The Teaching of Ornament (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1900 Excerpt: ...column; that form on which no subsequent efforts have been able to effect any improvement in fitness of expression to its particular purpose; that form which when first seen, so throws into the shade everything else that we have seen applied to the same purpose, that it seems too perfect for human invention." The columns tapered from the bottom to the top, curving outward three-fourths of an inch in the thirty-four feet of their height. They are not vertical but slanted toward the cella, the principal room in the building, at so slight an angle that if they were continued upward they would meet at a point over a mile above the base. The long line of the base of the Parthenon is two and onehalf inches higher in the middle than at the ends. The roof was the same number of inches lower in the centre of the sides. Various reasons are given for this deviation from a straight line in the columns and other parts of the temple. It may have been with a view to increasing the apparent size through correcting perspective effects. (An explanation of this statement would involve problems too complicated for public-school pupils to comprehend.) The slight swelling in the middle of the platform and column would suggest elastic resistance. Perhaps it was merely an expression of the Greek distaste for straight lines. Whatever the reasons for these subtle proportions and curves may be, it is certain that the Parthenon in its original form was a creation not to be criticized by modern architects. In our study of Egyptian architecture we found only fiat roofs. The Greek temples had sloping roofs which added a new feature, the pediment, to the world's architecture. The pediment is the triangular portion extending along either end of the temple just under the roof (Fig. 52)...