STYLE IN ARCHITECTURE. 393 



One of the many proofs of the wooden and mud brick origin 

 of Greek architecture is to be seen at the Herion, the original 

 and most sacred of the temples at Olympia. Here the stone 

 columns are of different sizes, and the recognised theory of 

 this strange fact is that the original columns were tree trunks. 

 Each column trunk must have been held so sacred even in its 

 irregularity — because perhaps the trophies of the victors in 

 the games were suspended on them — that when the wood de- 

 cayed the tree column was replaced by exact copies of it in 

 stone, and, we may assume, painted to imitate its wooden 

 original. 



The essence of (Ireek art is the simplicity and the grandeur 

 of the treatment in the mass, combined with the beauty of the 

 detail and sculpture. But so much has been written in modern 

 criticism — much true, but some imaginary. I believe — of the 

 subtlety and refinement of the curves of the Parthenon, that 

 the true explanation of its greatness has been too often ol)- 

 scured. Its nobility — and there is no nobler building than the 

 Parthenon — consists, apart from the unec[ualled sculpture of 

 Phidias, not so much in its clever detail, but in the sublimity 

 of the 1/ eqtial, regular, lintol-spanned columns rang'ed along' 

 the skyline of the cliff of the Acropolis. Similar positions 

 were chosen in many another (ireek city, such as Agrigentum, 

 Silenus and Segesta, in Sicily, and the Acropolis at Corinth. 



The Theseum at Athens, a temple almost complete at this 

 day, which was built at the same time and with the same skill 

 as the Parthenon, fails, because it is placed on an insignificant 

 site below the hill, to attract the art worshippers who flock up 

 to the Parthenon. 



Athens also teaches us how much in architecture depends on 

 the quality and texture of the material. I know nothing more 

 attractive in ruined architecture than the white marble of the 

 temples of the Acropolis, bleached by sun and rain, and blush- 

 ing into gold, which is the peculiar property of the marble 

 from Mount Pentelicus. 



The temples at Agrigentum, in Sicily, on the other hand, 

 being of coarse stone, with the plaster with which they were 

 originally covered still visible, are for this reason much less 

 attractive than the marble Parthenon. The Greeks seem to 

 have discovered the beauty of marble by chance. The carved 

 figures in the friezes of the temples of Silenus, in Sicilv, now 

 in the Palermo Museum, were of coarse grit stone, and were 

 originally plastered and painted, but the sculptors were evi- 

 dently not satisfied with the complexions of the goddesses and 

 Amazons. Their hands and faces therefore were made in white 

 marble, which took a beautiful wax-like polish, but the faces 

 of the males remained of grit ston.e. Thus it seems that ap- 

 preciation of the beauty of marble as a surface for building 

 and sculpture probably came by slow experiment. 



The classical mediceval artists undoubtedly painted all their 

 surfaces, even marble, in Athens; some modern Greek build- 

 ings, faithfully painted in strict accordance with the old Greek 

 custom by learned antiquarians, were a great shock, I must 



