An Apology for the Colouring of the Greek Court in the Crystal Palace

by Owen Jones

The echinus of the Greek column is a moulding so perfect, and so much refinement was used upon it by the Greeks, that few believe it was ever intended to be ornamented. It is supposed that much of this refinement was exercised by the Greeks on this curve in order to prepare it for the shadow which the angle of the abacus cast upon it, and that all this would have been lost or disturbed by a painted ornament on the surface.

There are others, however, equally strong in the belief that it was painted and ornamented, amongst whom M. Hittorff, who, in his work, gives two illustrations from drawings of Greek columns on vases, one of which has an ornamental abacus, and the other with the honeysuckle ornament on the echinus. As all the ornaments on Greek vases are analogous to those of Greek temples, it is fairly concluded that the painter of the columns on the vases only represented what he was accustomed to see on the columns of buildings.

I am not alone in the belief that the echinus was ornamented with the egg-and-tongue ornament; in fact, the form of the moulding suggests this in preference to any other. It certainly gives the best form for resolving the upward running-lines of the flutes.

As from all the examples we have, the fret ornament is found universally on flat bands, I have adopted it for the surface of the abacus, and have chosen a fret which, returning within itself, prevents the eye from running outwards, upwards, or downwards, which is generally the case with most frets.

The spandrils of the abacus I have supplied with an ornament which I thought would best carry the eye from the square of the angle into the circular moulding.

It is difficult to suppose that the capitals of the columns could appear unornamented side by side with pilaster-caps so elaborately enriched; and we think it will freely be admitted that of the two, the known Greek pilaster-cap, and that of my experimental column, the latter is more quiet.

A simple reference to the cuts will be sufficient to convince any unprejudiced person that the minute scale of the ornaments on the pilaster-cap demands a higher key of ornamentation than that I have adopted.

For the general tone of the plain portions of the monument, I have adopted a general tint of yellow, but, as I said before, I believe that the Greeks carried their ornamentation much beyond this. I think the architrave was enriched with ornaments—certainly the soffits; and in monuments like the Parthenon, I can come to no other conclusion but that the columns were gold.

In the flutes of the Ionic columns of the Erectheum red has been distinctly seen. This can only have been the ground for gold; the fillets which separate the flutes of the Ionic column may then have been white, but the flutes of the Doric column presenting a sharp arris, which could not receive colour to separate the colours of the flutes, the columns must have had one uniform tint, whatever it might have been, and we can conceive no other worthy of such a building as the Parthenon, or able to support the decoration above, but gold.

There is no authority for the gilding of the antefixæ, nor for the guttæ, but their form suggests the only mode of treatment they could receive with effect.