GATE OF MYCENÆ.
The derivation and development of the Greek Doric temple from its prototype of wooden construction has frequently been demonstrated, and the tombs in Lycia furnish striking illustrations of this close imitation and perpetuation in stone of a system and details belonging to wood; and it is instructive to compare its features with corresponding parts in the Parthenon, and to observe how closely they agree. It is a curious instance of that love for and clinging to ancient and traditional forms, that with the art and all the resources of Athenian civilization, the form and construction of its temples remained much the same, and may be considered as only glorified enlargements in marble of their wooden predecessors, retaining all the characteristic details of those primitive structures.
IMITATION OF WOODEN CONSTRUCTION IN STONE TOMB IN LYKIA,
[From GUHL & KONER].
By these means, however, qualities of grandeur, joined with extreme simplicity, subtle proportions, and sparing, severe, but delicately chiselled ornament were gained; which, when heightened with colour in the broad and strong sunshine of Greece, seemed all sufficient, especially so when they formed the framework, or setting, of the most beautiful and noble sculpture the world has ever seen, as in the Parthenon.
To this sculpture, indeed, all the lines and proportions of the building seem to lead the eye, while it remains, whether in pediment, metope, or frieze, an essential part of the architectural effect, and is strictly slab sculpture, or what may be considered as architectural ornament, for, as I have elsewhere said, we may fairly consider figure-sculpture to have been the ornament of the Greeks: just as one might say that picture writing and hieroglyphic were the mural decorations of the Egyptians.
ORNAMENTAL LINES IN THE FRIEZE OF THE PARTHENON.
WAVE MOVEMENT & SPIRAL CURVES IN THE FRIEZE.