THESEUS. 29 INCHES HIGH. perhaps even approaches to dryness? Still, it was not the portrayal of beauty that was the aim, but a forcible representa- tion of a scene of historic interest with all the accentuation and emphasis that exact imitation could give without the expression of the countenance. As to the sculptor of these remarkable statues, two names are recorded as celebrated by Quintilian Gallon and Hegesias ; but whether both were engaged upon them, as if one did the eastern and the other the western pediment, is not related. Tli'- Athenian Style. At Athens we have already seen what the style of sculpture during the time of Pisistratus and his successors was in the 82 GREEK ARCHITECTURE AND SCULPTURE. stiffness and archaic forms of the draperies (560 490 B. C.) and we have noted the absence of any sculpture in the round in marble, at least so far as discovery has hitherto gone. But art and especially architecture had advanced. When the bones of Theseus were found in Scyros, one of the islands of the ^Egean, by Cimon in 469 B. C., the oracle directed that Athens should be their guardian ; and a temple called the Theseum was built to do honor to the remains of the great hero and king of Athens. The pediment of this temple, which is of Pentelic marble, contained statues ; but they have been de- stroyed. Some of the metopes and the sculptured friezes in FIG. 100. METOPE ; THESEUS OVERCOMING THE WRESTLER CERCYON. high relief at the east and west ends are still in their ancient position. Figures 99 to 102 show some of them. The subjects of the frieze are, at the east end, the battle of the gods and the giants, and, at the west, Theseus fighting with the Centaurs. Theseus, it will be remembered, killed the Minotaur, conquered the Amazons, and subdued the Cen- taurs at Thebes. Referring to the illustrations it will be ob- served what an extraordinary advance there is in these figures from the style of the ^Eginetan statues ; the forms are well- proportioned, the head not too large, and the muscles dis- played in the swelling, lifelike movement of muscles in action. The one figure in which the sculptor evidently in- TEMPLE DECORATION. 83 tended to show his knowledge of the anatomy of the back, perhaps the most difficult of any, is most remarkable (Fig. 102). There is nothing finer than this throughout the Par- thenon frieze. Indeed, it will be admitted on comparing these Theseum sculptures with those of the Parthenon, that the former are of such excellence as to have been well worthy of being examples to the sculptors who, a few years after- wards, were engaged under Phidias. FIGS. 101, 102. TEMPLE OF THESEUS FRIEZE. I. THE GODS WATCHING THE BATTLE. II. THE BATTLE OF THE GODS AND GIANTS. It is important to understand that these sculptures of the Theseum must have been studied by Phidias and his con- temporaries and that they must have raised the art to a very high standard, such as would inspire the loftiest ambition in those who were afterwards intrusted with the works of the Parthenon. It is not known whether Ageladas, the master of 84 GREEK ARCHITECTURE AND SCULPTURE. Phidias, was the sculptor who designed these fine works ; but, if he were, we might imagine that some of these figures are to be ascribed to his pupil, destined to become the master famous forever as the greatest in classic sculpture. Other able sculp- tors of the time were Onatas of ^Egina and Calamis, whose name is associated with bronze work and who is distinguished as the sculptor of the Apollo Alexicacus. It is known that Phidias finished his great statue in ivory and gold in the Parthenon in the third year of the 85th Olympiad, 438 B. C., when he must have been about 58 or 60 years old, if born as presumed between the 70th and 72d Olympiads ; therefore it is quite possible that he might have been engaged upon the sculptures of the Theseum as a young man. That he must have acquired the reputation of being the first sculptor in Athens at the time the Parthenon was deter- mined upon by Pericles, is only what is to be concluded ; otherwise, such an important M r ork would not have been placed in his hands. The Grand Style of Phidias. We have arrived now at a period in. ancient art when at Athens, the center of the civilization of the world, the Par- thenon, the most beautiful example of architecture, adorned with the grandest works of sculpture, was created. Phidias was intrusted by Pericles with the general design and direc- tion of this great national work (4-54 138 B. C.), while two architects, Ictinus and Callicrates, are also recorded as the practical builders and probably the designers, with Phidias, of the temple. The whole world of art, ancient and modern, has always with one voice extolled the architecture and the sculpture. It has been pronounced "of all the great temples the best and most celebrated ; the only octostyle (eight col- umns wide) Doric temple in Greece, and in its own class un- doubtedly the most beautiful building in the world." The architecture of the Parthenon has already been described (pages 16-27). The subject of the Parthenon sculptures has received an im- mense amount of learned investigation, particularly by the German archzeologists, and especially by Michaelis, who may be said to have almost exhausted the materials. It would TEMPLE DECORATION. 85 be impossible, within any practical limits, to place before the reader the arguments as to the identification of the various figures. We shall therefore content ourselves with a brief statement of the conclusions that have been reached. The Frieze (page 51). The frieze sculptures represent the famous procession in honor of Athene the patroness of the city. "On the birthday of the goddess the procession which conveyed the j^los (a robe in this case embroidered with mythological figures) to her temple, assembled in the outer Kerameikos (quarter of the modelers) and passed through FHJ. 103. FROM THE FRIEZE OF THE PARTHENON, 47^ INCHES HIGH. the lower city round the Acropolis, which it ascended through the Propylsea (page 17). During its passage through the Kerameikos the 2^cplos was displayed on the mast of the ship which was propelled on rollers. On the eastern frieze the delivery of the peplos is represented in the presence of certain deities (Fig. 106). Toward this central point converge two lines of procession, which, starting from the west side of the temple, proceed along its northern and southern sides toward the center of the eastern front." Beginning with the western frieze, the start of the horsemen under the direction of one of the marshals, and the figures of men in various attitudes 86 GREEK ARCHITECTURE AND SCULPTURE. of mounting and riding, display the wonderful power of the ancient Greek sculptor in representing the horse and his rider (Fig. 103) . Nothing can be finer in composition than many of these groups of complex forms or more striking than the effect given with such very low relief. Along the northern frieze the horsemen are continued in crowded though admirably composed throngs. Amazing inventive faculty is shown in the variety of attitude and unflagging spirit and lifelike energy characterizing the figures. As Mr. Newton remarks " In the 125 mounted figures in this cavalcade we do not find one single monotonous repetition. . . A rhythmical effect is produced by the contrast of the impetuous horses and their calm steadfast riders." Several figures carrying vases, others with trays holding offerings of cakes, and others lead- ing the cows to be sacrificed are remarkable for freedom r FIG. 104. PART OF THE SOUTHERN FRIEZE OF THE PARTHENON. and naturalness (Fig. 104). These last were the offerings con- tributed by the colonies to the great festival. On the eastern frieze we see the two great lines of the procession meeting over the entrance, where a group of magistrates receive the advancing procession on either side. Here are two groups of twelve seated male and female figures in pairs, six on one side and six on the other. Between these are five TKMPLE DECOKATIOX. 87 standing figures (Fig. 106), representing the offering of the peplos. The beautiful maidens of Athens, draped and carry- ing jugs, are noble figures in graceful and stately attitudes. The central portion of the eastern frieze has been the subject of much discus- sion, but, the faces as well as the attri- butes and other indicatiousby 3 which they could ? be identified, hav- 8 ing suffered much ^ injury, it is very 2 difficult to judge | the true interpre- tation. The southern frieze is occupied with the chariots and the sacrificial cows and sheep, the offerings of the colonies, with numerous figures of drovers a 11 d others in every beautiful variety of attitude (Fig. 104). Each chari- oteer is accompa- nied by an armed warrior either in the chariot or at its side, not as in the northern frieze stepping in- to it. The horse- men on this south side are in moiv regular order and 88 GREEK ARCHITECTURE AND SCULPTURE. not in a tumultuous throng as on the opposite side and there- fore it has been supposed they are the trained cavalry of Athens. This part of the frieze is much injured. The Metopes (page 51). These are the blocks sculptured with groups partly in high relief and partly in the round, which oc- cupy the spaces known asmetopce. They were on the outside of the tem- ple, above the architrave and were continued all round, 92 in num- ber, viz. : 14 at each end beneath the pediments and 32 at each side. Of these scarcely thirty are well preserved, fifteen i n the British Museum, one in the Louvre i n Paris, the rest in their original po- sitions in the Par- thenon. The metopes on the south side have for their sub- ject the contest of the Centaurs and Lapithre at the marriage feast of Pirithous. The twenty-eighth metope in the original series is pointed out specially by Mr. Newton " for dramatic power in the con- TEMPL.K DECOKATION. 89 ception and truth in the modeling of the forms this metope is unrivaled " (Fig. 107). The metopes of the north side are so much damaged that their subjects cannot be made out, but it is conjectured by Michaelis that they may have represented a scene from the taking of Troy ; while Mr. Newton suggests they may have been a continuation of the series of combats of Centaurs and Lapitlue. FIG. 107. CONTEST BETWEEN THE CENTAURS AND THE L ONE OK THE METOPES OF THE PARTHENON. Of the metopes on the west front, all except two remain in position, hut are too much injured to be made out ; the subject appears to refer to the battles of Greeks with Amazons. The metopes of the east front are all in position on the temple, though much injured. The subject, however, is known to be the battle of the gods and giants. Tf ic Sculptures of tlic, P> dinunts (Fiirs. 10s, 100) represented, as I'uusanias describes, over the eastern end above the entrance to the temple the birth <>f Athene and over the western end the contest of Athene and Neptune for the soil of Attica. 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