Читать книгу Architecture - D'Anvers N. - Страница 9

In their architecture as in their sculpture the Greeks gave eloquent expression to the exquisite feeling for symmetry of form which was one of their most distinctive characteristics. Architects and masons were in close touch with the people for whom they built, no social barriers, so far as the arts and crafts were concerned, divided class from class, citizens, aliens, and even slaves vying with each other in their zeal to produce the best work possible.

The finest buildings of ancient Greece and its dependencies entirely fulfilled the conditions of true architecture, for they were beautiful alike in design and execution, admirably adapted to the purpose for which they were erected, and in complete harmony with their surroundings. Moreover they are of exceptional importance in the history of the evolution of the art on account of the influence they exercised on that of other countries, all their distinctive features having been either copied or modified in those of the rest of Europe.

Plan of Greek Temple

The Greeks, though they were doubtless acquainted with the arch, the dome, and the tower, refrained as a general rule from using them, probably because they considered them unsuitable to the topographical and climatic conditions that prevailed in their native land. They achieved their highest results by means of correctness of proportion and dignity of outline, giving far more attention to the exterior than to the interior of their buildings, and in this respect differing greatly from the Egyptians, who endeavoured to impress the spectator chiefly by the vast extent and massiveness of their temples and palaces.

Doric Capital

Recent discoveries on the site of Knossos in Crete of the remains of a many-roomed palace, and elsewhere in the same island of circular stone tombs, all of which betray strong Oriental influence, confirm the opinion of archæologists that it was in the islands of the Ægina Sea that the first works of architecture properly so called were erected in Europe. On the mainland of Greece, notably at Mycenæ and Tiryns, exists relics of many buildings, including at the former the noble Lion Gate that gave access to the Acropolis, and at the latter the residence of a chieftain, which maintain the continuity between the earliest and the latest phase of Greek architecture, and may justly be said to presage the triumphs of the Golden Age.

Column from the Parthenon

From first to last Hellenic architecture was characterised by unity of purpose, its grandest forms being essentially the same in general principle as its earliest efforts, the mud walls with timber pillars upholding a flat wooden roof, having been gradually transformed into stately colonnaded structures in costly materials, that to this day remain absolutely unrivalled in their exquisite beauty of proportion and the close correlation of every detail with each other and the whole.

Portion of a Doric Entablature

The grand temples of Greece were built either of stone or of marble. As a general rule they are set on a platform to which a long flight of steps lead up, and are enclosed within an outer wall or a continuous colonnade. Their plan is extremely simple: a parallelogram, formed in some cases entirely of columns, in others with walls at the side and columns at the ends only, encloses a second and considerably smaller pillared space known as the cella or naos, that enshrined the image of the god to whom the building was dedicated, and was entered from a pronaos or porch, and with a posticum or back space behind it, sometimes supplemented by a kind of second cella called the opisthodomus or back temple. The front columns at either end are spanned by horizontal beams that uphold a sloping gable called a pediment, the flat, three-cornered surface of which is generally adorned with sculpture in bas-relief, and along the side-columns is placed what is known as the entablature, that consists of three parts, the architrave resting on the capitals of the columns, the frieze above it and the cornice, the last of which sustains the flat roof, usually covered with tiles or marble copies of tiles.

The Parthenon

Greek architecture is generally divided into three groups or orders: the Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian, each of which, though the buildings belonging to them resemble each other in general plan, is distinguished by certain peculiarities of the columns and entablatures. The Doric was the earliest to be employed, but the Ionic, that early succeeded it, was long used simultaneously with it, sometimes even in the same building, whilst the Corinthian did not come into use until considerably later.

Metope from the Parthenon

In the Doric order the column has no separate base, but rises direct from the top step of the platform on which the building it belongs to stands. It is of massive form and has what is known as an entasis or slightly convex surface, it is generally fluted, that is to say, cut into parallel perpendicular channels, several rings called annulets connecting it with the capital, which consists of an echinus or rounded moulding and an abacus or unrounded slab resting on the echinus. The Doric entablature is equally simple, the architrave being perfectly plain, whilst the frieze is adorned with triglyphs or three upright projections with grooves between them, set at equal distances from each other, the spaces separating them, known as metopes, being as a rule enriched with fine sculptures of figure subjects. The frieze is connected with the cornice by narrow bands called mutules resting on the triglyphs and metopes, and the cornice itself has a plain lower band known as the corona, surmounted by more or less decorated courses of stone or marble.

Portion of Frieze of Parthenon

Portion of Frieze of Parthenon

The Ionic and Corinthian orders are alike characterised by lightness and grace rather than massiveness and simplicity. In both, the columns, instead of rising direct from the platform, have a complex base consisting of a number of circular mouldings above another, the fluted shafts are comparatively slim and tapering, and the channels in them are divided by spaces called fillets. In the Ionic order the flat abacus of the Doric capital is replaced by two coiled volutes projecting beyond the echinus on either side, and the horizontal portion between the volutes is surmounted by finely carved leaf mouldings. The Corinthian order is specially distinguished by the ornate decoration of the capitals, that represent calices of flowers and leaves, chiefly those of the acanthus, arranged so as to point upwards and curve outwards in much the same style as they do in nature. The architrave in both the Ionic and the Corinthian orders consists of plain slabs, but the frieze—which is not divided as in Doric buildings into triglyphs and metopes—is in nearly every case enriched with a series of beautiful figure subjects, and is therefore known as the Zoophorus or figure-bearer.

Ionic Capital

Ionic Column

Among the most ancient remains of sacred Greek architecture are those of the Heræon or Sanctuary of the Goddess Hera at Olympia; of the temple that preceded the Parthenon at Athens; and of those at Assos in Asia Minor, Selinus in Sicily, and Corcyra in Corfu, the last a very typical example of archaic Doric, with a pediment in which are primitive sculptures of a gorgon flanked by lions. Of somewhat later date are the ruined temples at Girgenti, Syracuse, and Segesta, all in Sicily, the last the best preserved of all; the group at Pæstum in Southern Italy, of which that of Neptune is the finest, the pediments having been originally filled in with beautifully executed sculptured figures. The Temple of Athene in the island of Ægina marks the transition from the extreme severity of early Doric to the more ornate buildings of the Golden Age of Greek architecture, its decorative sculptures being of exquisite design and execution. The Temple of Jupiter at Athens, begun in the Doric style by Pisistratus about 540 B.C. and not completed until about 174 B.C., has Corinthian capitals on some of its columns, and the Temple of Theseus, of uncertain date, in the same city, that consists entirely of white marble, ranks, in spite of its severe simplicity, even with that of Neptune at Pæstum on account of its fine proportions and the admirable finish of every detail.

Ionic Entablature from the Erectheum

It was in the Parthenon, or Temple of the Virgin Goddess of Wisdom, at Athens, that the Doric style found its highest expression, for in it were combined the massive grandeur of the archaic period with the refinements of construction, decoration, and lighting of a more scientific but not less æsthetic age. It occupies the site of an earlier building, the relics of which are referred to above, that was destroyed by Xerxes, and it rises from the summit of the lofty rock of the Acropolis that dominated the ancient city. It was built, it is supposed, by the famous architects Ictinus and Callicrates about 440 B.C., under the enlightened ruler Pericles, and its decorative sculptures, some of which are now in the British Museum, were the work of Phidias and his pupils, and, mutilated though they are, they still rank amongst the greatest masterpieces of plastic art.

Before the Parthenon, after being long used as a Christian church, was reduced to ruins by the explosion of a shell, when in 1687 it was desecrated by being converted into a powder magazine by the Turks during their struggle with the Venetians, it must have been one of the very noblest buildings in the world, forming with other sanctuaries and secular buildings on the world-famous hill a spectacle of surpassing grandeur, the pride and glory of the whole Greek world.

Acanthus Ornament

Corinthian Capital

The Parthenon was 228 feet long by 101 broad, and 64 feet high; the porticoes at each end had a double row of eight columns; the sculptures in the pediments were in full relief, representing in the eastern the Birth of Athene, and in the western the Struggle between that goddess and Poseidon, whilst those on the metopes, some of which are supposed to be from the hand of Alcamenes, the contemporary and rival of Phidias, rendered scenes from battles between the Gods and Giants, the Greeks and the Amazons, and the Centaurs and Lapithæ.

Of somewhat later date than the Parthenon and resembling it in general style, though it is very considerably smaller, is the Theseum or Temple of Theseus on the plain on the north-west of the Acropolis, and at Bassæ in Arcadia is a Doric building, dedicated to Apollo Epicurius and designed by Ictinus, that has the peculiarity of facing north and south instead of, as was usual, east and west.

Scarcely less beautiful than the Parthenon itself is the grand triple portico known as the Propylæa that gives access to it on the western side. It was designed about 430 by Mnesicles, and in it the Doric and Ionic styles are admirably combined, whilst in the Erectheum, sacred to the memory of Erechtheus, a hero of Attica, the Ionic order is seen at its best, so delicate is the carving of the capitals of its columns. It has moreover the rare and distinctive feature of what is known as a caryatid porch, that is to say, one in which the entablature is upheld by caryatides or statues representing female figures.

Corinthian Column from Monument of Lysicrates

Other good examples of the Ionic style are the small Temple of Niké Apteros, or the Wingless Victory, situated not far from the Propylæa and the Parthenon of Athens, the more important Temple of Apollo at Branchidæ near Miletus, originally of most imposing dimensions, and that of Artemis at Ephesus, of which however only a few fragments remain in situ.

Of the sacred buildings of Greece in which the Corinthian order was employed there exist, with the exception of the Temple of Jupiter at Athens already referred to, but a few scattered remains, such as the columns from Epidaurus now in the Athens Museum, that formed part of a circlet of Corinthian pillars within a Doric colonnade. In the Temple of Athena Alea at Tegea, designed by Scopas in 394, however, the transition from the Ionic to the Corinthian style is very clearly illustrated, and in the circular Monument of Lysicrates, erected in 334 B.C. to commemorate the triumph of that hero's troop in the choric dances in honour of Dionysos, and the Tower of the Winds, both at Athens, the Corinthian style is seen at its best.

In addition to the temples described above, some remains of tombs, notably that of the huge Mausoleum at Halicarnassus in memory of King Mausolus, who died in 353 B.C., and several theatres, including that of Dionysos at Athens, with a well-preserved one of larger size at Epidaurus, bear witness to the general prevalence of Doric features in funereal monuments and secular buildings, but of the palaces and humbler dwelling-houses in the three Greek styles, of which there must have been many fine examples, no trace remains. There is however no doubt that the Corinthian style was very constantly employed after the power of the great republics had been broken, and the Oriental taste for lavish decoration replaced the love for austere simplicity of the virile people of Greece and its dependencies.

Corinthian Entablature from Monument of Lysicrates