Page:A history of architecture on the comparative method for the student, craftsman, and amateur.djvu/111

 GREEK ARCHITECTURE. 53 Color and gilding were applied very largely by the Greeks both to their buildings and sculpture, and some of the remains which have been lately excavated at Athens, Delphi, and elsewhere still exhibit traces of their original coloring. The Greeks developed the so-called " Orders of Architecture," the Doric, Ionic and Corinthian being used by them. To these, in later times, the Romans added the Tuscan and Composite, thus completing the "five orders of architecture." An "order" in Greek and Roman architecture consists of the column or support, including base and capital, and the entablature, or part supported. The latter is divided into the architrave or lowest portion ; the frieze, or middle member, and the cornice or upper- most part. The proportions of these parts vary in the different orders, as do the mouldings and decorations applied (No. 38). The origin and evolution of the different parts of the three Greek orders are dealt with later under their respective headings, but the characteristics are well expressed in the following lines : — • '• First, unadorn'd, And nobly plain, the manly Doric rose ; Th' Ionic, then, with decent matron grace, Her airy pillar heaved ; luxuriant last. The rich Corintliian spread her wanton wreath. The whole so measured, so lessen'd oft" By fine proportion, that the marble piles, Form'd to repel the still or stormy waste Of rolling ages, light as fabrics look That from the wand aerial rise." — Thomsox. The late J. Addington Symonds well observed that Art is commonly evolved through three stages: (i) The ardent and inspired embodiment of a great idea — this gives strength and grandeur ; (2) the original inspiration tempered by increasing knowledge and a clearer appreciation of limits — the result being symmetry ; (3) ebbing inspiration, details being elaborated, and novelties introduced to make up for its loss — this occasions a brilliant but somewhat disproportioned style. This progress can be traced in all departments of Greek life. In architecture, there is the solid strength of the Doric capital, the clear-cut beauty of the Ionic, and the florid detail of the Corinthian, in poetry the rugged grandeur of ^schylus, the exquisite symmetry of Sopho- cles, and the brilliant innovations of Euripides, and in sculpture, an Ageladas, a Pheidias, and a Praxiteles. 3. EXAMPLES. The Mycenaean Period has already been defined as extend- ing to shortly after the war with Troy, though in the Islands {e.g., Cyprus, Crete, and Delos), it lasted on till the eighth century b.c. ; but remains of a pre- Mycenaean period called Minoan, dating