magnificent; and a Chinese traveller in the year 400 A.D. describes one
in Gaudhava as four hundred and seventy feet high, decorated with every
sort of precious substance. Its dome, as it appears in a bas-relief,
must have rivalled that of St. Peter's at Rome; but no trace of it now
remains. The topes of India, which were numerous, indicate that the
Hindus were acquainted with the arch, both pointed and circular, which
was not known to the Egyptians or the Greeks. The most important of
these buildings, in which are preserved valuable relics, are found in
the Punjab. They were erected about twenty years before Christ. In size,
they are about one hundred and twenty-seven feet in diameter. Connected
with the circular topes are found what are called _rails_, surrounding
the topes, built in the form of rectangles, with heavy pillars. One of
the most interesting of these was found to be two hundred and
seventy-five feet long, having square pillars twenty-two feet in height,
profusely carved with scenes from the life of Buddha, topped by capitals
in the shape of elephants supporting a succession of horizontal stone
beams, all decorated with a richness of carving unknown in any other
country. The Amravati rail, one of the finest of the ancient monuments
of India, is found to be one hundred and ninety-five by one hundred and
sixty-five feet, having octagonal pillars ornamented with the most
elaborate carvings.
From an architectural point of view, the rails were surpassed by the
_chaityas_, or temple-caves, in western India. These were cut in the
solid rock. Some one thousand different specimens are to be found. The
facades of these caves are perfect, generally in the form of an arch,
executed in the rock with every variety of detail, and therefore
imperishable without violence. The process of excavation extended
through ten centuries from the time of Asoka; and the interiors as well
as the façades were highly ornamented with sculptures. The temple-caves
are seldom more than one hundred and fifty feet deep and fifty feet in
width, and the roofs are supported by pillars like the interior of
Gothic cathedrals, some of which are of beautiful proportions with
elaborated capitals. Though these rock-hewn temples are no larger than
ordinary Christian churches, they are very impressive from the richly
decorated carvings; they were lighted from a single opening in the
façade, sometimes in the shape of a horseshoe.
Besides these chaityas, or temples, there are still more numerous
_viharas_, or monasteries, found in India, of different dates, but none
older than the third century before Christ. They show a central hall,
surrounded on three sides by cells for the monks. On the fourth side is
an open verandah; facing this is generally a shrine with an image of
Buddha. These edifices are not imposing unless surrounded by galleries,
as some were, supported by highly decorated pillars. The halls are
constructed in several stories with heavy masonry, in the shape of
pyramids adorned with the figures of men and animals. One of these halls
in southern India had fifteen hundred cells. The most celebrated was
the Nalanda monastery, founded in the first century by Nagarjuna, which
accommodated ten thousand priests, and was enclosed by a wall measuring
sixteen hundred feet by four hundred. It was to Central India what Mount
Casino was to Italy, and Cluny was to France, in the Middle Ages,--the
seat of learning and art.
It was not until the Mohammedan conquest in India that architecture
received a new impulse from the Saracenic influence. Then arose the
mosques, minarets, and palaces which are a wonder for their
magnificence, and in which are seen the influence of Greek art as well
as that of India. There is an Oriental splendor in these palaces and
mosques which has called out the admiration of critics, although it is
different from those types of beauty which we are accustomed to praise.
But these later edifices were erected in the Middle Ages, coeval with
the cathedrals of Europe, and therefore do not properly come under the
head of ancient art, in which the ancient Hindus, whether of Aryan or
Turanian descent, did not particularly excel. It was in matters of
religion and philosophy that the Hindus felt most interest, even as the
ancient Jews thought more of theology than of art and science.
Architecture, however, as the expression of genius and high
civilization, was carried to perfection only by the Greeks, who excelled
in so many things. It was among the ancient Dorians, who descended from
the mountains of northern Greece eighty years after the fall of Troy,
that architectural art worthy of the name first appeared. The Pelasgi
erected Cyclopean structures fifteen hundred years before Christ, as
seen in the massive walls of the Acropolis at Athens, constructed of
huge blocks of hewn stone, and in the palaces of the princes of the
heroic times. The lintel of the doorway of the Mycenaean treasury is
composed of a single stone twenty-seven feet long and sixteen broad. But
these edifices, which aimed at splendor and richness merely, were
deficient in that simplicity and harmony which have given immortality to
the temples of the Dorians. In this style of architecture everything was
suitable to its object, and was grand and noble. The great thickness of
the columns, the beautiful entablature, the ample proportion of the
capital, the great horizontal lines of the architrave and cornice
predominating over the vertical lines of the columns, the severity of
geometrical forms produced for the most part by straight lines, gave an
imposing simplicity to the Doric temple.
How far the Greek architects were indebted to the Egyptian we cannot
tell, for though columns are found amid the ruins of the Egyptian
temples, they are of different shape from any made by the Greeks. In the
structures of Thebes we find both the tumescent and the cylindrical
columns, from which amalgamation might have been produced the Doric
column. The Greeks seized on beauty wherever they found it, and improved
upon it. The Doric column was not probably an entirely new creation, but
shaped after models furnished by the most original of all the ancient
nations, even the Egyptians. The Doric temples were uniform in plan. The
columns were fluted, and were generally about six diameters in height;
they diminished gradually upward from the base, with a slightly con
vexed swelling; they were surmounted by capitals regularly proportioned
according to their height. The entablature which the column supported
was also of a certain number of diameters in height. So regular and
perfect was the plan of the temple, that "if the dimensions of a single
column and the proportion the entablature should bear to it were given
to two individuals acquainted with the style, with directions to compose
a temple, they would produce designs exactly similar in size,
arrangement, and general proportions." The Doric order possessed a
peculiar harmony, but taste and skill were nevertheless necessary in
order to determine the number of diameters a column should have, and
also the height of the entablature.
The Doric was the favorite order of European Greece for one thousand
years, and also of her colonies in Sicily and Magna Graecia. It was
used exclusively until after the Macedonian conquest, and was chiefly
applied to temples. The massive temples of Paestum, the colossal
magnificence of the Sicilian ruins, and the more elegant proportions of
the Athenian structures, like the Parthenon and Temple of Theseus, show
the perfection of the Doric architecture. Although the general style of
all the Doric temples is so uniform, hardly two temples were alike. The
earlier Doric was more massive; the later was more elegant, and its
edifices were rich in sculptured decorations. Nothing could surpass the
beauty of a Doric temple in the time of Pericles. The stylobate, or
general base upon which the columnar story stood, from two thirds to a
whole diameter of a column in height, was built in three equal courses,
which gradually receded upward and formed steps, as it were, of a grand
platform. The column, simply set upon the stylobate, without base or
pedestal, was from four to six diameters in height, with twenty flutes,
having a capital of half a diameter. On this rested the entablature, two
column-diameters in height, which was divided into architrave (lower
mouldings), frieze (broad middle space), and cornice (upper mouldings).
The great beauty of the temple was the portico in front,--a forest of
columns supporting the triangular pediment, about a diameter and a half
to the apex, making an angle at the base of about fourteen degrees.
From the pediment projects the cornice, while in the apex and at the
base of the flat three-cornered gable are sculptured ornaments,
generally the figures of men or animals. The whole outline of columns
supporting the entablature is graceful, while the variety of light and
shade arising from the arrangement of mouldings and capitals produces a
grand effect.
The Parthenon, the most beautiful specimen of the Doric, has never been
equalled, and it still stands august in its ruins, the glory of the old
Acropolis and the pride of Athens. It was built of white Pentelic
marble, and rested on a basement of limestone. It was two hundred and
twenty-seven feet in length, one hundred and one in breadth, and
sixty-five in height, surrounded with forty-eight fluted columns, six
feet and two inches at the base and thirty-four feet in height, while
within the peristyle, at either end, was an interior range of columns
standing before the end of the cella. The frieze and the pediment were
elaborately ornamented with reliefs and statues, and the cella, within
and without, was adorned with the choicest sculptures of Phidias, The
remains of the exquisite sculptures of the pediment and the frieze were
in the early part of this century brought from Greece by Lord Elgin,
purchased by the English government, and placed in the British Museum,
where, preserved from further dilapidation, they stand as indisputable
evidence of the perfection of Greek art. The grandest adornment of the
temple was the colossal statue of Minerva in the eastern apartment of
the cella, forty feet in height, composed of gold and ivory; the inner
walls of the chamber were decorated with paintings, and the whole temple
was a repository of countless treasure. But the Parthenon, so regular to
the eye with its vertical, oblique, and horizontal lines, was curved in
every line, with the exception of the gable,--with its entablature,
architrave, frieze, and cornice, together with the basement, all arched
upwards; and even the columns had a slight convexity of vertical line,
amounting to 1/550 of the entire height of shaft, though so slightly as
not to be perceptible. These curved lines gave to the structure a
peculiar grace which cannot be imitated, as well as an effect
of solidity.
Nearly coeval with the Doric was the Ionic order, invented by the
Asiatic Greeks, still more graceful, though not so imposing. The
Acropolis is a perfect example of this order. The column is nine
diameters in height, with a base, while the capital is more ornamented
than the Doric. The shaft is fluted with twenty-four flutes and
alternate fillets (flat longitudinal ridges), and the fillet is about a
quarter the width of the flute. The pediment is flatter than that of
the Doric order, and more elaborate. The great distinction of the Ionic
column is a base, and a capital formed with volutes (spiral scrolls),
the shaft also being more slender. Vitruvius, the greatest authority
among the ancients in architecture, says that "the Greeks, in inventing
these two kinds of columns, imitated in the one the naked simplicity and
dignity of man, and in the other the delicacy and ornaments of woman;
the base of the Ionic was the imitation of sandals, and the volutes of
ringlets." The discoveries of many of the Ionic ornamentations among the
remains of Assyrian architecture indicate the Oriental source of the
Ionic ideas, just as the Doric style seems to have originated in Egypt.
The artistic Greeks, however, always simplified and refined upon
their masters.
The Corinthian order exhibits a still greater refinement and elegance
than the other two, and was introduced toward the end of the
Peloponnesian War. Its peculiarity consists in columns with foliated
capitals modelled after the acanthus leaf, and still greater height,
about ten diameters, surmounted with a more ornamented entablature. Of
this order the most famous temple in Greece was that of Minerva at
Tegea, built by Scopas of Paros, but destroyed by fire four hundred
years before Christ.
Nothing more distinguished Greek architecture than the variety, the
grace, and the beauty of the mouldings, generally in eccentric curves.
The general outline of the moulding is a gracefully flowing cyma, or
wave, concave at one end and convex at the other, like an Italic _f_,
the concavity and convexity being exactly in the same curve, according
to the line of beauty which Hogarth describes.
The most beautiful application of Greek architecture was in the temples,
which were very numerous and of extraordinary grandeur, long before the
Persian War. Their entrance was always from the west or the east. They
were built either in an oblong or round form, and were mostly adorned
with columns. Those of an oblong form had columns either in the front
alone, or in the eastern and western fronts, or on all the four sides.
They generally had porticos attached to them, and were without windows,
receiving their light from the door or from above. The friezes were
adorned with various sculptures, as were sometimes the pediments, and no
expense was spared upon them. The most important part of the temple was
the cell (_cella,_ or temple proper, a square chamber), in which the
statue of the deity was kept, generally surrounded with a balustrade. In
front of the cella was the vestibule, and in the rear or back a chamber
in which the treasures of the temple were kept. Names were applied to
the temples as well as to the porticos, according to the number of
columns in the portico at either end of the temple,--such as the
tetrastyle (four columns in front), or hexastyle (when there were six).
There were never more than ten columns across the front. The Parthenon
had eight, but six was the usual number. It was the rule to have twice
as many columns along the sides as in front. Some of the temples had
double rows of columns on all sides, like that of Diana at Ephesus and
of Quirinus at Rome. The distance between the columns varied from one
diameter and a half to four diameters. About five eighths of a Doric
temple were occupied by the cella, and three eighths by the portico.
That which gives to the Greek temples so much simplicity and
harmony,--the great elements of beauty in architecture,--is the simple
outline in parallelogrammic and pyramidal forms, in which the lines are
uninterrupted through their entire length. This simplicity and harmony
are more apparent in the Doric than in any of the other orders, but
pertain to all the Grecian temples of which we have knowledge. The Ionic
and Corinthian, or the voluted and foliated orders, do not possess that
severe harmony which pervades the Doric; but the more beautiful
compositions are so consummate that they will ever be taken as models
of study.
There is now no doubt that the exteriors of the Grecian temples were
ornamented in color,--perhaps with historical pictures, etc.,--although
as the traces have mostly disappeared it is impossible to know the
extent or mode of decoration. It has been thought that the mouldings
also may have been gilded or colored, and that the background of the
sculptures had some flat color laid on as a relief to the raised
figures. We may be sure, however it was done, that the effect was not
gaudy or crude, but restrained within the limits of refinement and good
taste by the infallible artistic instinct of those masters of the
beautiful.
It is not the magnitude of the Greek temples and other works of art
which most impresses us. It is not for this that they are important
models; it is not for this that they are copied and reproduced in all
the modern nations of Europe. They were generally small compared with
the temples of Egypt, and with the vast dimensions of Roman
amphitheatres; only three or four would compare in size with a Gothic
cathedral,--the Parthenon, the Temple of Olympian Zeus at Athens, and
the Temple of Diana at Ephesus; even the Pantheon at Rome is small,
compared with the later monuments of the Caesars. The traveller is
always disappointed in contemplating the ruins of Greek buildings so far
as size is concerned. But it is their matchless proportions, their
severe symmetry, the grandeur of effect, the undying beauty, the
graceful form which impress us, and make us feel that they are perfect.
By the side of the Colosseum they are insignificant in magnitude; they
do not cover acres, like the baths of Caracalla. Yet who has copied the
Flavian amphitheatre; who erects an edifice after the style of the
Thermae? All artists, however, copy the Parthenon. That, and not the
colossal monuments of the Caesars, reappears in the capitals of Europe,
and stimulates the genius of a Michael Angelo or a Christopher Wren.
The flourishing period of Greek architecture was during the period from
Pericles to Alexander,--one hundred and thirteen years. The Macedonian
conquest introduced more magnificence and less simplicity. The Roman
conquest accelerated the decline in severe taste, when different orders
began to be used indiscriminately.
In this state the art passed into the hands of the masters of the world,
and they inaugurated a new era in architecture. The art was still
essentially Greek, although the Romans derived their first knowledge
from the Etruscans. The Cloaca Maxima, or Great Sewer, was built during
the reign of the second Tarquin,--the grandest monument of the reign of
the kings. It is not probable that temples and other public buildings in
Rome were either beautiful or magnificent until the conquest of Greece,
after which Grecian architects were employed. The Romans adopted the
Corinthian style, which they made even more ornamental; and by the
successful combination of the Etruscan arch with the Grecian column they
laid the foundation of a new and original style, susceptible of great
variety and magnificence. They entered into architecture with the
enthusiasm of their teachers, but in their passion for novelty lost
sight of the simplicity which is the great fascination of a Doric
temple. Says Memes:--
"They [the Romans] deemed that lightness and grace were to be attained
not so much by proportion between the vertical and the horizontal as by
the comparative slenderness of the former. Hence we see a poverty in
Roman architecture in the midst of profuse ornament. The great error was
a constant aim to lessen the diameter while they increased the elevation
of the columns. Hence the massive simplicity and severe grandeur of the
ancient Doric disappear in the Roman, the characteristics of the order
being frittered down into a multiplicity of minute details."
When the Romans used the Doric at all, they used a base for the column,
which was never done at Athens. They also altered the Doric capital,
which cannot be improved. Again, most of the Grecian Doric temples were
peripteral,--surrounded with pillars on all the sides. But the Romans
built with porticos on one front only, which had a greater projection
than the Grecian. They generally were projected three columns, while the
Greek portico had usually but a single row. Many of the Roman temples
are circular, like the Pantheon, which has a portico of eight columns
projected to the depth of three. Nor did the Romans construct hypaethral
or uncovered temples with internal columns, like the Greeks. The
Pantheon is an exception, since the dome has an open eye; and one great
ornament of this beautiful structure is in the arrangement of internal
columns placed in the front of niches, composed of antae, or pier-formed
ends of walls, to carry an entablature round under an attic on which the
cupola rests. The Romans also adopted coupled columns, broken and
recessed entablatures, and pedestals, which are considered blemishes.
They again paid more attention to the interior than to the exterior
decoration of their palaces and baths,--as we may infer from the ruins
of Hadrian's villa at Tivoli and the excavations of Pompeii.
The pediments (roof-angles) used in Roman architectural works are
steeper than those made by the Greeks, varying in inclination from
eighteen to twenty-five degrees, instead of fourteen. The mouldings are
the same as the Grecian in general form, although they differ from them
in contour; they are less delicate and graceful, but were used in great
profusion. Roman architecture is overdone with ornament, every moulding
carved, and every straight surface sculptured with foliage or historical
subjects in relief. The ornaments of the frieze consist of foliage and
animals, with a variety of other things. The great exuberance of
ornament is considered a defect, although when applied to some
structures it is exceedingly beautiful. In the time of the first Caesars
Roman architecture had, from the huge size of the buildings, a character
of grandeur and magnificence. Columns and arches appeared in all the
leading public buildings,--columns generally forming the external and
arches the internal construction. Fabric after fabric arose on the ruins
of others. The Flavii supplanted the edifices of Nero, which ministered
to debauchery, by structures of public utility.
The Romans invented no new principle in architecture, unless it be the
arch, which was known, though not practically applied, by the Assyrians,
Egyptians, and Greeks. The Romans were a practical and utilitarian
people, and needed for their various structures greater economy of
material than was compatible with large blocks of stone, especially for
such as were carried to great altitudes. The arch supplied this want,
and is perhaps the greatest invention ever made in architecture. No
instance of its adoption occurs in the construction of Greek edifices
before Greece became a part of the Roman empire. Its application dates
back to the Cloaca Maxima, and may have been of Etrurian invention. Some
maintain that Archimedes of Sicily was the inventor of the arch; but to
whomsoever the glory of the invention is due, it is certain that the
Romans were the first of European nations to make a practical
application of its wonderful qualities. It enabled them to rear vast
edifices with the humblest materials, to build bridges, aqueducts,
sewers, amphitheatres, and triumphal arches, as well as temples and
palaces. The merits of the arch have never been lost sight of by
succeeding generations, and it is an essential element in the
magnificent Gothic cathedrals of the Middle Ages. Its application
extends to domes and cupolas, to floors and corridors and roofs, and to
various other parts of buildings where economy of material and labor is
desired. It was applied extensively to doorways and windows, and is an
ornament as well as a utility. The most imposing forms of Roman
architecture may be traced to a knowledge of the properties of the arch,
and as brick was more extensively used than any other material, the arch
was invaluable. The imperial palace on Mount Palatine, the Pantheon
(except its portico and internal columns), the temples of Peace, of
Venus and Rome, and of Minerva Medica, were of brick. So were the great
baths of Titus, Caracalla, and Diocletian, the villa of Hadrian, the
city walls, the villa of Mecaenas at Tivoli, and most of the palaces of
the nobility,--although, like many of the temples, they were faced with
stone. The Colosseum was of travertine, a cheap white limestone, and
faced with marble. It was another custom to stucco the surface of brick
walls, as favorable to decorations. In consequence of the invention of
the arch, the Romans erected a greater variety of fine structures than
either the Greeks or Egyptians, whose public edifices were chiefly
confined to temples. The arch entered into almost every structure,
public or private, and superseded the use of long stone-beams, which
were necessary in the Grecian temples, as also of wooden timbers, in the
use of which the Romans were not skilled, and which do not really
pertain to architecture: an imposing edifice must always be constructed
of stone or brick. The arch also enabled the Romans to economize in the
use of costly marbles, of which they were very fond, as well as of other
stones. Some of the finest columns were made of Egyptian granite, very
highly polished.