THOSE CLEVER GREEKS. How Their Architecture Was Made to Conform to the Eye's Defects.

Te Aroha News, Volume III, Issue 134, 26 December 1885, Page 6

THOSE CLEVER GREEKS. How Their Architecture Was Made to Conform to the Eye's Defects.

If you turn a book upside down and look at the letters every u a" will seem much smaller at the bottom than at the top, although, when the book is properly held, both halves appear the same size to the eye. The upper part of the type that prints the letter "a " is made smaller than the lower half, to correct the fault of the eye, which always slightly exaggerates the. former. When the letter is turned over, this same trick of the sight makes the difference geem greater than it really is; and, of course, were it of the same width all the way, it would still look uneven, In greater matters the false report of the eye is greater. If a tapering monument, like that on Bunker Hill, or like the obelisk in Central Park, were'made with perfectly straight sides, it would look to us—for,' you see,, we really oannot trust bur own eyes—as if it were hollowed in a little, or, as we should say in a more scientific language, its jsides would appear concave. Those clever Greeks, who did so many marvellous thipgs in art, thought all this out, and made their architecture uj-on principles so subtl9 and,so comprehensive that we have never been able to improve on them since. They found .that their beautiful Doric columns, it made with straight sides, had the. concave effect of which I have spoken; 1 and ,so, with the most' delicate art, in , the world, they made the pillar swell a little at the middle, and then it appeared exactly right. The swelling of the column at its middle was called entasis.. Of' .course, it had to be calcuated with the greatest nicety,, and was actually so very slight that it can only be detected by delicate measurements; but it added greatly to the beauty of .the columns and to their effectiveness. Then the lines which were to look horizontal had" to received attention. If you .look at a long, perfectly level line,,as the edge of a roof, for instance, it has the appearance of sagging toward the middle. The Greek architect corrected,this fault by making.his lines rise a little. The front of the Parth- j enon at Athens is Ioi feetl,3*.inches, long, and in this, the "rise from the horizontal is j about ,2* inches. 1 In.otherlwords/there is a ■ curvature upward,that makes iij- a' little j more, than 2 inches. higher in the, centre than, at the ends; and the effect of this swelling upward Vis to make the. lines appear perfectly level, Indeed, this Bame. Parthenon—the most beautiful building in- • the worldMrnen , delicately. and carefully measured, was found, to, be everywhere made, a .little incorrect,;:, so that it may aßpear, rieht,,'which, w certainly, what may be..called 1 an t aronitecturaj paradox. r The; which seem io itahd so .straight, are made to lean inward a liftle, since if they were; perfeptly true and plumb they woujd have tLe effect •of/leaning outward. The' piUars. at the corneVsaslant inward more than; the others, andeveryfrhWrethe corners are.made square by Wg in trutK 'a little broader angled, m tHe R'nes are curved in order that' they shall appear, straight to' the. eye.~-"S^ Nibh^lag';^:'^ „ ',. f ..,:^- • >f

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