How to Study Architecture by Charles H. Caffin (reading the story of the .TXT) 📖

work done by artists, but under their supervision by pupils and masons. From the records of payments made to the sculptors who worked on the Erechtheion it appears that they were ordinary masons, some of them not even citizens, who were paid for each figure the sum of 60 drachms, or 12 dollars!

Finally, the decoration of a Greek Temple comprised not only sculpture, but also painting. A large part of every Doric temple was covered with strong, bright colours, while certain prominent details were treated with elaborate patterns. The figures of the sculpture also were painted and relieved against a background of contrasted colour.

It has been discovered that the triglyphs were painted blue and the metopes red and that the mouldings were decorated with ornament in red, blue, green, and gold. The walls and the columns were probably stained yellow or buff, perhaps by the use of wax melted on the surface (encaustic).

Asymmetries or Refinements.—It might seem that, in the various particulars we have noted, Hellenic intellect and feeling had exhausted the possibilities of refinement. But there is yet another instance, which was first revealed by the detailed measurements of Hellenic temples made independently by two Englishmen, Francis Cranmer Penrose and John Pennethorne, and by a German architect, Joseph Hoffer. The results were published in 1838 and in 1851, and have been corroborated by other students. They are known as architectural “refinements” or “asymmetries.”

It had been assumed that, since the form of the temple type was apparently symmetrical, it also involved absolute symmetry of details; that geometrical regularity and mathematical accuracy were the necessary and natural conditions of the architectural design. By those investigators, however, it was discovered that though the principles of geometry and mathematics were the foundation of the planning and designing, regularity and accuracy were purposely avoided; and that so far from the details being symmetrical they exhibit intentional asymmetries.

One of these irregularities is the substitution of curved for straight lines. We have already mentioned the entasis or swell in the vertical contour of the column—a fact not observed by modern architects until 1810; but curvature is also found in the horizontal lines of the stylobate and the architrave, frieze, and cornice, and in the gable lines of the pediments. And since these were discovered other variations of equal importance and significance have been found.

“In the Parthenon, for instance,” (the quotation is from the writings of Professor William H. Goodyear) “surfaces or members which are set true to perpendicular are most exceptional. Perhaps the end walls are the only exception. All the columns lean inward about three inches in thirty feet toward the centre of the building. The side walls lean inward. The antæ, or flat pilasters at the angles of the ends of the walls, lean forward one unit in eighty-two units. The faces of the architrave and frieze lean backward, whereas the acroteria, the face of the cornice and the face of the fillet between architrave and frieze lean forward. Furthermore, the columns and capitals of the Parthenon are of unequal size, and the widths of the metopes and the intercolumnar spacings are also unequal.”

The discovery of these variations was pooh-poohed by architects who had been trained to believe that “correct” architecture depended upon geometrical regularity and mathematical accuracy. They dismissed them lightly as “mason’s errors.” But this will not hold for three reasons. Firstly, these asymmetries only occur in the finest examples, where the design and the details are of superior refinement and the skill of the masons most unmistakable. Secondly, the number of variations increases pro rata with the superiority of the design, reaching their maximum in the Parthenon. And, thirdly, in cases which are unquestionably due to mason’s errors the amount of the variation is practically negligible. Is it likely, for example, that the masons who brought the two ends of the Parthenon within one quarter of an inch of being exactly equal in width, would have been so careless as to let the presumably horizontal lines curve up four inches on the sides of the buildings and two inches at its ends? Or, again, would they have committed so flagrant an error as giving the stylobate a convex curve upward, since it necessitated a corresponding curve to the base of each column, a most difficult and delicate operation of cutting? The perfect adjustment of these two curves, by the way, is one of many arguments against the theory that these variations were caused by settlements in the foundations or, in the case of the Parthenon, by the explosion which wrecked it in 1687, when it was being used by the Turks as a powder magazine.

The fact having been established that these variations were intentional, how are they to be explained? A generally accepted explanation of the curvatures in place of straight lines has been that they were intended to correct an optical effect of curvature in the opposite direction. Thus, if the contour of a column shaft were a straight line, it would appear to the eye to curve inward; similarly, the horizontal lines of the stylobate and entablature would appear to sag downward. Accordingly, the “refinements” were designed as optical corrections of optical effects of irregularity; in other words, geometrical effect is supposed to have been sought by departures from geometric fact.

This, however, would not explain the other variations that have been noted. Moreover, it is contradicted even in the case of curvatures by a discovery of Professor Giovannoni of Rome, that the façade of the Temple at Uri has a curvature in plan.[3] The columns, that is to say, are not set to a straight line but to a curve which is concave to the exterior; consequently the entablature is correspondingly curved, the effect of which to the eye as it looks up is the very one that it was explained the architects strove to avoid—a sag downward from the ends. In this case they deliberately designed the façade to produce the effect.

This explanation of optical corrections, then, as well as others, have been proved erroneous by Professor William H. Goodyear, who has made a life-long study of the subject and carried his investigations also into Gothic architecture, in which, as we shall see, he has discovered numerous instances of refinements and asymmetries. His explanation, supported by a wealth of conclusive evidence which is set forth in his “Greek Refinements,” is that the motive was æsthetic. The refinements were modulations designed to please the eye by avoiding the inartistic effects produced by formal monotony. They were planned to do away with the monotony and rigidity that result from geometrical regularity and mathematical accuracy and to introduce a suggestion of elasticity. They imparted to the structure something of the irregularity that characterises organic growth. It is because, with rare exceptions, they are not found in modern classical buildings, that the latter appear by comparison so stiff and formal.

These asymmetries, in fact, were intended to offset the liability of the beauty’s becoming “faultily faultless, icily regular, splendidly null, dead perfection, no more.”

 

With few exceptions the Hellenic temple was oriented; its four sides facing exactly the four points of the compass, the principal entrance being on the east. It opened into the cella which was usually divided into what may be called a nave and side aisles by two rows of columns which carried smaller columns that supported the pitch of the roof. Where the cella was narrow, as in the Temple of Apollo Epicurios (“The Helper”) at Bassæ, near Phigaleia, the rows of columns were replaced by half-columns, attached to projections from side walls. The cella was occupied by the statue of the deity, which in the case of the Parthenon was the Athene Parthenos, the Maiden Athene, one of the most renowned works of Phidias. The draped figure of the goddess was represented standing, armed with helmet, spear and shield, supporting in one hand a Wingèd Victory. The statue was about forty feet high and of the kind known as “chryselephantine,” the draperies and accessories being of gold plates, the flesh parts ivory, with precious stones inserted in the eyes.

Behind this statue was the entrance to a small room, situated between the cella and the opisthodomos, an exceptional feature from which the name of the temple was derived. It was the Parthenon proper, or Virgin’s Chamber, which seems to have been used as a treasury. Its ceiling was supported by four Ionic columns.

The Ionic order in conjunction with the Doric was also employed in the Propylæa or monumental gateway of the Acropolis. This masterpiece of Mnesicles presents an irregularity of plan, exhibiting the Hellenic architect’s readiness to adapt his design to the peculiarities of the site. While Doric columns mark the exterior, Ionic were used in the interior to dignify the central passageway. A similar use of this order for interior embellishment was adopted by Ictinus, the chief architect of the Parthenon, in his otherwise Doric design of the Temple of Apollo Epicurios.

On the other hand, the Ionic order was employed on the exterior of the Erechtheion, another work of Mnesicles also irregular in plan. It occupies a sloping site on the Acropolis, where an older temple, burnt by the Persians, had stood. Spoils of the Persian conquest were preserved in it with other relics, held in special veneration. The nucleus of the design is a cella without colonnades (apteral), the sanctuary of Athena Polias (the City’s Guardian) and of Erechtheus (a mythic hero of the Athenians) and the Ocean-god, Poseidon. The exterior is distinguished by two Ionic porticoes, and by a third, a smaller one, in which the columns are replaced by caryatides, six draped female figures whose heads support the architrave. All these figures face south, the three to the west resting their weight on the right legs; the three eastern on the left—in each case the outer legs—thus giving to the outer contour of their bodies the effect of entasis.

Another Ionic example on the Acropolis is the Temple of Athene Nike (Victory), known as the Temple of Nike Apteros; the term “Wingless,” however, not describing the statue of the goddess but, as used above, the style of the design—without colonnades.

Theatres.—Only second in importance to the Hellenic temples were the theatres. Both served as memorials of the ancient traditions of the race and as an incentive to higher citizenship. For the drama, which had its origin in religious observances, was a civic institution, maintained by the state and free to all citizens.

The origin of the Greek drama is to be found in the primitive worship of Dionysos, the god of productiveness, and to the last the Greek stage and auditorium perpetuated in their form some trace of their religious origin. The nucleus was an altar consecrated to Dionysos. In earliest times each family may have erected its own altar, presided over by the father of the family as priest. Later each community would have its official priest, and on the god’s feast-day all the villagers would move in procession to the common altar, headed by the priest and a choir of singers, trained by him. The altar reached, the priest would mount the pedestal, surrounded by the choir, while the body of worshippers disposed themselves around the spot. The priest would recite the greatness of the god and at intervals the choir of voices would chant the dithyrambic song, moving around the altar and accompanying the song with rhythmic movement of body and limbs.

From this root of a religious drama in time grew successive stems. The prowess of some hero would be adopted as a theme. At first the priest, or it may be some wandering poet, would narrate the story; later he would treat it in the first person, impersonating the hero, sometimes engaging in dialogue with the chorus. Still later, other personages in the story would