§60. COLOURED BAS-RELIEFS. 275 



was usual on buildings when, in speaking of the variegated 

 marble of Chios, used for building the walls of the city, he 

 says, " painting (i. e. of walls of buildings) would not have 

 been held in the same, or even in any, esteem, if coloured 

 marbles had been in fashion" (xxxvi. 6). 



The primary colours were those preferred by the Greeks 

 for the various parts of the entablature — a combination quite 

 in accordance with pure taste in architectural ornamentation ; 

 and fragments discovered in an excavation made at Athens 

 in 1825, were "painted with the brightest (vermilion) red, 

 (ultramarine) blue, and yellow.*' The same colours were em- 

 ployed by their imitators the Etruscans. They were intro- 

 duced into the architectural details; but some others were 

 also admitted*, and gold Avas employed in highly ornamented 

 mouldings. The colour of Greek bas-reliefs varied at dif- 

 ferent periods : the figures in the oldest times were of one 

 uniform red hue, with a background of blue ; and at first the 

 natural hue of the flesh was not attempted in the human 

 figure, either as a statue or a bas-relief. But (as I have 

 before remarked f) colour was an essential part of architec- 

 tural decoration. 



60. This was the case in all countries : as in Egypt, 

 Assyria, Greece, Etruria, and, in later times, in the churches 

 of Christian Europe. In Egypt it was employed for the 

 mouldings and members of every building, whether public 

 or private ; and the hieroglyphics formed a rich ornament 

 to the fiat surface of the walls. Statues, obelisks, and other 

 monuments made of granite or other hard stone were also 

 coloured, sometimes even when polished ; but in this latter 

 case the surface was generally left uncoloured; the hiero- 

 glyphics alone being painted, mostly blue or green. The 

 natural hue of the stone then served instead of artificial 



* See Part I. p. 17. t See Part I. p. 24. 



t 2 



