(a) To distinguish the material;
(b) To bring about symmetry and proportion; and
(c) To construct with a clear consciousness of purpose.
Marble was most profusely made use of; wood also, but the latter by degrees disappeared altogether. The Athenians completed even the roofs of their temples in stone.
The Greeks availed themselves of soft materials, such as clay, chalk, gypsum, and marble dust, for stucco (κονίασις {koniasis}), in which they excelled all other nations.
Metal too formed an important element in their decorations. It is asserted by many authorities that the Korinthian capital was not the latest development of Greek architecture; but that on the contrary it was older than the simplified and more correct Doric capital, which, showing no traces of wood-construction, is altogether of a pure ‘stone-feeling,’ whilst the forms of the Korinthian capital bear undoubted traces of wood-carving and metallotechnic.
We see that the Greeks employed pliable, plastic, elastic and solid materials; the great secret of their success lay in the fact that they made use of these elements appropriately.
The vertical and horizontal were the principal lines used by the Greeks. The curved line was not altogether excluded. The uprising straight lines in columns were cylindrical or conical. The relation of the lines to one another, and to the whole of the building, was regulated by a strict observation of the laws of proportion.
The diameter or half-diameter of the column (the module) served as the unit for the whole building. As in the human body the general law of proportion does not exclude an infinite diversity of forms, so in the Greek temples regulation did not preclude variety. In man the height is limited, and, to a certain extent, determined by his bones. This was the case in the Greek temple. The height was limited by the diameter of the column. Taking two columns of the same height, the one thin and the other thick, the thin column will appear high and the other short, but both will have a certain proportion, taken from their own body; the one will be, say, nine times the diameter of its body, and the other only seven times. Proportion in no way fetters the artist; it allows him perfect freedom, but freedom in order, without which no good building is possible. All architectural elements are of geometrical origin. These elements are to be divided into those that support, and those that are supported. The column is the most perfect supporting body; surrounding a vertical axis in a slightly conical form. Through the ‘contractura,’ the swelling or tapering, it assumes the most perfect expression of the dynamic force in the striving upwards. Through the square plinth (Abacus) a harmonious union is effected between column, as supporter, and architrave, as the supported, or static, element of the building.
The Greek temple was pre-eminently the house of the man-like god. The god in the most exquisite idealised human form was visibly present. A forecourt (pronaos) led to the cella (naos); there was a rear-court (posticum), and occasionally a special court (the opisthodome) was added. Architecture and sculpture were closely allied in Greece; and still so clear and rational a separation between these two art-sisters, as existed there, has nowhere been observed. Through this apparent contradiction, architecture gained an independent soul, full of emotion and life, whilst sculpture obtained a well-proportioned body, the closely united artistic product being thus endowed with solidity and firmness.