§ Terms
▫ Contrapposto: an asymmetrical arrangement of the human figure in which the line of the arms and shoulders contrasts with while balancing those of the hips and legs.
▫ Frieze: a broad horizontal band of sculpted or painted decoration, esp. on a wall near the ceiling. Architecture: the part of an entablature between the architrave and the cornice.
▫ Kore: an archaic Greek statue of a young woman, standing and clothed in long loose robes.
▫ Kouros: an archaic Greek statue of a young man, standing and often naked.
▫ Metope: a square space between triglyphs in a Doric frieze.
▫ Pediment: the triangular upper part of the front of a building in classical style, typically surmounting a portico of columns.
▫ Polychromy: the art of painting in several colors, esp. as applied to ancient pottery, sculpture, and architecture.
▫ Relief: a method of molding, carving, or stamping in which the design stands out from the surface, to a greater ( high relief) or lesser ( bas-relief) extent.
▫ Stylization: depict or treat in a mannered and nonrealistic
Archaic, Early Classical and Classical Greek Sculpture
§ Greek Archaic Period: 6th Century BC
▫ New York Kouros, c. 590 BC, marble, 6’ 4”, New York, Metropolitan Museum
▫ Kroisos, c. 530 BC, marble, 6’ 4”, Athens, National Museum
§ Early Classic Period: First Half, 5th Century BC
▫ Kritios Boy, c. 480 BC, marble, 34”, Athens, Acropolis Museum
§ Greek Classical Period: Second Half, 5th Century BC
▫ Polykleitos, Doryphoros (Spear Bearer)
¬ original bronze, c. 450 – 440 BC (lost)
¬ Roman copy, marble, 6’ 5”, Naples, Archaeological Museum
Sculpture of the Parthenon
§ Greek Classical Period: Second Half, 5th Century BC
▫ Phidias and other sculptors: 438 – 432 BC
¬ metopes, battle scenes, 4’ 4”, marble
® east: Gods and Giants
® west: Grees and Amazons
® north: Sack of Troy
® south: Lapiths and Centaurs
¬ frieze, Panathenaic Procession, 3’ 7”, marble (one section in Paris, Louvre)
¬ West Pediment, Founding of Athens, marble
¬ East Pediment, Birth of Athena, marble, London, British Museum
¬ Interior: Phidias, Athena Parthenos, gold and ivory, colossal (destroyed)
▫ The Greek building is conceived as a three-dimensional entity complete on all sides and perfect unto itself. Moreover, care is normally taken so that the viewer perceives it as such. Thus, Greek buildings are not presented frontally, that is, on axis. Rather, whenever possible, the building is first presented from the diagonal, or at least from a position off-center, so that two adjacent sides are seen establishing clearly the three-dimensional integrity of the structure.
▫ The Parthenon centerpieces the birth of Athena and her struggle with Poseidon, portrayed in the pediments; the metopes depicted legendary battles and the fall of Troy; and around the cella walls was a frieze which represented the annual Panathenaic procession, which wound its way from the city up to the Parthenon.
▫ The Parthenon is unique in many ways, some obvious, some scarcely visible. Its design was strongly affected by Phidias’s gold-and-ivory cult image of Athena. For this 40-foot colossus, an immense cella was needed, over 60 feet in width, with a central aisle some 35 feet wide. The plan of the double-tiered dividing colonnades was an innovation: instead of merely running directly to the rear wall as was customary, the two colonnades are carried around the end of the naos, behind the statue along a U-shaped path, drawing the framing structure around the goddess.
▫ The design of the Parthenon resulted in almost paradoxical architectural effects. The colonnade is dense and corporeal, yet its columns soar in their slenderness. The huge entablature is monumental, yet carried so effortlessly that is seems almost to float. These effects are due, again, to the building’s unique proportions: the columns are more slender than any earlier example and, correspondingly, the entablature is unusually narrow, hence visually light.
▫ The entire temple floor rises gently toward the center in the subtlest of domical shapes. Further, nearly all the vertical elements, including the columns, lean inward. The inner faces of the cella walls are vertical, but the outer surface taper inward and the entrance doors to the cella are curved. Finally, the channels of the column flutes deepen gradually toward the top.
▫
Summary of the time period: What we accomplish in the Greek architectural periods is the beginning of the importance of the orders and the beginning of conceptualization about the perfection of architecture. This fuels the classical language- this fuels Roman architecture… these time periods fuel everything. The orders, in their Grecian form, are considered by some to be coarser and cruder than the Roman forms, but by others they are considered to be purer because they are the beginning, nearer to the source of pure architecture. Whether you favor one opinion or the other, what we do experience visually in Greek architecture are columns that are more massive and squatter than the Roman form of that order.
Greek Sculpture: 4th Century through Hellenistic
§ Greek 4th Century Period: 4th Century BC
▫ Praxiteles, Hermes, c. 330 – 320 BC, Roman copy, marble, c. 7’, Olympia, Museum
▫ ____, Aphrodite of Knidos, 350 – 340 BC, Roman copy, marble, 2.04 m, Vatican Museums
§ Hellenistic Period: 3rd – 1st Centuries BC
▫ Barberini Faun, c. 220 BC, marble, 7’ 5/8”, Munich, Glyptothek
▫ Nike of Samothrace, 200 – 190 BC, marble, 8’, Paris, Louvre
Early Byzantine Period: 5th – 6th Centuries A.D.
§ Hagia Sophia, Istanbul
▫ Its true greatness comes from the combination of the central unit with the complex figuration of forms that lie between it and the perimeter wall, the most important and adventurous of which are to the east and west. Here, twin half-domes billow out from beneath the high arches of the dome, doubling the extent of the central “nave.” Each half-dome rests on three arches supported by the main piers and two smaller piers at the outer edge of the building. Within the outer two of the three arches, in turn, small half-domed apses swing out, internally supported by two levels of arcading. To the east, a short barrel-vaulted forechoir opens to the brilliantly lit main apse; the corresponding bay to the west is occupied by the barrel vault over the main entrance. Thus the nave comprises three levels of vaulting: the dome, the two main half-domes, and the four smaller half-domes.
▫ The building does not develop uniformly in all directions, but only with bilateral symmetry. Therefore, even though it has an immense domed core, it also possesses a strong longitudinal axis, a central nave that dominates the interior within a peripheral zone of aisles and galleries that are screened off from the nave by the double levels of arcades mentioned above.
Romanesque, 11th – 12th Centuries
§ Sainte Foy, Conques
▫ French buildings of local stone, very monochromatic
▫ Round arches and pediments, but dramatically stretched out
▫ Strong sense of plane
▫ French buildings have twin towers
▫ Nave flanked by aisles, large transept causing crossing, aisles flanking transept, altar always in east end, elaborate east end with ambulatory which allowed pilgrims to walk down aisle and around transepts during service, beyond ambulatory are radiating chapels creating the chevets, extremely narrow in relation to height (medieval verticality), undecorated interior, barrel vault over nave, half barrel vaults over aisles to buttress
§ Church of the Magdalen, Vezelay
▫ Vezelay is particularly known for its sculpture and interior. The Classical detailing is similar to Cluny or Autun, more striking would be the simplification of the nave elevation. Between the nave arcade and the clerestory runs not an elaborate zone, but a broad expanse of plain masonry divided by a single classicizing cornice. As if to compensate for this plainness, Vezelay introduces red-and-white banded arches and it is covered not by a severe barrel vault but by a series of large cross vaults
▫ Each bay has round vault, piers are more complicated: cross-shaped core and 4 columns attached, two-story elevation in nave, clerestory windows, no barrel vault over nave, colorful Roman style, at crossing, architectural style changes, Romanesque nave at crossing, colonnettes appear (no vaults), church shifts to Gothic: pointed arches, rib vaults, colonnettes, etc.
▫ Christ in central portal in narthex
¬ Book of Ecclesiastes: Church constructed out of faithful, prophets, apostles, followers, Christ himself is the keystone
¬ Center portal in middle suggest figures above columns are figures who precede Christ and apostles, resting on side and central piece is a lintel with peoples of world summoned to Christianity, in center is St. Peter (first pope), ie: Church literally brings you to Christ
¬ 3 archivolt
¬ Outside are decorations
¬ Center archivolt is zodiac and the eternal revolution of time, 12 labors of each month
¬ Peoples of world, must have some deformity
¬ At top is Christ, breaking inner ring of archivolt
¬ Christ enthroned, shown in halo-like form, oval shape, halo with cross, arms extended similar to crucifixion
¬ Throne to heaven, crucifixion brings salvation
¬ Scale is a measure of importance à Christ is largest
¬ Apostles closest to Christ have more windblown garments, rays streaming from figures
¬ Lintel frieze on central portal in narthex
® Lintel: two processions coming to cneter, representing people of the world, to whom Christ’s word is spread
® People with large ears need ears to hear the word of God
® African pygmy climbing ladder to get on horse
® Racist view of the rest of the world
Early Gothic: Mid-Late 12th Century
§ Laon
▫ Cruciform plan, very wide and spacious, tall and filled with light
▫ Desire to build larger and brighter buildings leads to Gothic architecture
▫ technological innovation of rib vault, supports webbing and is light, no need for massive supports à thin verticals and room for clerestory windows
▫ Bundles of colonnettes and shafts rise to support transverse arches, ribs, alternating between number of shafts/colonnettes
▫ nave: 4 stories, capped by series of 6 part vaults, stabilized by buttress under roof and flying buttress
▫ Ground level columns/piers, pointed arches, verticality, 2nd level gallery is wide, 3rd level has slender colonnettes holding arches, triforium (dark area), windows in galleries and aisles but not triforium, 4th level clerestory
High Gothic: Late 12th Century – Early 13th Century
§ Chartres Cathedral
▫ The simplified vault reads with immediate clarity and caps a strikingly narrowed, soaring spatial unit
▫ The piers that frame the new bays are, correspondingly, no longer of alternating, disparate form, but uniformly tall and strong.
▫ Eliminating the gallery and maintaining the relative scale of the triforium allowed for the expansion of arcade and clerestory, particularly the latter, which along with the triforium, could be lowered into the gallery zone. The rigorous Chartres Master elected to increase arcade and clerestory equally and to fill the added clerestory area with a new subdivided window form, called tracery, in the shape of twin lancets surmounted by an oculus. This pattern was to be the basic tracery format throughout the Gothic period.
▫ The soaring proportions of the bay units reinforce the vertical drive of the piers, which is further accentuated by the upward thrust of arcade and window outlines. The vertical lines of energy are cut by strong horizontals, particularly by the strong, dark belt of the triforium that sweeps the interior exactly at midheight.
▫ The flying buttresses, if sufficiently developed, made the gallery redundant as lateral bracing. It is the powerful system of flying buttresses at Chartres that allows the skeletal nave walls to soar high and free. On the interior these buttresses are completely hidden, but on the outside they form a massing of great bulk. Tremendous exterior piers absorb the ponderous thrust channeled down from the vaults through three tiers of flying quadrant arches.
▫ Center Portal West, tympanum and lintel
¬ Top is Virgin and Christ
¬ Archivolts represent 7 liberal arts
¬ Center portal: frontal, columnar appearance of figures, no depth, but of building
¬ Church built out of various components
¬ Unification between sculpture and architecture
¬ Compare Chartres with Vezelay
¬ Figures are columnar, lend support
¬ Christ in Vezelay is flat, at Chartres, legs project out in 3-D sense, corporal nature of Christ and human figures
¬ Chartres Christ, halo with cross, flanked by 4 evangelists, surrounded by figures in archivolts, supported by apostles, quieter drapery, no expression in face à idealized calm
