Read Ebook: The Brochure Series of Architectural Illustration Vol. 01 No. 08 August 1895 Fragments of Greek Detail by Various

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THE BROCHURE SERIES

OF ARCHITECTURAL ILLUSTRATION.

FRAGMENTS OF GREEK DETAIL.

The Art of Greece during the fifth century, B.C., was developed in an amazingly short time from a condition of almost archaic rudeness to that of the greatest perfection which the world has ever seen.

At the close of the Persian wars the Athenians, under Pericles, began rebuilding their city and perfecting themselves in all the arts of civilization, and their progress in the next half century will always be a subject for wonder. It is especially wonderful that works of art of the character produced at this time should have been the outcome of political maneuvering: for if Plutarch is to be credited the scheming of Pericles to obtain and hold possession of the government of Athens was the immediate cause of the erection of these marvellous monuments. In order to increase his influence with the common people Pericles devoted the treasure which had been contributed by the other Greek cities for defence against the barbarians to the beautifying of Athens, and to furnishing them with games and amusements, and especially to the erection of the group of temples upon the Acropolis, in this way distributing patronage and keeping his people employed much as a modern political "boss" does the same in our day.

The Parthenon, which is esteemed the grandest of all monuments of Greek art, embodying as it does the highest achievement in sculpture and architecture, was built just after the middle of the fifth century, although the precise date at which it was begun and finished is uncertain. The Erechtheion and Propylaea were probably built a few years later, but their exact dates are also in doubt.

The sculptor, Phidias, was the friend and adviser of Pericles and to him was given the general charge of all matters relating to art. Under him were grouped architects, sculptors, and artisans of all schools and trades--Ictinus and Calicrates as architects of the Parthenon, Mnesicles of the Propylaea, and many others--such an assemblage as only Greece in her most glorious epoch could bring together. The work of this period shows that happy union of technical perfection and the expression of only the loftiest ideas, in which, as Plutarch says, the architect made it his ambition to "surpass the magnificence of his design with the elegance of its execution."

The skill and delicacy as well as the subtle appreciation of refinements of form and finish exhibited in the treatment of details such as those shown in our plates are almost beyond comprehension. The workmanship is so perfect that it is difficult to see how it could be improved upon. Stuart, in his account of the Parthenon, states that he found two stones, one merely laid upon the other in the stylobate of this building, which had been ground to so fine a joint that they had actually united and become one. The refinements in measurements are such that it has been asserted that a variation of one twentieth of an inch from the dimensions intended is all that need be allowed--the width of the two ends of the building agreeing to within this amount. The entasis of columns and curvature of what would ordinarily be straight lines is familiar to all students of architecture.

CAPITAL FROM THE PARTHENON, ATHENS.

The Parthenon of Pericles was built on the site of an older temple as a treasury, and repository of the colossal statue of Athena, made by Phidias from gold and ivory. The Doric order, the capital of which is shown in our plate, needs no description here as probably no other single order is so generally known. After various transformations the building was blown up by the Venetians in 1687 and has since remained in ruins.

CAPITAL FROM THE ERECHTHEION, ATHENS.

BASE FROM THE ERECHTHEION, ATHENS.

CAP OF ANTA FROM THE ERECHTHEION, ATHENS.

The Ionic order of the Erechtheion is the one which is best known and has been most frequently copied and adapted in modern work. It is at the same time the richest and most delicately refined of the Greek Ionic orders, and this is equivalent to saying of all orders whatsoever. This order of which the cap and base are given in our plates belongs to the north porch. There were two other fronts to the building which was, to all intents and purposes, three temples united in one. The famous caryatid porch faces the south, looking toward the Parthenon.

FRAGMENT FROM SOUTH SIDE OF ACROPOLIS, ATHENS.

Although this fragment was found at some distance from the Erechtheion it is without much doubt a portion of that building.

CAPITAL FROM THE PROPYLAEA, ATHENS.

The Propylaea, or gate to the Acropolis, was built at about the same time as the Parthenon, between the years 436 and 431 B.C. It combines the Doric and Ionic orders, but both are most skilfully used with equal grace and nobleness of proportion.

FRAGMENT OF CYMA FROM THE THOLOS AT EPIDAUROS.

CAP FROM THE THOLOS AT EPIDAUROS.

The two fragments shown are the result of recent excavations and are among the most beautiful examples of Greek detail extant.

Architectural Schools.

HARVARD UNIVERSITY.

Probably no walk of life offers more opportunities for the advantageous application of what is meant in this quotation by civilization than that of the architect; and probably in no other profession does the "civilized" man have greater advantages over his less civilized fellows.

The successful architect requires a broad and catholic culture, but in addition must be a man of the world in the best and most comprehensive sense. Opportunities for social improvement will often make the difference between success and failure in his professional life. On this account too much stress can hardly be put upon the importance to a young man of his social environment.

The life in an old university set in the midst of a community where the traditions of generations of cultivated families have established a social atmosphere, it might be said, is one of the best and most powerful civilizing influences. Such an opportunity as this is offered at Harvard, and it is this which gives to the architectural course at Harvard its main advantage over that of other schools in this country.

The department itself is comparatively young, having only just completed its second year. It is under the direction of the faculty of the Lawrence Scientific School, one of the principal schools of the University.

Its special corps of instructors consists of Prof. H. Langford Warren assisted by Messrs. George F. Newton and John W. Bemis. In addition to this, lectures and instruction are given by members of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, which includes the faculty of the Lawrence Scientific School, Harvard College and the Graduate School, among whom are Prof. Charles Eliot Norton, Prof. White, Prof. Greenough, Prof. Moore, Prof. Hollis and others.

Although students in this department do much of their work in rooms specially provided for them, in their general studies and lectures they are associated with the other students of the University and thus reap the advantages coming from such association.

Throughout, it has been the purpose in this school, to treat architecture as a fine art and not merely as the science of construction, and to this end instruction in the general history of the Fine Arts and practice in design are made the central features about which the other studies are grouped.

The course as laid out is intended to cover four years, and may be supplemented by post-graduate work; while on the other hand a large part of the general studies may be anticipated by students of the College who wish to take the professional studies after completing the usual course in the college proper. Especial stress is laid upon educating the taste and discrimination of the student, and association with cultivated men and familiarity with the best efforts of the past, are the two most important influences to this end.

Personal.

Mr. C. D. Maginnis, recently returned from abroad, and who has for several years been in the office of Mr. E. M. Wheelwright, city architect, has opened an office at 27 School Street, Boston. He is prepared to do all kinds of architectural drawing, in pen, pencil, or water color, and will work up competition drawings and sketches.

Mr. W. H. Kilham, Mr. E. P. Dana, and several others have recently been added to the working force of Messrs. Winslow & Wetherell, whose office is now the largest in Boston.

Mr. W. T. Partridge, who has for several years been with Messrs. Eames & Young, in St. Louis, has severed his connection with them and will probably return to the East.

Club Notes.

The summer work of the Sketch Club of New York has been laid out to include sketching trips in the outlying neighborhood of New York City. On alternate Saturdays members of the Club meet at one of the piers and take a small steam yacht to points along the East River and Long Island Sound, spending the Sunday in sketching. On the intermediate Sundays, rambles through West Chester occupy those who are disposed to join in the excursions. These trips are laid out to include the time from July 13 to September 28.

The competition of the Chicago Architectural Club upon the subject "Picturesque Chicago," closes September 2, and the club begins its regular year's work on that date with an exhibition of the sketches submitted in this competition together with other work of the summer.

The Brochure Series

of Architectural Illustration.

PUBLISHED MONTHLY BY

BATES & GUILD,

Subscription Rates per year 50 cents, in advance Special Club Rates for five subscriptions .00

Entered at the Boston Post Office as Second-class Matter.

SPECIAL NOTICE.

At Christmas, 1905, the building stood ready for use, and Duveneck's bronze statue of Emerson was unveiled in the entrance hall. At the opening meeting, after short dedicatory orations by President Eliot and Dr. Edward Emerson, a real exchange of ideas in a joint debate of the Philosophical and Psychological Associations was substituted for the usual formal exercises. The question debated was suggested by the fact that Emerson Hall was to house the psychological laboratory. Does psychology really belong to philosophy or rather to the natural sciences? As the representative of Harvard, it was my part to open the debate and to characterize the attitude of the Harvard laboratory.

My remarks on that occasion may thus serve as the most direct introduction to our work. They are printed here, together with a short sketch of the equipment of the laboratory. I venture to add also two other papers, one of which points to the administrative, the other and longer one to the philosophical background of Emerson Hall. Inasmuch as I was Chairman of the Philosophical Department throughout the five years in which the plan for Emerson Hall was growing and became finally realized, it has been my official duty repeatedly to express our hopes and ideals. Thus I had to formulate the wishes of the Department at the outset in a letter to the Visiting Committee, a letter which was used as a circular in asking the public for funds. Two years later when Harvard celebrated the Emerson anniversary, I delivered an address on Emerson as philosopher. This epistemological paper may seem far removed from the interests of the Harvard Psychological Studies, and yet I am glad to print it in this laboratory volume, and thus emphatically to indicate that I for one consider philosophy the true basis for the psychologist.

There follow thus, first, the letter to the Visiting Committee, with which the Emerson Hall movement took its official inception in 1901; secondly, the address delivered at Harvard on the celebration of the Emerson anniversary in May, 1903; thirdly, the paper contributed to the debate of the philosophers at the opening meeting in December, 1905; and, finally, a description of the present status of the laboratory in January, 1906.

Gentlemen,--The philosophical work in Harvard has in the last twenty years gone through an inner development which has met with a hearty response alike on the part of the University and of the students. The students have attended the courses in constantly growing numbers, the Governing Boards have provided the Division amply with new teachers, steadily increasing the number of professors, instructors, and assistants. The outer growth of the Division has thus corresponded most fortunately to the internal development, by an harmonious co?peration of the administration, the teachers, and the students of the University. And yet there remains one other factor as an essential condition for the healthy life of the Department, a factor which cannot be provided by the University itself and for which the help must come from without. Our work needs a dignified home where under one roof all the varied philosophical work now carried on at Harvard may be united. The need has been urgently felt for many years, but only with the recent growth has the situation become intolerable. It is therefore the unanimous opinion of the Department that we must ask the public for the funds to build at Harvard a "School of Philosophy," in the interest of the students and of the teachers, in the interest of the Department and of the University, in the interest of culture and of scholarship.

The present work of the Division of Philosophy can be indicated by a few figures. We entered the current year with a teaching-staff of six full professors, two assistant professors, four instructors, two teaching-fellows, and six assistants. The instruction of these twenty men covers the ground of history of philosophy, metaphysics, theory of knowledge, psychology, logic, ethics, aesthetics, philosophy of religion, philosophy of science and sociology. Thirty-two courses have been offered. These courses are grouped in three classes: the introductory courses, intended primarily for Sophomores and Juniors; the systematic and historic courses, planned for Juniors, Seniors, and Graduates; and the research courses for Graduates only. But the students whom we try to reach differ not only with regard to their classes, their corresponding maturity, and their degree of philosophical preparation, but also with regard to the aims and interests for which they elect philosophical studies in the University. The one group seeks in our field liberal education. The fundamental problems of life and reality, and the historic solutions of them which the great thinkers developed, the values of truth and beauty and morality, the laws of the mental mechanism and of the social consciousness, all these promise and prove to be incomparable agencies for widening the soul and giving to our young men depth, strength, and ideals. Not a few of the students who belong to this group remain loyal to philosophy through three or four years. A second group of students need our courses as preparation for divers scholarly or practical aims. The future lawyer, teacher, physician, minister, scientist, or philanthropist knows that certain courses in ethics or psychology, in education or logic afford the most solid foundations for his later work; there is hardly a course in our Division which is not adjusted to some kind of professional study. The third group finally, naturally the smallest, but to the teachers the most important, consists of those to whom philosophy itself becomes a life's work. The Harvard Department believes that there is nowhere else in this country or abroad such an opportunity for systematic and all-round training for an advanced student of philosophy as is offered here, covering easily a man's full work for six years, advancing from the introductory courses of the Sophomore year to the six seminaries of the graduate years and finally reaching the doctor's thesis in the third year after graduation.

The extent to which the Harvard students make use of these opportunities is to be inferred from the figures which the last Annual Report of the President offers. These refer to the year 1899-1900; the current year will show somewhat the same proportions, perhaps even an increase of graduate work. The figures are necessarily too low, inasmuch as they refer merely to those students who take examinations in the courses and omit those who merely attend the lectures. The attendance in the philosophical courses was last year over one thousand students. They belonged to all parts of the University, 188 Graduates, 210 Seniors, 218 Juniors, 175 Sophomores, 59 Specials, 57 Scientifics, 55 Divinity students, and the rest from the Freshman class, the Law School, and the Medical School. The introductory courses were attended by almost four hundred students, that is, by a number corresponding to the size of the Junior class. As, in spite of natural fluctuations, this figure is pretty constant,--in 1897 reaching its maximum with 427,--it can be said that in Harvard under the system of absolutely free election practically every student who passes through Harvard required of himself at least a year of solid philosophical study.

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