Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects, and Curiosities of Art, Shearjashub Spooner [big screen ebook reader .TXT] 📗

to maintain its inhabitants. Dinocrates answered in the negative, and that it would be necessary to supply it by sea. Athos consequently remained a mountain; but Alexander was so pleased with the novelty of the idea, and the genius of Dinocrates, that he at once took him into his service. The design of Dinocrates may be found in Fischer's History of Architecture. According to Pliny, Dinocrates planned and built the city of Alexandria. POPE'S IDEA OF FORMING MOUNT ATHOS INTO A STATUE OF ALEXANDER THE GREAT.

"I cannot conceive," said Spence, the author of Polymetis, to Pope, "how Dinocrates could ever have carried his proposal of forming Mount Athos into a statue of Alexander the Great, into execution."—"For my part," replied Pope, "I have long since had an idea how that might be done; and if any body would make me a present of a Welch mountain, and pay the workmen, I would undertake to see it executed. I have quite formed it sometimes in my imagination: the figure must be on a reclining posture, because of the hollowing that would be necessary, and for the city's being in one hand. It should be a rude unequal hill, and might be helped with groves of trees for the eye brows, and a wood for the hair. The natural green turf should be left wherever it would be necessary to represent the ground he reclines on. It should be so contrived, that the true point of view should be at a considerable distance. When you were near it, it should still have the appearance of a rough mountain, but at the proper distance such a rising should be the leg, and such another an arm. It would be best if there were a river, or rather a lake, at the bottom of it, for the rivulet that came through his other hand, to tumble down the hill, and discharge itself into it."

Diodorus Siculus, says that Semiramis had the mountain Bajitanus, in Media, cut into a statue of herself, seventeen stadii high, (about two miles) surrounded by one hundred others, probably representing the various members of her court. China, among other wonders, is said to have many mountains cut into the figures of men, animals, and birds. It is probable, however, that all these stories have originated in the imagination, from the real or fanciful resemblance of mountains, to various objects, which are found in every country, as "The Old Man of the Mountain," Mt. Washington, N. H., "St. Anthony's Nose," in the Highlands, "Camel's Rump," Green Mountains, "Giant of the Valley," on lake Champlain, &c. It is easy to imagine a mountain as a cloud, "almost in shape of a camel," "backed like a weasel," or "very like a whale."

TEMPLE WITH AN IRON STATUE SUSPENDED IN THE AIR BY LOADSTONE.

According to Pliny, Dinocrates built a temple at Alexandria, in honor of Arsinoe, sister and wife of Ptolemy Philadelphus. The whole interior was to have been incrusted with loadstone, in order that the statue of the princess, composed of iron, should be suspended in the centre, solely by magnetic influence. On the death of Ptolemy and of the architect, the idea was abandoned, and has never been executed elsewhere, though believed to be practicable. A similar fable was invented of the tomb of Mahomet.

THE TEMPLE OF JUPITER OLYMPIUS AT ATHENS.

According to Vitruvius, Pisistratus, who flourished about B. C. 555, employed the four Grecian architects, Antistates, Antimachides, Calleschros, and Porinus, to erect this famous temple in the place of one built in the time of Deucalion, which the storms of a thousand years had destroyed. They proceeded so far with it that Pisistratus was enabled to dedicate it, but after his death the work ceased; and the completion of the temple, so magnificent and grand in its design that it impressed the beholder with wonder and awe, became the work of after ages. Perseus, king of Macedonia, and Antiochus Epiphanes, nearly four hundred years after Pisistratus, finished the grand nave, and placed the columns of the portico, Cossutius, a Roman, being the architect. It was considered, and with good reason, one of the four celebrated marble temples of Greece: the other three were that of Diana, at Ephesus; Apollo, at Miletus; and Ceres, at Eleusis. The Corinthian order prevailed in its design. In the siege that Sylla laid to Athens, this temple was greatly injured, but the allied kings afterwards restored it at their common expense, intending to dedicate it to the genius of Augustus. Livy says that among so many temples, this was the only one worthy of a god. Pausanias says the Emperor Adrian enclosed it with a wall, as was usual with the Grecian temples, of half a mile in circumference, which the cities of Greece adorned with statues erected to that monarch. The Athenians distinguished themselves by the elevation of a colossal statue behind the temple. This enclosure was also ornamented with a peristyle, one hundred rods in length, supported by superb marble Corinthian columns, and to this façade were three grand vestibules which led to the temple. Adrian dedicated it a second time. In the temple was placed a splendid statue of Jupiter Olympius, of gold and ivory; and the courtiers added four statues of the Emperor. This wonderful structure, which is said to have cost five millions of scudi, is now in ruins. Sixteen Corinthian columns are still standing, six feet four inches and some six feet six inches, in diameter. The length of the temple, according to Stuart, upon the upper step, was three hundred and fifty-four feet, and its breadth one hundred and seventy-one feet; the entire length of the walls of the peribolous is six hundred and eighty-eight feet, and the width four hundred and sixty-three feet.

THE PARTHENON AT ATHENS.

This celebrated temple was built by Ictinus and Callicrates, two Greek architects who flourished about B. C. 430. Ictinus was celebrated for the magnificent temples which he erected to the heathen gods. Among these were the famous Doric temple of Ceres and Proserpine at Eleusis, of which he built the outer cell, capable of accommodating thirty thousand persons; also the temple of Apollo, near Mount Cotylion, in Arcadia, which was considered one of the finest of antiquity, and was vaulted with stone. But his most important work was the famous Parthenon at Athens, erected within the citadel, by Ictinus and Callicrates, by order of Pericles. According to Vitruvius, the two artists exerted all their powers to make this temple worthy the goddess who presided over the arts. The plan was a rectangle, like most of the Greek and Roman; its length from east to west, was 227 feet 7 inches, and its width 101 feet 2 inches, as measured on the top step. It was peripteral, octastyle; that is, surrounded with a portico of columns, with eight to each façade. The height of the columns was 34 feet, and their diameter 6 feet. Within the outer portico was a second, also formed of isolated columns, but elevated two steps higher than the first; from thence the interior of the temple was entered, which contained the famous statue of Minerva in gold and ivory, by Phidias. This famous temple was built entirely of white marble, and from its elevated position, could be seen from an immense distance. On a nearer approach, it was admired for the elegance of its proportions, and the beauty of the bas-reliefs with which its exterior was decorated. It was preserved entire until 1677, when it was nearly destroyed by an explosion during the siege of Athens by Morosini. It was further dilapidated by the Turks, and afterwards by Lord Elgin, who removed all the bas-reliefs and other ornaments practicable, and transported them to London, where they now adorn the British Museum. King Otho has adopted measures to preserve the edifice from further mischief.

THE ELGIN MARBLES.

The following exceedingly interesting account of the removal of the sculptures from the Parthenon, is extracted from Hamilton's "Memorandum on the Subject of the Earl of Elgin's Pursuits in Greece."

"In the year 1799, when Lord Elgin was appointed his majesty's ambassador extraordinary to the Ottoman Porte, he was in habits of frequent intercourse with Mr. Harrison, an architect of great eminence in the west of England, whom his lordship consulted on the benefits that might possibly be derived to the arts in this country, in case an opportunity could be found for studying minutely the architecture and sculpture of ancient Greece; whose opinion was, that although we might possess exact admeasurements of the public buildings in Athens, yet a young artist could never form to himself an adequate conception of their minute details, combinations, and general effects, without having before him some such sensible representation of them as might be conveyed by casts."

On this suggestion Lord Elgin proposed to his majesty's government, that they should send out English artists of known eminence, capable of collecting this information in the most perfect manner; but the prospect appeared of too doubtful an issue for ministers to engage in the expense attending it. Lord Elgin then endeavored to engage some of these artists at his own charge; but the value of their time was far beyond his means. When, however, he reached Sicily, on the recommendation of Sir William Hamilton, he was so fortunate as to prevail on Don Tita Lusieri, one of the best general painters in Europe, of great knowledge in the arts, and of infinite taste, to undertake the execution of this plan; and Mr. Hamilton, who was then accompanying Lord Elgin to Constantinople, immediately went with Signor Lusieri to Rome, where, in consequence of the disturbed state of Italy, they were enabled to engage two of the most eminent formatori or moulders, to make the madreformi for the casts; Signor Balestra, a distinguished architect there, along with Ittar, a young man of promising talents, to undertake the architectural part of the plan; and one Theodore, a Calmouk, who during several years at Rome, had shown himself equal to the first masters in the design of the human figure.

After much difficulty, Lord Elgin obtained permission from the Turkish government to establish these six artists at Athens, where they systematically prosecuted the business of their several departments during three years, under the general superintendence of Lusieri.

Accordingly every monument, of which there are any remains in Athens, has been thus most carefully and minutely measured, and from the rough draughts of the architects (all of which are preserved), finished drawings have been made by them of the plans, elevations, and details of the most remarkable objects; in which the Calmouk has restored and inserted all the sculpture with exquisite taste and ability. He has besides made accurate drawings of all the bas-reliefs on the several temples, in the precise state of decay and mutilation in which they at present exist.

Most of the bassi rilievi, and nearly all the characteristic features of architecture in the various monuments at Athens, have been moulded, and the moulds of them brought to London.

Besides the architecture and sculpture at Athens, all similar remains which could be traced through several parts of Greece have been measured and delineated with the most scrupulous exactness, by the second architect Ittar.

In the prosecution of this undertaking, the artists had the mortification of witnessing the very willful devastation to which all the sculpture, and even the architecture, were daily exposed on the part of the Turks and travelers: the former equally influenced by mischief and by avarice, the latter from an anxiety to become possessed, each according to his means, of some relic, however small, of buildings or statues which had formed the pride of Greece. The Ionic temple on the Ilyssus which, in Stuart's time, about the year