Page:A history of architecture on the comparative method for the student, craftsman, and amateur.djvu/107

 GREEK ARCHITECTURE. 49 2. ARCHITECTURAL CHARACTER. Much as Greek culture owed to the preceding Oriental civihzations, still the change effected by the Greeks has so profoundly influenced the development of European progress that Greece must be regarded as the veritable source of literary and artistic inspiration. As a recent writer puts it, " Whate'er we hold of beauty, half is hers." Greek architecture stands alone in being accepted as beyond criticism, and as being an obligatory study for students of otherwise very different principles. The character of the early or Mycenaean period, also known as the Pelasgic, Cyclopean or Primitive period, is very different from the later or ff ellenic period, and, as mentioned on page 53, con- sists of rough walling of large blocks of stone, often unworked. In this period the Greeks often had recourse to the corbel system, to inclined blocks over openings, and even to the true arch. The liellenic Period which followed the Mycenaean is dealt with specially here because it is notable for the development of the trabeated style which the Greeks approved and developed, and which is recognised as the special Grecian type. The following diagram emphasizes the main facts : — Greeks. Etruscans. . f Greek, Roman. 4 Gothic. Trabeated. Trabeated and Arcuated. Arcuated. This style was essentially columnar and trabeated (trabs = a beam), and the character was largely influenced by the use of finely-dressed marble. Stability was achieved solely by the judicious observance of the laws of gravity ; the weights acting only vertically^, and consequently needing but vertical resistances. Stone or marble lintels being difficult to obtain of any great length, the columns or supporting members had to be placed com- paratively close together, a method of design which called for a certain simplicity of treatment characteristic of the style. Mortar was unnecessary because it would have been of no use for dis- tributing the pressure between the stone or marble blocks of which the walls and columns were constructed, as the beds of these were rubbed to a very fine surface and united with iron cramps. Further, careful study of the materials at hand was made, for Choisy found in the temples at ALg'ma. and Paestum (Nos. 20, 28), that the stones were laid on their natural bed or otherwise, according to the pressures they had to bear ; thus the architraves, which had to support a cross pressure, were placed with the planes of their beds vertically, as they were then better able to withstand a cross-strain, and a wider intercolumniation could also be obtained. F.A. E