How to Study Architecture

by Charles H. Caffin

For the beauty involved in the Hellenic ideal is organic beauty. Everything about Olympia, as everything about a Hellenic Temple, must perform its function in the organic beauty of the whole.

Further, it is to be noted that in the pursuit of this ideal the Greeks did not rely upon the feeling of the senses, nor yet upon the judgment of the intellect; but upon a union of the two. They submitted the inspiration of the senses to processes of reason. In a word, they intellectualised their sensations. It is this which has made the expression of their ideal Classic.

It is not necessary for our present purpose to trace the ebb and flow of the influence of this ideal through the centuries. But we may observe that while the Romans despoiled Hellas of her works of art and imitated, as far as they could, the externals of her ideal of beauty, the Arabs, Moors, and Saracens in later years more intimately imbibed its spirit and gave their own expression to it. Italy, however, in the latter half of the fifteenth century and during the sixteenth, came nearer than any other nation to both the spirit and the form of Hellenic culture. For her scholars and artists were more inclined to emulate than to imitate the example of the Greeks and tried to incorporate the Hellenic ideal into their own lives.

On the other hand, the Classical revival which began toward the end of the eighteenth century and has continued intermittently to our own day, has for the most part made the mistake of imitating instead of emulating. Artists have tried to copy the form, without imbibing the spirit. But form so used is like the letter that killeth; without the spirit that giveth life.

Meanwhile, there are indications that the world to-day is going to approach nearer to the Hellenic ideal than ever before and in some respects to better it. For there was a flaw in the latter. It despised labour and denied workmen a share in government. Its democracy was merely an extended aristocracy and, since those privileged to share in it received payment while filling office, it has been said that “the majority of the Athenian citizens were salaried paupers.” On the other hand, the theory, at least, of modern society is the honourableness of labour, and one of the best recognised problems of to-day is the shaping of conditions in order that labour may in truth be honourable—a blessing and not a curse, enhancing the beauty of the worker’s life instead of starving it. In fact, the modern world in adopting anew the Hellenic ideal of the beauty of the whole life is going to carry it further, to include the whole life of the whole community.

Moreover, our hope in being able to revive the Hellenic ideal and even to carry it farther consists in the fact that the foundation of our progress, as of the Greek, has again become reason, and reason established on a wider and firmer basis, owing to the immense development of modern science. And, while science encompasses every field of human thought and activity, its tendency is more and more directed to promoting the health and happiness of life. It is aiming anew at the Hellenic ideal of physical, moral and mental perfection, not confined to a few, but embracing whole communities and peoples.

There was a further flaw in the Hellenic system. It relegated women to an inactive position in the public affairs of life. Women were excluded even as sight-seers from the Olympic Games. The Greek worshipped the physical in woman, but refused development of her intellectual faculties. Their ideal was, in fact, centred in a single sex; it could not breed and perpetuate itself. But to-day the idea is spreading that this is a woman’s as well as a man’s world, and that to approximate to the ideal of human perfection needs the full, free, and independent co-operation of the woman and the man.

In conclusion let us note how in one respect the Hellenic ideal still transcends our own. There was a logic in the Greek, to which we have hardly yet attained. It practically amounted to this that “a tree is known by its fruits.” If a thing is good physically, morally, and mentally, it must naturally manifest its goodness so that it can be appreciated by the senses. Beauty must be made visible and audible. The possibility of the ideal must be made familiar to all, in literature, song, dance, drama, and the arts of beautiful design.

To the Greeks æsthetics, the study of what is appreciated as beautiful by the senses, was not a separate department of life, as it is apt to be with us, but only another aspect of morality and religion. It was the natural and inevitable expression of the inward spirit of the ideal. How could a man’s life reach its highest possibility if it did not love and seek after beauty; how could a city be truly great unless it were manifestly beautiful?

One can hardly imagine a Hellen, who wished to retain any reputation for intelligence, asserting, as many people are satisfied and even seem proud to do in these days: “I don’t know anything about art, but I know what I like.” To this it is on record that an artist retorted, “And so does a cow.” Which would have been the sort of retort that a Hellen might have made to the speaker, whom he would at once determine was a person of low intelligence.