A Manual of the Historical Development of Art: Pre-Historic—Ancient—Classic—Early Christian; with Special Reference to Architecture, Sculpture, Painting, and OrnamentationZerffi, G. G. (Gustavus George)
History
A Manual of the Historical Development of Art: Pre-Historic—Ancient—Classic—Early Christian; with Special Reference to Architecture, Sculpture, Painting, and Ornamentation
Zerffi, G. G. (Gustavus George)
Art -- History
The general architectural arrangement of a Greek temple was invariably
the same. The cella, the abode of the divinity, was of smaller
or larger dimensions. Two rows of columns adorned the interior,
supporting an upper gallery. If the central space was left roofless,
to supply the temple with light, it was called _hypæthral_. A temple,
surrounded by one row of columns, was designated a _Peripteros_;
if two rows of columns ornamented it, a _Dipteros_. With a front
portico it was _Prostyle_; provided with a court, both front and back,
_Amphiprostyle_. The pillars projecting on the side walls were _antæ_;
and a temple having this decorative element was styled an _Antætemple_.
The colonnade surrounding the temple at smaller or greater distances,
represented a combined power of support. The base marked the
independent existence of the separate columns. The shaft was covered
with channelled flutings, and rose vertically with a convex extension
of its circumference (called _entasis_). It then strongly contracted,
thus expressing in the most perfect manner not merely passive
sustaining, but an active and lively support. Above the capitals the
mighty beams of the architrave (epistyle) were held together by a broad
band, on which rested the frieze, sometimes adorned with triglyphs and
metopes, or with reliefs; above it projected the overhanging plinth
of the principal cornice. On the narrow sides of the oblong building,
bordered by a cornice (the corona, geison) and the roof-gutter,
rose the pediment with its groups and statues. On the front edge of
the roof, both at the corners and in the middle, there stood smaller
sculptures or marble palm-trees; whilst at the sides the rain-water
was ejected through lions’ heads; the finishing horizontal lines were
eurythmically crowned with palm-shaped tiles (antifixæ). The roof and
the rest of the building, in the noblest works, were of marble, the
architectural product being thus transformed into an elegant chiselled
work of sculpture.
The Greeks had in their mythology:
1. Powerful gods and goddesses, as Zeus, Pallas, Poseidon, and Mars.
2. Charming and lovely divinities, as Aphrodite, Eros, and Persephone.
3. Mixtures of sublime power and beauty, of manly dignity and
womanly grace, as Here, Diana, Bacchus, and Apollo. In studying
the characteristics of these three groups of divinities we become
acquainted with the principal features of the three orders of their
architecture.
I. The _Doric_ order is full of power and monumental dignity. Force is
its most prominent characteristic.
II. The _Ionic_ order mingles southern imagination with northern
severity; this order, with its voluted capital instead of the simple
abacus, is of a more complicated character and livelier expression.
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