The memorable exploration to which we have alluded, and many others which it would take too long to enumerate, have not only made known to us the most original and most fertile period of Greek sculpture, but have given us much information as to that art which, when combined with the statues of Phidias and Alcamenes, reared those splendid creations which have been reconstructed with such skill and care by the artist and the archæologist; we mean Greek architecture at its best, the purest and the most complete architecture which the world has yet seen. Every year sees the excellent example set by Stuart and Revett,[1] in the second half of the eighteenth century, followed by an increasing number of imitators. The smallest remains of ancient architecture are measured and drawn with religious care; their arrangements are explained, their elements are grouped, their ensemble is restored with a comprehension of their artistic conditions which steadily gains in certainty and penetration. Blouet's interesting restorations of Olympia and Phigalia, published in the account of the French expedition to the Morea,[2] excited the emulation of the young architects at the French Academy in Rome, and opened to them a new course of study. Until then they had been contented with the monumental buildings of Rome and its neighbourhood, of Latium and Campania; a few of the more adventurous among them had penetrated as far as Pæstum; but it was not till 1845 that they ventured to cross the sea and to study the ruins of Greece and Athens;[3] in later years they have travelled as far as Syria and Asia Minor in search of objects for their pencils.[4]
But the occupants of the Villa Medici were not alone in these researches. Doubtless, the invaluable publication which contains the results of their labours, forms the most ample and varied collection of documents open to the historian of architecture among the ancients. But many other architects of different
- ↑ The Antiquities of Athens, Measured and Delineated by J. Stuart and N. Revett. Folio. London, 1761.
- ↑ Expédition scientifique de Morée, ordonnée par le Gouvernement Français. Architecture, Sculpture, Inscriptions, mesurées, dessinées, recueillies et publiées, par A. Blouet, A. Ravoisié, Alph. Poirot, F. Trézel, et Fr. de Gournay. Paris, 1831-7.
- ↑ The restoration of the temple of Athenè Polias and of the Parthenon, by Ballu and Paccard, dates from 1845. Since that time the students of the French Academy have drawn and restored all the most important monuments of Greece.
- ↑ One temple at Baalbec was restored in 1865 by M. Moyau; the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus by M. Bernier in 1878, and the temple of Athenè at Priene by M. Thomas in 1879.
