The monuments of Oriental India, bear the impress of a settled civilisation, at least of the tertiary period. They are comparatively modern in principle and in date; but they furnish us, nevertheless, with very important hints on the history of polychromy.
The frequent use of stucco, which is better made in India than anywhere else, recals the system of the ancients, in covering their fine hewn stonework with a very fine and hard incrustation of stucco.
The Indian edifices constitute, as it were, but a scaffolding from which to hang the drapery forming divisions of their spaces, as in China, and as formerly in Assyria, Egypt, and Greece.
THE JEWS AND PHENICIANS.
At present we have only mentioned existing examples; but the ancient writings furnish us with other no less important matter. The description of the celebrated Ark of Moses, and of the Tabernacle, taken with that of the Temple of David, contains a complete history of polychromy. This curious recital of Jewish antiquities presents us with a progressive development of that elementary principle of architecture which I term “the Enclosure.”
The documents and chronicles of other nations furnish us with parallels to what is contained in the holy writings. The Temple of the Slaves at Mechlenburg, according to the description of Baron von Rumohr, on the faith of ancient chroniclers; was constructed in the Oriental fashion, and richly ornamented with tapestry and gilded wood work.
THE GREEKS.
We now come to the Greeks. Hellenic art must have partaken of the composite character which is manifested in Hellenism generally, and which is so well expressed in the Grecian mythology.
As the beautiful marble, which forms the cliffs and coasts of Greece, notwithstanding its homogeneous transformation, betrays by veins, by fossils, and other indications, its sedimentary origin, so Hellenism, although it may appear homogeneous, and cast—so to speak—in one single jet, betrays, nevertheless, its secondary origin, and the sediment which constitutes its material groundwork.
It would be important to follow up these vestiges of rudimentary Hellenism, since they might enlighten us on certain phenomena in Hellenic art, which have been up to the present time inexplicable without them.