GREEK AND ROMAN ORNAMENT.
Greek ornament—as found on the carved mouldings, friezes, acroteria,
antifexes, and capitals, or, as in the painted variety, found on vases,
plain mouldings, bands, plates, and other surface decorations, or
incised on the bronze cistæ and mirrors—was of a severe and refined
order, almost all of which had its birthplace in Egyptian and Assyrian
forms, that in the first instances were used in a symbolic sense, but
under the hands of Greek artists had lost all their former meaning, and
were developed and partly transformed into a wealth of purely æsthetic
forms.
[Illustration: Fig. 310.—Greek Frets.]
The simplest forms were frets or the so-called key pattern (Figs. 310,
311, and 315).
The word meander is sometimes applied to the Greek frets; this is not
correct, as the word implies a curved line, not a rectangular one.
[Illustration: Fig. 311.—Greek Carved Fret.]
The guilloche, snare-work, or cable ornament, is used on flat bands, and
also as the decoration of torus mouldings (Figs. 312 and 313).
[Illustration: Fig. 312.—Treble Guilloche Ornament.]
The Greeks used the honeysuckle pattern in an endless variety of forms
both in carving and in painting, examples of which are at Figs. 314 and
315.
The ivy was used very much in borders of their painted vases (Fig. 316).
The ogee moulding was usually decorated with the water-leaf and tongue
ornament, and the ovolo with the characteristic egg and tongue, and the
round fillets with beads and reels. A fine example of this group of
decorated mouldings comes from the Temple of Minerva Polias at Athens
(Fig 317).
[Illustration: Fig. 313.—Double Guilloche.]
An elongated type of the egg and tongue comes from the Erectheum (Fig.
318).
[Illustration: Fig. 314.—Anthemion (carved), from Apollo Epicurius.]
The Greeks seldom used large scrolls in ornament; an exception is the
scroll ornament from the roof of the Lysikrates monument, and in the
Corinthian cauliculi or volutes (see Fig. 302).
The Greek variety of acanthus foliage is seen in the capital from the
same monument.
[Illustration: Fig. 315.—Greek Border with Fret Bands.]
Roman architectural ornament was simply Greek with a few variations, not
always improvements. It was less refined, but in some cases, especially
in the examples of large acanthus scrolls on friezes, panels, and
pilasters (Fig. 319), and in their large capitals, the ornament was
designed with great skill and virility. They used the softer-leaved
variety of acanthus—the mollis—while the Greeks used the spinosus, or
prickly-leaved variety.
[Illustration: Fig. 316.—Greek Ivy Meander Border.]
The decorations of the Roman mouldings were less elegant than those of
the Greeks, owing to the contours being segments of circles where the
Greeks used forms like conic sections, and the execution was less
artistic in the Roman mouldings (Figs. 320, 321, 322).
[Illustration: Fig. 317.—Decorated Mouldings from the Temple of Minerva
Polias; Ogee Ovolo, and Beads.]
[Illustration: Fig. 318.—The Ovolo, with Egg and Tongue, from the
Erectheum.]
The domestic architecture of Greece is guessed at by the remains of
Pompeii and Herculaneum, which, though Roman provincial cities, were in
style and decoration a fair reflection of Greek art. The remains of the
art found in these cities have been styled Greco-Roman. The destruction
of Pompeii was in the year A.D. 79.
[Illustration: Fig. 319.—Ancient Roman Panel, Florence.]
[Illustration: Fig. 320.—Ovolo and Astragal Mouldings; Roman.]
[Illustration: Fig. 321.—Ogee and Fluted Cavetto Moulding; Jupiter
Tonans.]
The general arrangement of a Roman house was rectangular in plan, with,
and sometimes without, a vestibule in front. The front door opened on a
passage called the _prothyrum_ which led to the _atrium_, an open court
partly roofed; the opening was in the centre, and was called the
_impluvium_; exactly under it in the floor was a tank called the
_compluvium_; this received the rain water. In large houses the atrium
roof was supported by columns, then the atrium was sometimes called the
_cavædium_, at the end of which opened out three rooms the larger and
central one was called the _tablinum_, and the two side ones _alæ_;
these were the rooms where the family records, documents, histories,
deeds, &c., were kept. A passage led from the atrium to the principal
private reception-room, called the _peristylium_, which had a roof
partly open to the sky. This room was the finest in the house, and was
richly decorated with rare marbles, bronzes, and fresco paintings where
the owner was wealthy. Round the peristyle were arranged the smaller
rooms, such as the parlours called _exedræ_, the chapels _lararia_, and
the picture galleries _pinacothecæ_. Kitchens and other offices were
behind, as also were the various sleeping-rooms. Some of the rooms were
badly lighted, and had to depend for the light from the doors or
artificial light, but in some cases windows, rather small in size, were
placed high up in the walls.
[Illustration: Fig. 322.—Ogee Decorated, and Astragal; Jupiter Stator.]
The walls of the Pompeian houses were richly decorated in strong
colouring, where vermilion, black, green, and orange predominated. The
subjects were figure groups, animals, birds, and grotesques of all
kinds, encased in fantastic architectural framings (Fig. 323). Sometimes
a dead wall of the yard would be painted elaborately to represent a
garden. Sculpture also decorated the apartments, the floors were in
mosaic, and the ceiling richly panelled and decorated. Roman, Greek, and
Pompeian ornament will again be noticed in the second volume under the
minor arts of these countries.
[Illustration: Fig. 323.—Mural Painting from Pompeii.]