Transcriber’s Note:
The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.
AN APOLOGY
FOR THE
COLOURING OF THE GREEK COURT
IN THE
CRYSTAL PALACE.
AN APOLOGY
FOR THE
COLOURING OF THE GREEK COURT.
The coloured or colourless state of the monuments of theGreeks, and more particularly of their monumental sculpture,has long been a subject of discussion in the world of art; adiscussion which, although it may have been carried on withtoo much faith on the one side, has certainly been accompanied,on the other, with too much prejudice.
At a very early stage in the arrangements for forming in theCrystal Palace a series of reproductions of architectural monuments,I felt that to colour a Greek monument would be oneof the most interesting problems I could undertake; notindeed in the hope that I might be able completely to solve it,but that I might, at least, by the experiment remove theprejudices of many.
I felt persuaded that when we had a Greek monumentplaced side by side with reproductions of other coloured monuments,the authorities for which were indisputable, peoplewould be more willing to recognise the necessity for believingthat the monuments of Greece were no exceptions to those ofcivilisations which preceded or followed them, but that theyalso like the rest were coloured in every part, and covered witha most elaborate system of ornamentation.
So early as the publication of the “Antiquities of Athens,” by6Stuart and Revett, the traces of ornaments on the mouldings ofthe Greek temples were known and published by them, someof the painted ornaments, howeve