AND
A FRAGMENT ON THE ORIGIN OF POLYCHROMY,
By PROFESSOR SEMPER.
AN APOLOGY
FOR THE
COLOURING OF THE GREEK COURT.
The coloured or colourless state of the monuments of the Greeks, and more particularly of their monumental sculpture, has long been a subject of discussion in the world of art; a discussion which, although it may have been carried on with too much faith on the one side, has certainly been accompanied, on the other, with too much prejudice.
At a very early stage in the arrangements for forming in the Crystal Palace a series of reproductions of architectural monuments, I felt that to colour a Greek monument would be one of the most interesting problems I could undertake; not indeed in the hope that I might be able completely to solve it, but that I might, at least, by the experiment remove the prejudices of many.
I felt persuaded that when we had a Greek monument placed side by side with reproductions of other coloured monuments, the authorities for which were indisputable, people would be more willing to recognise the necessity for believing that the monuments of Greece were no exceptions to those of civilisations which preceded or followed them, but that they also like the rest were coloured in every part, and covered with a most elaborate system of ornamentation.
So early as the publication of the “Antiquities of Athens,” by Stuart and Revett, the traces of ornaments on the mouldings of the Greek temples were known and published by them, some of the painted ornaments, however, which they found, being engraved in their work as if in relief; but artists were for long after unwilling to accept these fragments as evidence that an entire system of ornamentation prevailed on the Greek buildings. The late Jules Goury and Professor Semper, from whom will be found a paper on Polychromy in the Appendix, were amongst the earliest to direct attention to this subject; but the most diligent labourer in the field is M. Hittorff, of Paris, who has devoted many years to the production of a magnificent work, in which will be found all the facts that are known, and a history of the long discussion which this subject has provoked.
Mr. Penrose also, in his work on the “Principles of Athenian Architecture,” has recorded all that he himself saw, but is reluctant to believe that any ornaments existed where traces of ornament can no longer be found. He feels that there is “some slight ground of evidence that a peculiar yellow tinge upon some parts of the columns, especially of the west front of the Parthenon, is not simply the yellow said to result from the oxidation of iron contained in Pentelic marble, but has been applied externally as a tint, though perhaps so delicately as merely to reduce the high light of the marble without obscuring its crystalline character.”
He considers it “unreasonable to suppose that the ancients entirely concealed, or even materially altered in appearance, the general surface of the white marble, which they made a great point of obtaining whenever possible; but that no one who has witnessed the painfully dazzling effect of fresh Pentelic marble under the Athenian sun will deny the artistic value of toning down the almost pure white of its polished surface, and the more so when considerable portions of the architecture were painted in the most positive colours. We need not suppose,” he says further, “this tone to have produced more than the difference between fresh white marble and ivory.”