Greek Revival architecture
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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“For several years men have been looking for antique ornaments and forms. The preference for them is so general that everything is done à la grecque. The interior and the exterior of the houses, the furniture, the goldsmith’s works — all bear the stamp of Greece.”--Friedrich Melchior, Baron von Grimm cited in The History of Painting: From the Fourth to the Early Nineteenth Century (1893/94) by Richard Muther The French text reads: "Depuis quelques années on a recherché les ornemens et les formes antiques ; le goût y a gagné considérablement , et la mode en est devenue si générale , que tout se fait aujourd'hui à la grecque . La décoration extérieure et intérieure ..." "Athens is peerless among the existing monuments of the ancient civilised world. The ruins of Rome may be more gorgeous ; of Babylon, more mysterious ; of Persepolis, more romantic ; of the Egyptian Thebes, more vast; but in all that is interesting to thought and feeling - in memories and associations, deep, affecting, sublime, Athens transcends them all." --The Antiquities of Athens "The only way for us to become great lies in the imitation of the Greeks" --Johann Joachim Winckelmann |
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The Greek Revival was an architectural movement of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, predominantly in northern Europe and the United States. A product of Hellenism, it may be looked upon as the last phase in the development of Neoclassical architecture. The term was first used by Charles Robert Cockerell in a lecture he gave as Professor of Architecture to the Royal Academy in 1842.
The term is indicative of how highly self-conscious practitioners of the style were, and that they realized they had created a new mode of architecture. With a newfound access to Greece, archaeologist-architects of the period studied the Doric and Ionic movement, examples of which can be found in Russia, Poland, Lithuania, and Finland (where the assembly of Greek buildings in Helsinki city centre is particularly notable). Yet in each country it touched, the style was looked on as the expression of local nationalism and civic virtue, especially in Germany and the United States where the idiom was regarded as being free from ecclesiastical and aristocratic associations.
The taste for all things Greek in furniture and interior design was at its peak by the beginning of the nineteenth century, when the designs of Thomas Hope had influenced a number of decorative styles known variously as Neoclassical, Empire, Russian Empire, and Regency. Greek Revival architecture took a different course in a number of countries, lasting up till the Civil War in America (1860s) and even later in Scotland. The style was also exported to Greece under the first two (German and Danish) kings of the newly independent nation.
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References
Primary sources
- Jacob Spon, Voyage d'Italie, de Dalmatie, de Grèce et du Levant, 1678
- George Wheler, Journey into Greece, 1682
- Richard Pococke, A Description of the East and Some Other Countries, 1743-5
- R. Dalton, Antiquities and Views in Greece and Egypt, 1751
- Comte de Caylus, Recueil d'antiquités, 1752–67
- Marc-Antoine Laugier Essai sur l'architecture, 1753
- J. J. Winkelmann, Gedanken uber die Nachahmung der griechischen Werke in der Malerei und Bildhauerkunst, 1755
- J. D. LeRoy, Les Ruines des plus beaux monuments de la Grèce, 1758
- James Stuart and Nicholas Revett, The Antiquities of Athens, 1762–1816
- J. J. Winkelmann, Anmerkungen uber die Baukunst der alten Tempel zu Girgenti in Sicilien, 1762
- J. J. Winkelmann, Geschichte der Kunst des Alterthums, 1764
- Thomas Major, The ruins of Paestum, 1768
- Stephen Riou, The Grecian Orders, 1768
- R. Chandler et al., Ionian Antiquities, 1768-1881
- G. B. Piranesi, Differentes vues...de Pesto, 1778
- J. J. Barthelemy, Voyage du jeune Anarcharsis en Grèce dans le milieu du quatrième siecle avant l'ère vulgaire, 1787
- William Wilkins, The Antiquities of Magna Grecia, 1807
- Leo von Klenze, Der Tempel des olympischen Jupiter zu Agrigent, 1821
- S Agnell and T. Evens, Sculptured Metopes Discovered among the ruins of Selinus, 1823
- Peter Oluf Brøndsted, Voyages et recherches dans le Grèce, 1826–30
- Otto Magnus Stackelberg, Der Apollotempel zu Bassae in Arcadien, 1826
- J. I. Hittorff and L. von Zanth, Architecture antique de la sicile, 1827
- C. R. Cockerell et al., Antiquities of Athens and other places of Greece, Sicily, etc., 1830
- A. Blouet, Expedition scientifique de Moree, 1831-8
- F. Kugler, Uber die Polychromie der griechischen Architektur und Skulptur und ihr Grenze, 1835
- C. R. Cockerell, The Temples of Jupiter Panhellenius at Aegina and of Apollo Epicurius at Bassae, 1860
Architectural Pattern Books
- Asher Benjamin, The American Builder's Companion, 1806
- Asher Benjamin, The Builder's Guide, 1839
- Asher Benjamin, The Practical House Carpenter, 1830
- Owen Biddle, The Young Carpenter's Assistant, 1805
- William Brown, The Carpenter's Assistant, 1848
- Minard Lafever, The Young Builder's General Instructor, 1829
- Minard Lafever, The Beauties of Modern Architecture, 1833
- Thomas U. Walter, Two Hundred Designs for Cottages and Villas, 1846.
See also
