DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.9177#0068
48
PRINCIPLES OF GREEK ART
CHAP.
tecture, as well as spaces which served as a background to
sculpture. But even allowing for this, we should call their
colouring harsh.1 It would seem that the modern eye is as
much more sensitive than the Greek in the matter of colour
as the Greek eye was more sensitive than the modern in mat-
ters of form. But we must remember that races used to a
bright sun and a clear light can endure far more vivid colour-
ing than peoples who dwell amid comparative darkness. And
the Greek senses, though keen, were fresher and less wearied
than ours. Even now peoples who live simply in the presence
of nature have not the same love as the educated for half-
tones and gentle transitions. Nor, in fact, has nature.
M. Boutmy has well pointed out that, in architecture, as in
other fields of activity, the Greeks had the defects of their
qualities. Their forte was fine sense and straight reasoning;
but these qualities often passed into the excess of delight in
merely perfect technique and a desire to reduce everything to
logical schemes. We see the working of the last-named ten-
dency in the rigid classification of temples by the orders as
Doric, Ionic and Corinthian. In earlier temples, such as those
at Paestum and Agrigentum, the architect has a freer hand.
But as time went on, rule became stricter. The three styles
are properly styles of pillars; but the Greeks could not resist
the tendency to reduce all architecture, so to speak, to the key
of the kind of pillar used. Thus it comes about that in the
great age it is possible, if one has, in addition to the ground
plan of a temple, a few small fragments of its architecture, to
restore the whole, within narrow limits, with certainty. One
sees how this excess of schematism and regularity must have
strangled all vigour and originality of design.
An American archaeologist, Mr. Goodyear, has argued that
1 See Baumeister's Denkmtiler, art. " Polyohromie," or the plates at the end
of the second volume of Olympia. The terra-cotta decoration of temples has
preserved its colours, but the painting of stone and marble now exists only in
the shape of vestiges.
PRINCIPLES OF GREEK ART
CHAP.
tecture, as well as spaces which served as a background to
sculpture. But even allowing for this, we should call their
colouring harsh.1 It would seem that the modern eye is as
much more sensitive than the Greek in the matter of colour
as the Greek eye was more sensitive than the modern in mat-
ters of form. But we must remember that races used to a
bright sun and a clear light can endure far more vivid colour-
ing than peoples who dwell amid comparative darkness. And
the Greek senses, though keen, were fresher and less wearied
than ours. Even now peoples who live simply in the presence
of nature have not the same love as the educated for half-
tones and gentle transitions. Nor, in fact, has nature.
M. Boutmy has well pointed out that, in architecture, as in
other fields of activity, the Greeks had the defects of their
qualities. Their forte was fine sense and straight reasoning;
but these qualities often passed into the excess of delight in
merely perfect technique and a desire to reduce everything to
logical schemes. We see the working of the last-named ten-
dency in the rigid classification of temples by the orders as
Doric, Ionic and Corinthian. In earlier temples, such as those
at Paestum and Agrigentum, the architect has a freer hand.
But as time went on, rule became stricter. The three styles
are properly styles of pillars; but the Greeks could not resist
the tendency to reduce all architecture, so to speak, to the key
of the kind of pillar used. Thus it comes about that in the
great age it is possible, if one has, in addition to the ground
plan of a temple, a few small fragments of its architecture, to
restore the whole, within narrow limits, with certainty. One
sees how this excess of schematism and regularity must have
strangled all vigour and originality of design.
An American archaeologist, Mr. Goodyear, has argued that
1 See Baumeister's Denkmtiler, art. " Polyohromie," or the plates at the end
of the second volume of Olympia. The terra-cotta decoration of temples has
preserved its colours, but the painting of stone and marble now exists only in
the shape of vestiges.