FIG. 201.
—THE PROPYLÆA, MUNICH.
In general, the Greek Revival in Germany presents the aspect of a sincere striving after beauty, on the part of a limited number of artists of great talent, misled by the idea that the forms of a dead civilization could be galvanized into new life in the service of modern needs. The result was disappointing, in spite of the excellent planning, admirable construction and carefully studied detail of these buildings, and the movement here as elsewhere was foredoomed to failure.
FIG. 202.—PLAN OF PANTHÉON, PARIS.
FRANCE. In France the Classic Revival, as we have seen, had made its appearance during the reign of Louis XV. in a number of important monuments which expressed the protest of their authors against the caprice of the Rococo style then in vogue. The colonnades of the Garde-Meuble, the façade of St. Sulpice, and the coldly beautiful Panthéon (Figs. 202, 203) testified to the conviction in the most cultured minds of the time that Roman grandeur was to be attained only by copying the forms of Roman architecture with the closest possible approach to correctness. In the Panthéon, the greatest ecclesiastical monument of its time in France (otherwise known as the church of Ste. Genéviève), the spirit of correct classicism dominates the interior as well as the exterior. It is a Greek cross, measuring 362 × 267 feet, with a dome 265 feet high, and internally 69 feet in diameter. The four arms have domical vaulting and narrow aisles separated by Corinthian columns. The whole interior is a cold but extremely elegant composition. The most notable features of the exterior are its imposing portico of colossal Corinthian columns and the fine peristyle which surrounds the drum of the dome, giving it great dignity and richness of effect.