cluded, on reflection, that these bright colors
were to give a clearer setting to the lines.

=Characteristics of Greek Architecture.=--A Greek temple appears at
first a simple, bare edifice; it is only a long box of stone set upon
a rock; the facade is a square surmounted by a triangle. At first
glance one sees only straight lines and cylinders. But on nearer
inspection "it is discovered[89] that not a single one of these lines
is truly straight." The columns swell at the middle, vertical lines
are slightly inclined to the centre, and horizontal lines bulge a
little at the middle. And all this is so fine that exact measurements
are necessary to detect the artifice. 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. Their most renowned artists, Phidias,
Praxiteles, and Lysippus, were sculptors.

They executed bas-reliefs to adorn the walls of a temple, its facade
or its pediment. Of this style of work is the famous frieze of the
Panathenaic procession which was carved around the Parthenon,
representing young Athenian women on the day of the great festival of
the goddess.[91]

They sculptured statues for the most part, of which some represented
gods and served as idols; others represented athletes victorious in
the great games, and these were the recompense of his victory.

The most ancient statues of the Greeks are stiff and rude, quite
similar to the Assyria