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.”

An examination of the facts recorded by these various authorities will convince any one that the question is now narrowed to one of degree only—

“To what extent were white marble temples painted and ornamented?”

I would maintain that they were entirely so; that neither the colour of the marble nor even its surface was preserved; and that, preparatory to the ornamenting and colouring of the surface, the whole was covered with a thin coating of stucco, something in the nature of a gilder’s ground, to stop the absorption of the colours by the marble.

The Egyptians covered their buildings and statues in a similar way, no matter what the material; the Greek temples, which were built of lime-stone, were so undoubtedly; the ancient Greek terra-cottas almost without exception have traces of this ground.

To the belief that the Greeks employed it also on their marble temples, there is only one stumbling-block—the artificial value which white marble has in our eyes.

The Athenians built with marble because they found it almost beneath their feet, and also from the same cause which led the Egyptians to employ granite, which was afterwards painted—viz., because it was the most enduring, and capable of receiving a higher finish of workmanship. With these high thoughts of perfection and durability, they not only built their temples of Pentelic marble, but paved their carriage-way to them with the same material.

The ruin of the Parthenon, as seen at this day on the Acropolis, with the rich tones which the sun of centuries has developed upon it, is a very different thing from a bran-new white marble Parthenon, with many of its enrichments proved to have been picked out in the strongest colours. Such a building would have been horrible to behold under any sun, much more under that of Athens.

Could we set aside the whole of the evidence to the contrary; could we forget the paintings recorded on its cella walls—its interior filled with upwards of six hundred statues, many of them of colossal dimensions, enriched with painting, ivory, gold, and precious stones, which would demand a far different treatment of the building which contained them; could we forget that when a marble statue left the hand of the first of sculptors, it passed into the hands of an equally celebrated encaustic painter to receive its ultimate finish;^[1] could we forget the varieties of material which they combined, certainly harmoniously, in the statues of their gods—the varieties of colour which they gave to a material, by us considered to be so uniform as bronze, in which to heighten the expression they wished to obtain; (by alloys of iron, silver, and gold, used on the various portions of a figure, the greatest known sculptors produced the paleness of death,—the blush of shame,—the smile on the mouth,—the fire of the eye, and the healthy redness of the cheek;)^[2] the ornaments of metal with which many of the marble statues were covered—earrings, bracelets, armlets, sandals, bands round the hair, crowns, diadems of pearls, precious stones, eyes of silver, glass, and precious stones; the metal crown of the Laocoon, the metal casque of the statue of Mars, the metal drapery of the Antinous, the earrings of the Venus de’ Medici, or her golden hair;—could we set aside the evidence either of that which is recorded, or of that which may still be seen, we should yet have felt that it must have been so, from the knowledge we have of the practice of those civilisations which preceded and followed that of the Greeks. How can one believe that at one particular period in the practice of the Arts, the artistic eye was so entirely changed that it became suddenly enamoured of white marble? Such an idea belongs only to an age like that through which we have just passed—an age equally devoid of the capacity to appreciate, and of the power to execute, works of art—when refuge is taken in whitewashing.

Under this influence, however, we have been born and bred, and it requires time to shake off the trammels which such early education leaves.

There is another theory which it is necessary to notice, viz., that the marble was not painted, but stained in some way or other, so as still to retain the transparency of the marble. As this has never been tried, and can only be tried on marble, I dare not say that it would not produce an agreeable result. I am not able, however, to conceive it, and feel certain that it could not fulfil the required conditions of monumental sculpture, though presenting more chance of success with isolated works.

As far as regards monumental sculpture, the evidence of Mr. Bracebridge, which was produced before the committee of the Institute,^[3] would appear to settle the point. The fragments dug up at Athens in the winter of 1835–36, are stated by him to have been in perfect preservation, and “painted with the brightest red, blue, and yellow, or rather, vermilion, ultramarine, and straw colour, which last may have faded in the earth.” He further states, that “the colours were laid on in thick coats.”

COLOURING OF THE COURT.

I may state at the outset that I have been restrained in this attempt at rendering the effect of the coloured architecture of the Greeks—that I have set bounds to my imagination. I most fully believe that the Greek monuments were coloured and ornamented on a much higher key than I have ventured to attempt, whilst the public eye requires preparation for receiving what there are as yet so few facts to substantiate.

The only portions of the colouring of this court for which there is absolute authority, are the leaves on the moulding A, and the enrichments on the pilaster-caps, D, which are thus published by Mr. Penrose, in his work. Traces exist of the enrichment B, and the fret on the architrave band, C, of a stain indicating the form of the ornament, but without traces of colour.

The colouring of the moulding A, which is known, is alone sufficient for our purpose. It establishes two broad principles for our guidance; first, that of the alternation of colour, second, that the colours were so employed as best to define the moulding they enriched.

Specks of blue and red (or, as observed by others, green and red) have been found in several monuments on this moulding, which from its form is more likely to have retained colour than any other. The absolute value of these colours is of course not known; hence the liberty of believing that they were only stains or tints, not positive strong colours. A glance at the experiment is sufficient to upset this theory at once; the ornament, with anything short of the strength of colour we have employed, would have been invisible even at the height we see it, much more so at the height the original was placed.

As the bed-mould B represents, by the lines of the stain, similar mouldings carved in relief in other monuments, I felt I was safe in using the colours in such a way as best to represent the object it imitated. I have therefore placed the gold where, had the ornament been in relief and gold employed, gold must have been placed to have been seen to the best advantage, that is, on the convex surfaces. So of the other colours.

In colouring the fret C I have followed the same principle; if they took the trouble to paint so minute an ornament at such a height, we may be quite sure that they took every pains to make it as distinct as possible, and, therefore, in using blue and red alternately, I have endeavoured to make the lines of the fret more apparent.

I was led at once to adopt a blue ground for the frieze, occupying, as it does, the place of the usual frieze of triglyphs and metopes in other monuments where the blue ground predominated; I felt the Greek eye would have demanded it here had such an arrangement as that of our frieze existed on a Greek monument.

The red within the wreaths was necessary, both for general harmony, and also to prevent the eye passing through the wreaths, which would have been the case had the blue ground been uninterrupted.

The soffit of the cornice I have coloured red, because I have no doubt that wherever blue, red, and yellow or gold were used, this must always have been the place of the red; and I experienced great pleasure, when in speaking on this subject with M. Hittorff of Paris, he brought forth a fragment of a soffit from Selinus, which, as he held it in his hand, showed a surface perfectly white, but removing his hand from it, discovered a large patch of the strongest red still remaining on the surface of the preparatory coat of stucco with which the temple at Selinus was covered.

The boldest step I have taken is in colouring the capitals of the columns; the abacus E and the echinus F.

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.