Chapter 11

GREEK ARCHITECTURE.

_Buildings 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 Egyptian, 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 architecture 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 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 advanced 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 (333 B.C.), after which period it declined 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 exclusively from ruins of public buildings, and to a limited extent of 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 entertained by the Egyptians. The building was to a much greater extent designed for external effect than internal. A comparatively 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 enclosed 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 exterior. Whether this may have been, to some extent, 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 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 at least one of the gables was made into a portico by the help of columns and two pilasters (Fig. 50). More important temples had a larger number of columns, and often a portico at each end (Figs. 50a and 55). The most important had columns on the flanks as well as at the front and rear, the sacred cell being, in fact, surrounded by them. It will be apparent from this that the column, together with the superstructure which rested upon it, must have played a very important part in Greek temple-architecture, and an inspection of any representations of Greek buildings will at once confirm the impression.

We find in Greece three distinct manners, distinguished 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 recognised 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, mouldings, features, and ornaments, though the main forms of the buildings 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 recognised, just as a botanist recognises 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 mouldings 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 abandonment 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 throw a curious light upon the 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 ship builders. 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 for ever" the forms of a timber structure were those that presented themselves to the imagination of the sculptor. In other instances the resemblance to shipwrights' work disappears, and that of a carpenter is followed by that of the mason. Thus we find imitations of timber beams framed together and of overhanging 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 Greek 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, 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 appearance of imitating structures of timber, mark the sites of the oldest cities of Greece, Mycenæ and Orchomenos for example, the most ancient being Pelasgic city walls of unwrought stone (Fig. 51). The so-called Treasury of Atreus at Mycenæ, a circular underground chamber 48 ft. 6 in. in diameter, and with a pointed vault, is a well-known specimen of more regular yet archaic building. Its vault is constructed of stones corbelling over one another, and is not a true arch (Figs. 52, 52a). The treatment of an ornamental column found here, and of the remains of sculptured ornaments over a neighbouring 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 Mycenæ from even the rudest and most archaic of the remaining Hellenic works of Greece. The Doric temple at Corinth is attributed, as has been stated, to the seventh century B.C. This was a massive masonry structure with extremely short, stumpy columns, and strong mouldings, but presenting the main features of the Doric style, as we know it, in its earliest and rudest form. Successive examples (Figs. 53 to 53b) show increasing slenderness of proportions and refinement 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 marble of a timber construction. These occur in the entablature, while the column is of a type which it is hard to believe is not copied from originals in use in Egypt many centuries earlier, and already described (chap. II.).

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 recognise the forms referred to in the preceding paragraph as we come to them. The most complete Greek Doric temple was the Parthenon, the work of the architect Ictinus, 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.[10]

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.[11] The temple itself was of perfectly regular 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) behind. In the cella, and also in the chamber behind, there were columns. A series of columns surrounded this building, 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 ft. long by 101 ft. wide, and 64 ft. high. The columns were each 34 ft. 3 in. high, and more than 6 ft. 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 École des Beaux Arts, Paris. The ornaments consisted almost exclusively of sculpture of the very finest quality, executed by or under the superintendence of Pheidias. Of this sculpture many specimens are now in the British Museum.

The construction of this temple was of the most solid and durable kind, marble being the material used; and the workmanship 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. 56), carried on a timber framework, all traces of which have entirely perished; 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 Bötticher's restoration of the Temple at Pæstum which we reproduce (Fig. 56a), though without pledging ourselves to its accuracy; for, indeed, it seems probable that something more or less like the clerestory of a Gothic church must have been 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.[12]

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 stylobate, six to the column, and one to the entablature.

The Greek Doric order is without a base; the shaft of the column springs from the top step and tapers towards the top, the outline being not, however, straight, but of a subtle curve, known technically as the entasis of the column. This shaft is channelled with twenty shallow channels,[13] the ridges separating one from another being very fine lines. A little below the moulding 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 moulding of the capital. This moulding, which is of a section calculated to convey the idea of powerful support, is called the echinus, and its lower portion is encircled by a series of fillets (Fig. 59), which are cut into it. Above the echinus, which is circular, like the shaft, comes the highest member--the abacus, a square stout slab of marble, which completes the capital of the column. The whole is most skilfully designed to convey the idea of sturdy support, and yet to clothe the support with grace. The strong proportions of the shaft, the 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 vigorous 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 outwards; 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.

The entablature which formed the superstructure consisted first of a square marble 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. 63), 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 pendants, known as guttæ, which closely resemble wooden pins, such as would be used to keep a timber beam in place. The panels between the triglyphs are usually as wide as they are high. They are termed metopes and sculpture commonly occupies them. The third division of the entablature, the cornice represents the overhanging eaves of the roof.

The cornices employed in classic architecture may be almost 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 mouldings, 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. 64), dropping towards 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 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 alluded to. 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 convex moulding, 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 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 manner which can be best understood by inspecting a diagram of the corner of a Greek Doric building (Fig. 57); and the triangular 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 round the exterior of the cell, near the top of the wall.

One other feature was employed in Greek temple-architecture. 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 columns in the neighbourhood of which it was employed. The antæ of the Greek Doric order, as employed in the Parthenon, have a moulded base, which it will be remembered is not the case with the column, and their capital has for its principal feature an under-cut moulding, known as the bird's beak, quite dissimilar from the ovolo of the capital of the column (Fig. 65). Sometimes the portico of a temple consisted of the side walls prolonged, and ending in two antæ, with two or more columns standing between them. Such a portico is said to be in antis.

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 _entasis_ or convex curve of the tapered outline of the shaft of the column. Without the taper, which is perceptible enough in the order of this building, and much more marked in the order of earlier buildings, 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 ft. high, and diminish from a diameter of 6·15 ft. at the bottom to 4·81 ft. 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 ¾ in. 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 outwards towards the top. This is met by inclining the columns slightly inwards. So slight, however, is the inclination, that were the axes of two columns on opposite sides of the Parthenon continued upwards till they met, the meeting-point would be 1952 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 building, are 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 2 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 demonstrated by Mr. John Pennethorne;[14] 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 5 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 proportioned.

The Parthenon, like many, if not all Greek buildings, was profusely decorated with coloured ornaments, of which nearly every trace has now disappeared, but which must have contributed largely to the splendid beauty of the building as a whole, and must have emphasised 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 richness.

The principal remaining examples or fragments of Greek Doric may be enumerated as follows:--

IN GREECE.

Temple of (?) Athena, at Corinth, ab. 650 B.C. Temple of (?) Zeus, in the island of Ægina, ab. 550 B.C. Temple of Theseus (Theseum), at Athens, 465 B.C. Temple of Athena (Parthenon), on the Acropolis at Athens, fin. 438 B.C. The Propylæa, on the Acropolis at Athens, 436-431 B.C. Temple of Zeus at Olympia. Temple of Apollo Epicurius, at Bassæ,[15] in Arcadia (designed by Ictinus). Temple of Apollo Epicurius, at Phigaleia, in Arcadia (built by Ictinus). Temple of Athena, 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 at Ægesta (or Segesta), in Sicily. Temple of (?) Zeus, at Selinus, in Sicily (? ab. 410 B.C.). Temple of (?) Athena, at Syracuse, in Sicily. Temple of Poseidon, at Pæstum, in South of Italy (? ab. 550 B.C.).

FOOTNOTES:

[10] See Frontispiece and Figs. 54 and 55.

[11] The Propylæa.

[12] Mr. Fergusson's investigations, soon, it is understood, to be published in a complete form, clearly show that the clerestory and roof can be restored with the greatest probability.

[13] In a few instances a smaller number is found.

[14] 'Geometry and Optics of Ancient Architecture.'

[15] ? Exterior Doric--Interior Ionic.