Falkener, Edward: Ephesus and the temple of Diana (London, 1862)

260 TEMPLE OF DIANA.

they were and must have been, conceived the idea,
in more than one instance, of painting the columns
of the distant cecus of a red colour, the effect of
Avhich immediately cleared out not only that portion
of the house, but relieved it from the peristyle in
front, and the hortus behind; and thus rendered
the whole arrangement of the house visible. In
these instances the colour is used sparingly and
with discretion, and being confined to two columns,
renders the white marble stucco of the others more
brilliant and engaging. In other instances the
capitals of the peristyle are decorated with colour,
in order to relieve them from the other colonnades :
a striking example of which occurs in the house
of the Cct/pitelli Goloriti. But if we picture to
ourselves the house completed as it was originally ;
and, standing in the shade of the prothyrum, we
look across the light and cheerful atrium, the eye
passing then through the grateful shade of the
tablinum, and emerging again into the spacious
peristyle, the deep shade of the cecus separating
this from the mellowed light of the distant hortus,
we shall find the most graceful combinations of form
and outline produced by the natural effect of light
and shadow, and a confused and graceless scene
converted into a combined feeling of splendour and
simplicity.

In the same manner we may regard the poly-
chromic architecture of the Parthenon and other
Greek temples. It was not so much to ornament