affords more valuable evidence of his veracity, detracts nothing from his genius. Even the palace of Troy in Asia Minor,* though Paris himself is reputed as a great architect, is described in the same general terms: This, and indeed almost every other passage, referring to the practical arts of antiquity in Asia Minor, (where stood Priam's palace,) says Dr. Memes, is very incorrectly translated. From a comparison of various original descriptions of palatial buildings, a tolerable idea of the highest effects of architecture, during the Homeric and succeeding ages, may be obtained. They appear invariably to have been placed so as to enclose a court,† along the sides of which ran an open corridor, formed by square pillars, for the word corresponding to column, which is a round object, does not once occur in the Iliad. These square pillars, as may be seen in the early Egyptian buildings at Elephanti, were united by a flat epistylia, or architrave from pillar to pillar. "Arched columns" in our translation is decidedly erroneous, for the arch at this time was unknown in Troy and to the Greeks, nor was it discovered till after the Macedonian conquest. It should have been translated high columns. Now during the time of the Iliad, no division of stories appears to have been adopted, and the expression "lofty chambers," so often occurring, seems to imply that the whole was open to the roof, for the apartments, with the exception of the great hall, do not otherwise induce the idea of great magnitude. In the Odyssey, against this mode of division, distinct reference is made, a circumstance which, with many others respecting the arts, points to a much later period than the age of the of the poem itself. CHARACTER OF THE PUBLIC BUILDINGS AT ATHENS IN THE TIME OF PERICLES. "Proud Athens rears on high her towery head, With opening streets and shining structures spread."+ Pisistratus and his son Hipparchus were the first who proposed to introduce a style of elegance and magnificence into the public buildings at Athens; but their plans were too extensive to be finished by themselves, and the continued wars in which the Athenians were involved, joined to a dislike of The city of Troy was founded in 1546 by Scamander, from Crete, and was burnt by the Greeks in 1184 B.C. + The present house of Logotheti in Greece is a good specimen of the better kind of domestic architecture, and we mention it here as it seems, in some respects, to resemble those of the early ages; a double or folding door (the avλaipXELO of the ancients)1 opens into a court or avλŋ, on two sides of which is a corridor, aɛdovoa of Homer.2 The kitchen and menial offices occupy the ground-floor. The stairs, which are on the outside of the house, lead to a large open gallery, useful in rainy weather for walking and taking the air under cover; contiguous to the gallery are the apartments, which are divided into two parts, one for the men and the other for the women. The wall which separates the house from the street, and in which is the entrance, was the рodoμоç, or рoavλiov.-(Dodwell's Classical Tour through Greece, vol. 1. p. 21, 112.) These were of white polished marble. every measure suggested by any person connected with Hippias, prevented them from being afterwards completed. No sooner had Pericles, by eloquence and address, obtained a complete ascendency over the minds of his countrymen, than he conceived a similar design. Possessed himself of a taste for elegance and splendour, he was convinced that while gratifying it, he should at the same time secure the favour of the Athenians, by flattering their vanity, and affording constant employment to the poorer classes of citizens. In carrying these views into effect, he had recourse to one of the boldest and most unprincipled measures which any statesman ever devised. The contributions annually paid by many Grecian states for repelling any future invasion that might be made by the Persians, under whom they had many times suffered, had been transferred from the island of Delos to the citadel of Athens, and having been continued for a number of years, had accumulated to an immense sum. No immediate exigency requiring this for the public service, Pericles persuaded his countrymen to expend on the decorations of Athens and the improvement of the arts, a portion of this sum equal in value to £4,000,000 sterling. In forming the plan of the magnificent edifices which he was thus enabled to construct, Pericles was directed by the celebrated Phidias, the greatest genius in the arts to whom any country has ever given birth.* During fifteen years this wonderful man acted as superintendent of the public works at Athens, and in that time built, of the finest Pentilican marble, the Пapevov, Parthenon or temple of Minerva, the Пpожνλata, Propylia, an entrance into the citadel, the datov, Odæum, or theatre of music, and many splendid porticos in different parts of the city. Notwithstanding the various productions of genius exhibited in Athens, the city itself was far from being beautiful: in general the houses were mean and inelegant, consisting but of one story, and the roofs had terraces. The streets were narrow and irregular, and it was not till a stranger reached the citadel that he could perceive any traces of the elegance and splendour which he had expected to admire from reading the classic poets and historians. Athens has often been besieged by the Persians and oppressed by tribes of Turkish barbarians, and by modern nations stripped and despoiled; ‡ yet, at the distance of more than two thousand years, the ruins of these edifices, fragments of which may be seen in the British Museum, are still viewed with admiration and astonishment, and display that scale of magnificence in architecture, which has never been surpassed for chasteness, beauty, and sublimity.§ As to the Grecian orders of architecture and their origin, we find that the early Greek architects were accustomed to travel to Egypt in order to study the ancient monuments, in the same manner * Dr. Hill's Essays on Ancient Greece. + These porticos, to render their appearance more grand and attractive, had their walls coated with stucco, and painted in fresco, and their ceilings ornamented with lacunary or sunk panels. Under these porticos the Grecians walked, and conversed on business; and here the different philosophers gave lectures to their pupils. (Plutarch's Life of Pericles.) The Turks are now expelled. The Greeks are free, and have formed themselves into a monarchy under Otho I., who has put a stop to any further destruction of these ancient monuments of taste, which, when viewed on their own classic ground, excite the most profound veneration; but which, when removed to another country, lose much of that grandeur which had arisen from associations with the original site and country.—(R. B.) § Solon, in the time of his government, passed a law requiring every Athenian to engage in some profession; and further enacted, that a father who had bred his son to no employment, should not be entitled to demand his assistance or support if, in old age, he became reduced to indigence. In consequence of this, there were few states in which industry had been so common among the higher classes of artisans as at Athens. To give employment to those who had inherited an independent fortune, and were not inclined to engage in manufactures or commerce, Solon decreed painting and statuary to be liberal arts, enacting that they should never be practised by slaves. In consequence of this regulation, the practice of these elegant arts formed the occupation of many wealthy Athenians, and the study of them came to be considered essential to a liberal education. Few persons attained to eminence, but the public taste became refined, and artists found it necessary to give more attention and the highest finish to their productions, when they were to be judged by men familiarly acquainted with the principles on which the beauty of such works depended.—(Plutarch's Life of Solon.) as our young architects now travel into Greece to study the temples, for the purpose of improving and refining their genius, and to enable them to apply rules to their composition. Hence the Greeks can only claim the merit of having chastened, and brought architecture to greater perfection, it being well known that they took their principal ideas from the Egyptians. As the Greeks raised an everlasting monument to their genius in the labyrinth of Crete, built by Dedalus of white marble, so had the Egyptians anterior to this by their famous labyrinth in Egypt, which was adorned with columns of porphyry, and which building we have fully described in the architecture of the Egyptians. The Greeks are allowed to have been the inventors of three orders of architecture: "First, unadorn'd And nobly plain, the manly Doric rose; By fine proportion, that the marble pile Form'd to repel the still or stormy waste Of rolling ages, light as fabrics were That from the magic wand aërial rise. These were the wonders that illumined Greece DORIC ORDER. This order lays claim to a more remote origin than the other two; it is the first found in the monuments of Grecian or classic architecture, and owes its appellation to the Asiatic Dorians, who, long previously to the introduction of any other style, first composed and adopted it from the idea they had gained in their observations of the Egyptian edifices. It was for a long period, indeed, the only one known, and it was brought to the greatest perfection by the Asiatic Greeks.* Prior to the Macedonian conquest, it was exclusively adopted, with very few exceptions, throughout European Greece-Magna Græcia-where even to this day the most ancient remains-particularly those of Pæstum―are found to be the finest specimens of this order. IONIC ORDER. This order owes its rise and appellation to the Ionians of Asia Minor, who, in their cultivation of architectural taste, introduced into this country the new form which particularly distinguishes the Ionic, namely, that of the spiral volute, the idea of which it is evident they had, during their commercial intercourse, borrowed, with very little alteration, from that of the Egyptians, whose temples, particularly at Etfu, Eme, and Kaum Ombou, furnished their capitals with abundant specimens of a feature closely assimilating to its form. The period of its adoption is nowhere recorded: from association of historical events and data, however, it must have been about the middle of the sixth century B.C. CORINTHIAN ORDER. This was the last order invented by the Greeks, and is supposed to have been at Corinth, but at what precise period of time is a matter which has been disputed. The old story--though ingenious enough of the Corinthian sculptor Callimachus having caught the idea from a funereal vase placed over a virgin's grave, covered with a tile on the top, and encircled with an acanthus-plant, which is said to have attracted his attention and admiration, we do not think will bear the test of scrutiny. * Müller's Dorians. P He lived in an age (1540 B.C.) much earlier than that to which this style is by any means traceable, even by associating events, and when architects had not attained to any degree of perfection or variety among the European Greeks. Besides which, the olive branch constitutes the ornamental part of all the most early Corinthian capitals known, a circumstance that greatly tends to shake the belief of such a tradition. On the other hand, it may be asked, Which Callimachus was it? as there were two of that name, who lived at remote periods from each other. This question, however, it has hitherto been found impossible to decide; nor is there any probability of our ever arriving at a just conclusion. At all events, whoever claims the merit of the invention, the idea was very clearly borrowed from a bell-shaped capital very common in Grecian architecture, the body of which is there gracefully surrounded with palm-leaves, and which the Egyptian architect has merely deviated from, by substituting for the latter the plants of the acanthus, or bear's-foot, which was a herb peculiar to his own country.* SUMMARY OF GRECIAN ART. The question now arises, Has Grecian art been less subject to the operation of the same influence than that of Egypt? Jealous as the ancient Greeks were of their claims to originality in every respect, they would not for the most part allow that the sciences, any more than their national ancestry, were of foreign derivation. To such a belief, however, we may award what degree of credit we please, when we remember that Athens, afterwards the fountain of all refinement, owed its foundation, and of course its earliest arts, to the Egyptian Cecrops. The principles of analogy, indeed, as well as the facts of history, lead to the conclusion, that the bold Doric of the Greeks, the first that they composed, was but an improvement on the massive Egyptian from the temple of Cneph, in the island of Elephanti; and so judged Monsieur Denon while studying these primeval models of art in Egypt. Having thus, however, gained so fundamental an idea to proceed upon, the Greeks did not, like those from whom they borrowed their elements of art, feel an inducement from the charms of old associations, or the requirements of national custom, to perpetuate the detailed forms of their prototypes to any greater extent than might be agreeable to their own ideas of fitness. And here also we find a number of accidental circumstances, combining with the suggestions of taste, to produce novelty of style. The sun's rays fell with mildness on Greece compared with their fervour in Egypt; and the mountain prospects on all sides in Greece, like the Elysian fields, were those of beautiful variety, and not of sands and level plains, monotonously dotted over with palm-trees as in Egypt. Hence, instead of few columns occupying as it were a mere opening in a wall, forming the entrance, which was the common Egyptian distribution, the Greeks formed the idea, and found the advantage of a continued colonnade along the flanks of their buildings, as well as the front and postern ends, in which colonnades they took their exercise, excluded from the midday sun, dis * If we may be allowed to judge by the comparatively few and unimportant remains of the Corinthian order in Greece, attributable to periods anterior to the Roman conquest, it can never have attained any degree of favour equal to the other two. However, being possessed of an ornamental character, it was adapted to the splendour and magnificence of the Roman taste, and on their becoming masters of the country, the Romans caused it to be generally adopted, not only in Greece, over the Peloponnesus and their own cities, but throughout all their colonies, and every other country that subsequently fell under their dominion. Hence the splendid structures of Balbec and Palmyra, which are wholly of this order, and executed in the most florid style of ornament, were raised during the reigns of Adrian and Antonine, when Roman architecture had attained its highest perfection.—(The Author.) The Grecian pilaster, it must be observed, differed from the column not only in its mouldings, but in its being made tapering or diminished at the top (B.) coursing on subjects, or enjoying the benign influence of the atmosphere, and the charms of the luxuriant scenery around them. These colonnades also gave grandeur and solemnity to their public edifices. In Greece, however, while the air was most temperate, rain was frequent and copious, in consequence of which the sloping roof was here seen to rise up and span the edifice, the triangular ends of which, being finished with the same cornices as the horizontal parts, now produced the beautiful and dignified pediment.* These two features of the peristyle or colonnade, formed around the building, which were sometimes in double rows, with the pediment at each end, and the internal parallelogram cell, form the distinctive character of the Grecian temple, which, taken in connexion, suggests the idea of a temple in a grove, according to the custom of the primitive pagans in the early ages.+ Passing from the mass to the ornaments, we recognize with satisfaction the happy contingency which scattered on all sides round the Greek architects the acanthus, the honeysuckle, the rose, and other vegetable productions, with modifications of which they have so beautifully decorated their works as to have constituted them examples of taste to all future ages. From the graceful involution and foliage of some of those vegetable plants, the Ionic volute, but more certainly that of the Corinthian capital, may probably have taken its rise, whatever may have been the statements of legendary fable upon this subject. As to the Doric representing the masculine, or the volutes of the Ionic being taken from the curls of hair suspended on each side of a Grecian lady's head; and the Corinthian as representing the feminine of the human figure, or the capital of the Corinthian being suggested by an acanthus-plant, which, as we have before observed, had grown up round a basket containing toys, with a tile on its top that had been placed on the grave of a child by her nurse, we shall not here attempt to discuss. If we look for an additional effect of contingency upon architecture, as attending the customs and events of the times, we shall find that effect is developed by the refinement which gave birth to the Grecian theatre, by the heroism which was rewarded with new monumental structures, by the legends and observances which afford subjects for the collateral decoration of sculpture, or by the encouragement offered by the government in the reign of Pericles, or the oracle, as interest or circumstances suggested. The Greek style was thus formed by the union of many adventitious circumstances, with the exercise of much judgment and taste; and thus, at last, Greece was furnished. * Corinth was the first place where the ends of the temple were finished off with pediments.-(Müller's Dorians, p. 276.) + It appears to have been a principle with the architects of these edifices to have all the chief masses horizontal, and the subordinate masses vertical, excepting such as partake of a diagonal character, which merit distinct consideration; also, that the leading lines should have the effect of undisturbed continuity, whilst the secondary lines should be as decidedly, and sometimes even abruptly intercepted.—(P.) As neither the Greek nor the Roman architects were negligent of the beauties of vegetable nature, so their edifices abounded with imitations of them, being so admirably adapted to the purposes to which they were applied, that they are viewed by the artist, not as copies, but as original inventions. The Greeks, who studied relativeness of form with the greatest care, adopted as prototypes for such ornaments those ligneous plants which best permitted an arrangement of graceful lines, and which they could use as a medium for combining, as it were, one part of the design with another, or for leading the eye of the spectator by the course most advantageous to the general design. In the sculpture of these they observed the same principle of relief, and of light and shade, as where the human figure was employed. In this species of ornament among the Greeks, the stem usually prevailed over the quantity of foliage, whereas in the Roman decorations, the stem was usually subservient to its luxuriance; and the Roman examples prove how capable those artists were to use these means of decoration in an ample manner, without seeming to overcharge the orders in which they were adopted. The artists of both countries employed the circular form of flowers for the same purpose, that of separating one part of the design from the other, as observed in the metopes, and of attracting the eye of the spectator to suitable parts of repose; where, from a multiplicity of angles, a sort of confusion would otherwise occur, as in the lacunary coffers of empanelled ceilings, or in the soffits between the modillions of the Corinthian and Composite orders.-(Papworth.) |