Читать книгу An Apology for the Colouring of the Greek Court in the Crystal Palace - Owen Jones - Страница 3

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The coloured or colourless state of the monuments of the Greeks, and more particularly of their monumental sculpture, has long been a subject of discussion in the world of art; a discussion which, although it may have been carried on with too much faith on the one side, has certainly been accompanied, on the other, with too much prejudice.

At a very early stage in the arrangements for forming in the Crystal Palace a series of reproductions of architectural monuments, I felt that to colour a Greek monument would be one of the most interesting problems I could undertake; not indeed in the hope that I might be able completely to solve it, but that I might, at least, by the experiment remove the prejudices of many.

I felt persuaded that when we had a Greek monument placed side by side with reproductions of other coloured monuments, the authorities for which were indisputable, people would be more willing to recognise the necessity for believing that the monuments of Greece were no exceptions to those of civilisations which preceded or followed them, but that they also like the rest were coloured in every part, and covered with a most elaborate system of ornamentation.

So early as the publication of the “Antiquities of Athens,” by Stuart and Revett, the traces of ornaments on the mouldings of the Greek temples were known and published by them, some of the painted ornaments, however, which they found, being engraved in their work as if in relief; but artists were for long after unwilling to accept these fragments as evidence that an entire system of ornamentation prevailed on the Greek buildings. The late Jules Goury and Professor Semper, from whom will be found a paper on Polychromy in the Appendix, were amongst the earliest to direct attention to this subject; but the most diligent labourer in the field is M. Hittorff, of Paris, who has devoted many years to the production of a magnificent work, in which will be found all the facts that are known, and a history of the long discussion which this subject has provoked.

Mr. Penrose also, in his work on the “Principles of Athenian Architecture,” has recorded all that he himself saw, but is reluctant to believe that any ornaments existed where traces of ornament can no longer be found. He feels that there is “some slight ground of evidence that a peculiar yellow tinge upon some parts of the columns, especially of the west front of the Parthenon, is not simply the yellow said to result from the oxidation of iron contained in Pentelic marble, but has been applied externally as a tint, though perhaps so delicately as merely to reduce the high light of the marble without obscuring its crystalline character.”

He considers it “unreasonable to suppose that the ancients entirely concealed, or even materially altered in appearance, the general surface of the white marble, which they made a great point of obtaining whenever possible; but that no one who has witnessed the painfully dazzling effect of fresh Pentelic marble under the Athenian sun will deny the artistic value of toning down the almost pure white of its polished surface, and the more so when considerable portions of the architecture were painted in the most positive colours. We need not suppose,” he says further, “this tone to have produced more than the difference between fresh white marble and ivory.”

An examination of the facts recorded by these various authorities will convince any one that the question is now narrowed to one of degree only—

“To what extent were white marble temples painted and ornamented?”

I would maintain that they were entirely so; that neither the colour of the marble nor even its surface was preserved; and that, preparatory to the ornamenting and colouring of the surface, the whole was covered with a thin coating of stucco, something in the nature of a gilder’s ground, to stop the absorption of the colours by the marble.

The Egyptians covered their buildings and statues in a similar way, no matter what the material; the Greek temples, which were built of lime-stone, were so undoubtedly; the ancient Greek terra-cottas almost without exception have traces of this ground.

To the belief that the Greeks employed it also on their marble temples, there is only one stumbling-block—the artificial value which white marble has in our eyes.

The Athenians built with marble because they found it almost beneath their feet, and also from the same cause which led the Egyptians to employ granite, which was afterwards painted—viz., because it was the most enduring, and capable of receiving a higher finish of workmanship. With these high thoughts of perfection and durability, they not only built their temples of Pentelic marble, but paved their carriage-way to them with the same material.

The ruin of the Parthenon, as seen at this day on the Acropolis, with the rich tones which the sun of centuries has developed upon it, is a very different thing from a bran-new white marble Parthenon, with many of its enrichments proved to have been picked out in the strongest colours. Such a building would have been horrible to behold under any sun, much more under that of Athens.

Could we set aside the whole of the evidence to the contrary; could we forget the paintings recorded on its cella walls—its interior filled with upwards of six hundred statues, many of them of colossal dimensions, enriched with painting, ivory, gold, and precious stones, which would demand a far different treatment of the building which contained them; could we forget that when a marble statue left the hand of the first of sculptors, it passed into the hands of an equally celebrated encaustic painter to receive its ultimate finish;^[1] could we forget the varieties of material which they combined, certainly harmoniously, in the statues of their gods—the varieties of colour which they gave to a material, by us considered to be so uniform as bronze, in which to heighten the expression they wished to obtain; (by alloys of iron, silver, and gold, used on the various portions of a figure, the greatest known sculptors produced the paleness of death,—the blush of shame,—the smile on the mouth,—the fire of the eye, and the healthy redness of the cheek;)^[2] the ornaments of metal with which many of the marble statues were covered—earrings, bracelets, armlets, sandals, bands round the hair, crowns, diadems of pearls, precious stones, eyes of silver, glass, and precious stones; the metal crown of the Laocoon, the metal casque of the statue of Mars, the metal drapery of the Antinous, the earrings of the Venus de’ Medici, or her golden hair;—could we set aside the evidence either of that which is recorded, or of that which may still be seen, we should yet have felt that it must have been so, from the knowledge we have of the practice of those civilisations which preceded and followed that of the Greeks. How can one believe that at one particular period in the practice of the Arts, the artistic eye was so entirely changed that it became suddenly enamoured of white marble? Such an idea belongs only to an age like that through which we have just passed—an age equally devoid of the capacity to appreciate, and of the power to execute, works of art—when refuge is taken in whitewashing.

1. See page 31.

2. See Quatremère de Quincey.

Under this influence, however, we have been born and bred, and it requires time to shake off the trammels which such early education leaves.

There is another theory which it is necessary to notice, viz., that the marble was not painted, but stained in some way or other, so as still to retain the transparency of the marble. As this has never been tried, and can only be tried on marble, I dare not say that it would not produce an agreeable result. I am not able, however, to conceive it, and feel certain that it could not fulfil the required conditions of monumental sculpture, though presenting more chance of success with isolated works.

As far as regards monumental sculpture, the evidence of Mr. Bracebridge, which was produced before the committee of the Institute,^[3] would appear to settle the point. The fragments dug up at Athens in the winter of 1835–36, are stated by him to have been in perfect preservation, and “painted with the brightest red, blue, and yellow, or rather, vermilion, ultramarine, and straw colour, which last may have faded in the earth.” He further states, that “the colours were laid on in thick coats.”

3. See page 40.