I may state at the outset that I have been restrained in this attempt at
rendering the effect of the coloured architecture of the Greeks—that I
have set bounds to my imagination. I most fully believe that the Greek
monuments were coloured and ornamented on a much higher key than I have
ventured to attempt, whilst the public eye requires preparation for
receiving what there are as yet so few facts to substantiate.
The only portions of the colouring of this court for which there is
absolute authority, are the leaves on the moulding A, and the
enrichments on the pilaster-caps, D, which are thus published by Mr.
Penrose, in his work. Traces exist of the enrichment B, and the fret on
the architrave band, C, of a stain indicating the form of the ornament,
but without traces of colour.
[Illustration]
The colouring of the moulding A, which is known, is alone sufficient for
our purpose. It establishes two broad principles for our guidance;
first, that of the alternation of colour, second, that the colours were
so employed as best to define the moulding they enriched.
Specks of blue and red (or, as observed by others, green and red) have
been found in several monuments on this moulding, which from its form is
more likely to have retained colour than any other. The absolute value
of these colours is of course not known; hence the liberty of believing
that they were only stains or tints, not positive strong colours. A
glance at the experiment is sufficient to upset this theory at once; the
ornament, with anything short of the strength of colour we have
employed, would have been invisible even at the height we see it, much
more so at the height the original was placed.
As the bed-mould B represents, by the lines of the stain, similar
mouldings carved in relief in other monuments, I felt I was safe in
using the colours in such a way as best to represent the object it
imitated. I have therefore placed the gold where, had the ornament been
in relief and gold employed, gold must have been placed to have been
seen to the best advantage, that is, on the convex surfaces. So of the
other colours.
In colouring the fret C I have followed the same principle; if they took
the trouble to paint so minute an ornament at such a height, we may be
quite sure that they took every pains to make it as distinct as
possible, and, therefore, in using blue and red alternately, I have
endeavoured to make the lines of the fret more apparent.
I was led at once to adopt a blue ground for the frieze, occupying, as
it does, the place of the usual frieze of triglyphs and metopes in other
monuments where the blue ground predominated; I felt the Greek eye would
have demanded it here had such an arrangement as that of our frieze
existed on a Greek monument.
The red within the wreaths was necessary, both for general harmony, and
also to prevent the eye passing through the wreaths, which would have
been the case had the blue ground been uninterrupted.
The soffit of the cornice I have coloured red, because I have no doubt
that wherever blue, red, and yellow or gold were used, this must always
have been the place of the red; and I experienced great pleasure, when
in speaking on this subject with M. Hittorff of Paris, he brought forth
a fragment of a soffit from Selinus, which, as he held it in his hand,
showed a surface perfectly white, but removing his hand from it,
discovered a large patch of the strongest red still remaining on the
surface of the preparatory coat of stucco with which the temple at
Selinus was covered.
[Illustration: Known.]
[Illustration: Unknown.]
The boldest step I have taken is in colouring the capitals of the
columns; the abacus E and the echinus F.
The echinus of the Greek column is a moulding so perfect, and so much
refinement was used upon it by the Greeks, that few believe it was ever
intended to be ornamented. It is supposed that much of this refinement
was exercised by the Greeks on this curve in order to prepare it for the
shadow which the angle of the abacus cast upon it, and that all this
would have been lost or disturbed by a painted ornament on the surface.
There are others, however, equally strong in the belief that it was
painted and ornamented, amongst whom M. Hittorff, who, in his work,
gives two illustrations from drawings of Greek columns on vases, one of
which has an ornamental abacus, and the other with the honeysuckle
ornament on the echinus. As all the ornaments on Greek vases are
analogous to those of Greek temples, it is fairly concluded that the
painter of the columns on the vases only represented what he was
accustomed to see on the columns of buildings.
I am not alone in the belief that the echinus was ornamented with the
egg-and-tongue ornament; in fact, the form of the moulding suggests this
in preference to any other. It certainly gives the best form for
resolving the upward running-lines of the flutes.
As from all the examples we have, the fret ornament is found universally
on flat bands, I have adopted it for the surface of the abacus, and have
chosen a fret which, returning within itself, prevents the eye from
running outwards, upwards, or downwards, which is generally the case
with most frets.
The spandrils of the abacus I have supplied with an ornament which I
thought would best carry the eye from the square of the angle into the
circular moulding.
It is difficult to suppose that the capitals of the columns could appear
unornamented side by side with pilaster-caps so elaborately enriched;
and we think it will freely be admitted that of the two, the known Greek
pilaster-cap, and that of my experimental column, the latter is more
quiet.
A simple reference to the cuts will be sufficient to convince any
unprejudiced person that the minute scale of the ornaments on the
pilaster-cap demands a higher key of ornamentation than that I have
adopted.
For the general tone of the plain portions of the monument, I have
adopted a general tint of yellow, but, as I said before, I believe that
the Greeks carried their ornamentation much beyond this. I think the
architrave was enriched with ornaments—certainly the soffits; and in
monuments like the Parthenon, I can come to no other conclusion but that
the columns were gold.
In the flutes of the Ionic columns of the Erectheum red has been
distinctly seen. This can only have been the ground for gold; the
fillets which separate the flutes of the Ionic column may then have been
white, but the flutes of the Doric column presenting a sharp arris,
which could not receive colour to separate the colours of the flutes,
the columns must have had one uniform tint, whatever it might have been,
and we can conceive no other worthy of such a building as the Parthenon,
or able to support the decoration above, but gold.
There is no authority for the gilding of the antefixæ, nor for the
guttæ, but their form suggests the only mode of treatment they could
receive with effect.