THE Plan or floor-disposition of a Greek building was always simple however great its extent, was well judged for effect, and capable of being understood at once. The grandest results were obtained by simple means, and all confusion, uncertainty, or complication were scrupulously avoided. Refined precision, order, symmetry, and exactness mark the plan as well as every part of the work.

The plan of a Greek temple may be said to present many of the same elements as that of an Egyptian temple, but, so to speak, turned inside out. Columns are relied on by the Greek artist, as they were by the Egyptian artist, as a means of giving effect; but they are placed by him outside the building instead of within its courts and halls. The Greek, starting with a comparatively small nucleus formed by the cell and the treasury, encircles them by a magnificent girdle of pillars, and so makes a grand structure, the first hint or suggestion being in all probability to be found in certain small Egyptian buildings to which reference has already been made. The disposition of these columns and of the great range of steps, or stylobate, is the most marked feature in Greek temple plans. Columns also existed, it is true, in the interior of the building, but these were of smaller size, and seem to have been introduced to aid in carrying the roof and the clerestory, if there was one. They have in several instances disappeared, and there is certainly no ground for supposing that in any Greek interior the grand but oppressive effect of a hypostyle hall was attempted to be reproduced. That was abandoned, together with the complication, seclusion, and gloom of the long series of chambers, cells, &c., placed one behind another, just as the contrasts and surprises of the series of courts and halls following in succession were abandoned for the one simple but grand mass built to be seen from without rather than from within. In the greater number of Greek buildings a degree of precision is exhibited, to which the Egyptians did not attain. All right angles are absolutely true; the setting-out (or spacing) of the different columns, piers, openings, &c., is perfectly exact; and, in the Parthenon, the patient investigations of Mr. Penrose and other skilled observers have disclosed a degree of accuracy as well as refinement which resembles the precision with which astronomical instruments are adjusted in Europe at the present day, rather than the rough-and-ready measurements of a modern mason or bricklayer.

What the plans of Greek palaces might have exhibited, did any remains exist, is merely matter for inference and conjecture, and it is not proposed in this volume to pass far beyond ascertained and observed facts. There can be, however, little doubt that the palaces of the West Asiatic style must have at least contributed suggestions as to internal disposition of the later and more magnificent Greek mansions. The ordinary dwelling-houses of citizens, as described by ancient writers, resembled those now visible in the disinterred cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum, which will be referred to under Roman Architecture.[16] The chief characteristic of the plan of these is that they retain the disposition which in the temples was discarded; that is to say, all the doors and windows looked into an inner court, and the house was as far as possible secluded within an encircling wall. The contrast between the openness of the public life led by the men in Greek cities, and the seclusion of the women and the families when at home, is remarkably illustrated by this difference between the public and private buildings.

The plan of the triple building called the Erechtheium (Fig. 72) deserves special mention, as an example of an exceptional arrangement which appears to set the ordinary laws of symmetry at defiance, and which is calculated to produce a result into which the picturesque enters at least as much as the beautiful. Though the central temple is symmetrical, the two attached porticoes are not so, and do not, in position, dimensions, or treatment, balance one another. The result is a charming group, and we cannot doubt that other examples of freedom of planning would have been found, had more remains of the architecture of the great cities of Greece come down to our own day.

In public buildings other than temples—such as the theatre, the agora, and the basilica—the Greek architects seem to have had great scope for their genius; the planning of the theatres shows skilful and thoroughly complete provisions to meet the requirements of the case. A circular disposition was here introduced—not, it is true, for the first time, since it is rendered probable by the representations on sculptured slabs that some circular buildings existed in Assyria, and circular buildings remain in the archaic works at MycenÆ; but it was now elaborated with remarkable completeness, beauty, and mastery over all the difficulties involved. Could we see the great theatre of Athens as it was when perfect, we should probably find that as an interior it was almost unrivalled, alike for convenience and for beauty; and for these excellences it was mainly indebted to the elegance of its planning. The actual floor of many of the Greek temples appears to have been of marble of different colours.

The Walls.

The construction of the walls of the Greek temples rivalled that of the Egyptians in accuracy and beauty of workmanship, and resembled them in the use of solid materials. The Greeks had within reach quarries of marble, the most beautiful material which nature has provided for the use of the builder; and great fineness of surface and high finish were attained. Some interesting examples of hollow walling occur in the construction of the Parthenon. The wall was not an element of the building on which the Greek architect seemed to dwell with pleasure; much of it is almost invariably overshadowed by the lines of columns which form the main features of the building. The pediment (or gable) of a temple is a grand development of the walls, and perhaps the most striking of the additions which the Greeks made to the resources of the architect. It offers a fine field for sculpture, and adds real and apparent height beyond anything that the Egyptians ever attempted since the days of the Pyramid-builders; and it has remained in constant use to the present hour.

We do not hear of towers being attached to buildings, and, although such monumental structures as the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus approached the proportions of a tower, height does not seem to have commended itself to the mind of the Greek architect as necessary to the buildings which he designed. It was reserved for Roman and Christian art to introduce this element of architectural effect in all its power. On the other hand, the Greek, like the Persian architect, emphasised the base of his building in a remarkable manner, not only by base mouldings, but by planting the whole structure on a great range of steps which formed an essential part of the composition.

The Roof.

The construction of the roofs of Greek temples has been the subject of much debate. It is almost certain that they were in some way so made as to admit light. They were framed of timber and covered by tiles, often, if not always, of marble. Although all traces of the timber framing have disappeared, we can at least know that the pitch was not steep, by the slope of the outline of the pediments, which formed, as has already been said, perhaps the chief glory of a Greek temple. The flat stone roofs sometimes used by the Egyptians, and necessitating the placing of columns or other supports close together, seem to have become disused, with the exception that where a temple was surrounded by a range of columns the space between the main wall and the columns was so covered.

The vaulted stone roofs of the archaic buildings, of which the treasury of Atreus (Figs. 52, 52a) was the type, do not seem to have prevailed in a later period, or, so far as we know, to have been succeeded by any similar covering or vault of a more scientific construction.

It is hardly necessary to add that the Greek theatres were not roofed. The Romans shaded the spectators in their theatres and amphitheatres by means of a velarium or awning, but it is extremely doubtful whether even this expedient was in use in Greek theatres.

The Openings.

The most important characteristic of the openings in Greek buildings is that they were flat-topped,—covered by a lintel of stone or marble,—and never arched. We have already[17] shown that this circumstance is really of the first importance as determining the architectural character of buildings. Doors and window openings were often a little narrower at the top than the bottom, and were marked by a band of mouldings, known as the architrave, on the face of the wall, and, so to speak, framing in the opening. There was often also a small cornice over each (Figs. 82, 83). Openings were seldom advanced into prominence or employed as features in the exterior of a building; in fact, the same effects which windows produce in other styles were in Greek buildings created by the interspaces between the columns.

The Columns.

These features, together with the superstructure or entablature, which they customarily carried, were the prominent parts of Greek architecture, occupying as they did the entire height of the building. The development of the orders (which we have explained to be really decorative systems, each of which involved the use of one sort of column, though the term is constantly understood as meaning merely the column and entablature) is a very interesting subject, and illustrates the acuteness with which the Greeks selected from those models which were accessible to them, exactly what was suited to their purpose, and the skill with which they altered and refined, and almost redesigned, everything which they so selected.

Fig. 82.—Greek Doorway Showing Cornice.

Fig. 83.—Greek Doorway. Front View. (From the Erechtheium.)

During the whole period when Greek art was being developed, the ancient and polished civilisation of Egypt constituted a most powerful and most stable influence, always present,—always, comparatively speaking, within reach,—and always the same. Of all the forms of column and capital existing in Egypt, the Greeks, however, only selected that straight-sided fluted type of which the Beni-Hassan example is the best known, but by no means the only instance. We first meet with these fluted columns at Corinth, of very sturdy proportions, and having a wide, swelling, clumsy moulding under the abacus by way of a capital. By degrees the proportions of the shaft grew more slender, and the profile of the capital more elegant and less bold, till the perfected perfections of the Greek Doric column were attained. This column is the original to which all columns with moulded capitals that have been used in architecture, from the age of Pericles to our own, may be directly or indirectly referred; while the Egyptian types which the Greeks did not select—such, for example, as the lotus-columns at Karnak—have never been perpetuated.

A different temper or taste, and partly a different history, led to the selection of the West Asiatic types of column by a section of the Greek people; but great alterations in proportion, in the treatment of the capital, and in the management of the moulded base from which the columns sprang, were made, even in the orders which occur in the Ionic buildings of Asia Minor. This was carried further when the Ionic order was made use of in Athens herself, and as a result the Attic base and the perfected Ionic capital are to be found at their best in the Erechtheium example. The Ionic order and the Corinthian, which soon followed it, are the parents,—not, it is true, of all, but of the greater part of the columns with foliated capitals that have been used in all styles and periods of architecture since. It will not be forgotten that rude types of both orders are found represented on Assyrian bas-reliefs, but still the Corinthian capital and order must be considered as the natural and, so to speak, inevitable development of the Ionic. From the Corinthian capital an unbroken series of foliated capitals can be traced down to our own day; almost the only new ornamented type ever devised since being that which takes its origin in the Romanesque block capital, known to us in England as the early Norman cushion capital: this was certainly the parent of a distinct series, though even these owe not a little to Greek originals.

We have alluded to the Ionic base. It was derived from a very tall one in use at Persepolis, and we meet with it first in the rich but clumsy forms of the bases in the Asia Minor examples. In them we find the height of the feature as used in Persia compressed, while great, and to our eyes eccentric, elaboration marked the mouldings: these the refinement of Attic taste afterwards simplified, till the profile of the well-known Attic base was produced—a base which has had as wide and lasting an influence as either of the original forms of capital.

The Corinthian order, as has been above remarked, is the natural sequel of the Ionic. Had Greek architecture continued till it fell into decadence, this order would have been the badge of it. As it was, the decadence of Greek art was Roman art, and the Corinthian order was the favourite order of the Romans; in fact all the important examples of it which remain are Roman work.

If we remember how invariably use was made of one or other of the two great types of the Greek order in all the buildings of the best Greek time, with the addition towards its close of the Corinthian order, and that these orders, a little more subdivided and a good deal modified, have formed the substratum of Roman architecture and of that in use during the last three centuries; and if we also bear in mind that nearly all the columnar architecture of Early Christian, Byzantine, Saracenic, and Gothic times, owes its forms to the same great source, we may well admit that the invention and perfecting of the orders of Greek architecture has been—with one exception—the most important event in the architectural history of the world. That exception is, of course, the introduction of the Arch.

The Ornaments.

Greek Ornaments have exerted the same wide influence over the whole course of Western art as Greek columns; and in their origin they are equally interesting as specimens of Greek skill in adapting existing types, and of Greek invention where no existing types would serve.

Few of the mouldings of Greek architecture are to be traced to anterior styles. There is nothing like them in Egyptian work, and little or nothing in Assyrian; and though a suggestion of some of them may no doubt be found in Persian examples, we must take them as having been substantially originated by Greek genius, which felt that they were wanted, designed them, and brought them far towards absolute perfection. They were of the most refined form, and when enriched were carved with consummate skill. They were executed, it must be remembered, in white marble,—a material having the finest surface, and capable of responding to the most delicate variations in contour by corresponding changes in shade or light in a manner and to a degree which no other material can equal. In the Doric, mouldings were few, and almost always convex; they became much more numerous in the later styles, and then included many of concave profile. The chief are the OVOLO, which formed the curved part of the Doric capital, and the crowning moulding of the Doric cornice; the CYMA; the BIRD’S BEAK, employed in the capitals of the antÆ; the FILLETS under the Doric capital; the hollows and TORUS mouldings of the Ionic and Corinthian bases.

The profiles of these mouldings were very rarely segments of circles, but lines of varying curvature, capable of producing the most delicate changes of light and shade, and contours of the most subtle grace. Many of them correspond to conic sections, but it seems probable that the outlines were drawn by hand, and not obtained by any mechanical or mathematical method.

The mouldings were some of them enriched, to use the technical word, by having such ornaments cut into them or carved on them as, though simple in form, lent themselves well to repetition.[18] Where more room for ornament existed, and especially in the capitals of the Ionic and Corinthian orders, ornaments were freely and most gracefully carved, and very symmetrically arranged. Though these were very various, yet most of them can be classed under three heads. (1.) Frets (Figs. 116 to 120). These were patterns made up of squares or L-shaped lines interlaced and made to seem intricate, though originally simple. Frequently these patterns are called Doric frets, from their having been most used in buildings of the Doric order. (2.) Honeysuckle (Figs. 94 and 111 to 114). This ornament, admirably conventionalised, had been used freely by the Assyrians, and the Greeks only adopted what they found ready to their hand when they began to use it; but they refined it, at the same time losing no whit of its vigour or effectiveness, and the honeysuckle has come to be known as a typical Greek decorative motif. (3.) Acanthus (Figs. 84 and 85). This is a broad-leaved plant, the foliage and stems of which, treated in a conventional manner, though with but little departure from nature, were found admirably adapted for floral decorative work, and accordingly were made use of in the foliage of the Corinthian capital, and in such ornaments as, for example, the great finial which forms the summit of the Choragic Monument of Lysicrates.

Fig. 84.—The Acanthus Leaf and Stalk.

The beauty of the carving was, however, eclipsed by that highest of all ornaments—sculpture. In the Doric temples, as, for example, in the Parthenon, the architect contented himself with providing suitable spaces for the sculptor to occupy; and thus the great pediments, the metopes (Fig. 86) or square panels, and the frieze of the Parthenon were occupied by sculpture, in which there was no necessity for more conventionalism than the amount of artificial arrangement needed in order fitly to occupy spaces that were respectively triangular, square, or continuous. In the later and more voluptuous style of the Ionic temples we find sculpture made into an architectural feature, as in the famous statues, known as the Caryatides, which support the smallest portico of the Erechtheium, and in the enriched columns of the Temple of Diana at Ephesus. Sculpture had already been so employed in Egypt, and was often so used in later times; but the best opportunity for the display of the finest qualities of the sculptor’s art is such an one as the pediments, &c., of the great Doric temples afforded.

Fig. 85.—The Acanthus Leaf.

There is little room for doubting that all the Greek temples were richly decorated in colours, but traces and indications are all that remain: these, however, are sufficient to prove that a very large amount of colour was employed, and that probably ornaments (Figs. 105 to 120) were painted upon many of those surfaces which were left plain by the mason, especially on the cornices, and that mosaics (Fig. 87) and coloured marbles, and even gilding, were freely used. There is also ground for believing that as the use of carved enrichments increased with the increasing adoption of the Ionic and Corinthian styles, less use was made of painted decorations.

Architectural Character.

Observations which have been made during the course of this and the previous chapters will have gone far to point out the characteristics of Greek art. An archaic and almost forbidding severity, with heavy proportions and more strength than grace, marks the earliest Greek buildings of which we have any fragments remaining. Dignity, sobriety, refinement, and beauty are the qualities of the works of the best period. The latest buildings were more rich, more ornate, and more slender in their proportions and to a certain extent less severe.

Fig. 86.—Metope from the Parthenon. Conflict between a Centaur and one of the LapithÆ.

Fig. 87.—Mosaic from the Temple of Zeus, Olympia.

Most carefully studied proportions prevailed, and were wrought out to a pitch of completeness and refinement which is truly astounding. Symmetry was the all but invariable law of composition. Yet in certain respects—as, for example, the spacing and position of the columns—a degree of freedom was enjoyed which Roman architecture did not possess. Repetition ruled to the almost entire suppression of variety. Disclosure of the arrangement and construction of the building was almost complete, and hardly a trace of concealment can be detected. Simplicity reigns in the earliest examples; the elaboration of even the most ornamental is very chaste and graceful; and the whole effect of Greek architecture is one of harmony, unity, and refined power.

Fig. 88.—Section of the Portico of the Erechtheium.

Fig. 89.—Plan of the Portico—Looking up.

EXAMPLES OF GREEK ORNAMENT
In the Northern Portico of the Erechtheium—showing the Ornamentation of the Ceiling.

A general principle seldom pointed out which governs the application of enrichments to mouldings in Greek architecture may be cited as a good instance of the subtle yet admirable concord which existed between the different features: it is as follows. The outline of each enrichment in relief was ordinarily described by the same line as the profile of the moulding to which it was applied. The egg enrichment (Fig. 91) on the ovolo, the water-leaf on the cyma reversa (Figs. 92 and 97), the honeysuckle on the cyma recta (Fig. 94), and the guilloche (Fig. 100) on the torus, are examples of the application of this rule,—one which obviously tends to produce harmony.

Fig. 90.—Capital of AntÆ from the Erechtheium.

EXAMPLES OF GREEK ORNAMENT IN RELIEF.

Fig. 91.—Egg and Dart.

Fig. 92.—Leaf and Dart.

Fig. 93.—Honeysuckle.

Fig. 94.—Honeysuckle.

Fig. 95.—Acanthus.

Fig. 96.—Acanthus.

Fig. 97.—Leaf and Tongue.

Fig. 98.—Leaf and Tongue.

Fig. 99.—Garland.

Fig. 100.—Guilloche.

Fig. 101.—Bead and Fillet.

Fig. 102.—Bead and Fillet.

Fig. 103.—Torus Moulding.

Fig. 104.—Torus Moulding.

EXAMPLES OF GREEK ORNAMENT IN COLOUR.

Fig. 105.—Honeysuckle.

Figs. 106, 108.—Facias with Bands of Foliage.

Fig. 109.—Leaf and Dart.

Fig. 110.—Egg and Dart.

Figs. 111 to 113.—Examples of the Honeysuckle.

Fig. 111.

Fig. 112.

Fig. 113.

Fig. 114.—Combination of the Fret, the Egg and Dart, the Bead and Fillet, and the Honeysuckle.

Fig. 114.

Fig. 115.—Guilloche.

Figs. 116 to 120.—Examples of the Fret.

Fig. 116.

Fig. 117.

Fig. 118.

Fig. 119.

Fig. 120.

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Fig. 121.—Elevation of an Etruscan Temple (restored from descriptions only).