Page:An Elementary History of Art.djvu/60

VII. — Geeek Aechitectube. Geeek architecture reached its fullest development in the building of temples. A Greek temple rises from a platform of many steps within the walls of a sacred enclo- sure. Every part of the building is accurately propor- tioned, and every detail is as carefully finished as a work of sculpture. The Egyptians strove to give expression to their dim yearning for the sublime in the overwhelming extent and massiveness of their buildings, but the Greek* Fig-. 17a— Ground-plan of the Temple of Neptune at Psestum. produced an impression of beauty and solemn grandeur by perfection of proportion and purity of outline. The Egyptian temple, moreover, was always designed for inter- nal effect; the Greek temple, on the contrary, appealed far more strongly to the admiration of the bystander than to that of the worshipper who prayed within its portals. The ground-plan of a Greek temple is a parallelogram (Fig. 17 a), either with columns at each end only, supporting the sloping pediments (i. e. gables), or continued all round. The naos or cclla — the temple itself — is always small, even