PART V
POMPEIAN ART
CHAPTER LII
ARCHITECTURE
In the preceding pages the principal buildings of Pompeii have been described, and reference has been made to many works of art. We shall now offer a few observations of a more general nature in regard to the remains of architecture, sculpture, and painting.
The different periods in the architectural history of the city have been defined in a previous chapter. The most significant of these, from every point of view, is that which we have called the Tufa Period, which corresponds roughly with the second century B.C. Its importance is chiefly due to the fact that it records for us a phase of architectural development, a style, of which only slight traces are found elsewhere,—in the East. It is the last offshoot of untrammelled Hellenistic art in the field of construction; the architecture of the following period was still derived from Hellenistic sources, but was dominated by Roman conceptions, and received from Rome the impulse that determined the direction of its development. The remains of the Tufa Period at Pompeii furnish materials for a missing chapter in the history of architecture.
As we have seen, the stone preferred in this period for all purposes was the gray tufa. Where used for columns, pilasters, and entablatures, it was covered with stucco; in plain walls it appeared in its natural color. Unfortunately, the covering of stucco is preserved in only a few cases; the best example is presented by an Ionic capital in the first peristyle of the house of the Faun. The stucco was generally white, but color was sometimes employed, as in the Corinthian columns and pilasters of the exedra in the same house, which are painted a deep wine red.
No other period of Pompeian art shows in an equal degree the impress of a single characteristic and self-consistent style, alike in public buildings, temples, and private houses, in the interior decoration as well as in the treatment of exteriors. The wall decoration of the first style is simply the adaptation of tufa construction to decorative use. The motives are identical. The forms are the same, but these naturally appear in a freer handling upon interior walls, the effect being heightened by the use or imitation of slabs of marble of various colors.
This style throughout gives the impression of roominess and largeness. It is monumental, especially when viewed in contrast with the later architecture of Pompeii. No building erected after the city became a Roman colony can be compared, for ample dimensions and spatial effects, with the Basilica. In the same class are the temples of Jupiter and Apollo, with the impressive two-storied colonnades enclosing the areas on which they stand; the contrast with the later temples, as those of Fortuna Augusta and Vespasian, is striking. All the more important houses of this period are monumental in design and proportions, with imposing entrances, large and lofty atriums, and high doors opening upon the atrium; the shops in front also were high, and in two stories.
In point of detail, the architecture of the Tufa Period reveals less of strength and symmetry than its stately proportions and modest material would lead us to expect. The ornamentation is a debased descendant of the Greek. It is characterized by superficial elegance, together with an apparent striving after simplicity and an ill-concealed poverty of form and color. Though the ornamental forms still manifest fine Greek feeling, they lack delicacy of modelling and vigor of expression. They are taken from Greek religious architecture, but all appreciation of the three orders as distinct types, each suited for a different environment, has disappeared. In consequence, we often find a mixture of the orders, a blending of Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian elements; and still more frequently do we meet with a marked departure from the original proportions.
