Greek architects discovered
that, to produce a harmonious whole, it is necessary to avoid
geometrical lines which would appear stiff, and take account of
illusions in perspective. "The aim of the architect," says a Greek
writer, "is to invent processes for deluding the sight."
Greek artists wrought conscientiously for they worked for the gods.
And so their monuments are elaborated in all their parts, even in
those that are least in view, and are constructed so solidly that
they exist to this day if they have not been violently destroyed. The
Parthenon was still intact in the seventeenth century. An explosion of
gunpowder wrecked it.
The architecture of the Greeks was at once solid and elegant, simple
and scientific. Their temples have almost all disappeared; here and
there are a very few,[90] wholly useless, in ruins, with roofs fallen
in, often nothing left but rows of columns. And yet, even in this
state, they enrapture those who behold them.
=Sculpture.=--Among the Egyptians and the Assyrians sculpture was
hardly more than an accessory ornament of their edifices; the Greeks
made it the principal art.
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