ARTS 1A: Group Analysis 11
The invention of nature and the nature of art
Consider April Gornik’s Light Falling Through Trees (2014) in comparison to work of art we
discussed during Week 1: Rembrandt’s Three Trees (1643).
Consider each artist’s approach to the representation of nature as you respond to one question:
-
April Gornik has revealed that her representations of the woods is imagined. Scholars
believe that Rembrandt’s Three Trees is a real place. Are there clues in these works
which suggest that one is an imagined place and the other is a real place?
-
Even though Rembrandt’s view may be based a representation of a real place, what
choices did he make as an artist to produce a visually powerful work, hence saturating
nature with art?
-
Even though April Gornik’s Light Falling Through Trees is an imagined place, how does
she implement the elements of art and principles of design to create the illusion of
nature?
ARTS 1A: Discussion 11
On “beauty”
[Wait to write your discussion post until after you have finished this week’s reading exercise.]
Consider an eighteenth-century oil painting by Pietro Fabris, Paestum, A View from the West with the
Temples of Poseidon and Ceres (above left), compared with a photograph of these temples made at
Paestum last summer (above right).
In our reading exercise, Sigrid de Jong wrote about eighteenth-century travelers to Southern Italy who
understood the proportions of the ancient Greek temples at Paestum in terms of beauty rather than
mathematical measurement.
-
Compare the eighteenth-century painting of the temples at Paestum made by Pietro Fabris—
which would have been made to sell to an eighteenth-century British buyer—to the recent
photograph. What evidence do you see in the work by Fabris that he tried to appeal to viewers’
sense of “beauty” rather than conveying basic, factual information about the site?
-
If you were to visit Paestum and photograph works of ancient architecture, would you try to
produce “beautiful” photographs, or photographs which focused on communicating historicallyinteresting information about the site? Explain your preference.
* * *
ARTS 1A: Reading Exercise 11
Examine the interpretive method of Formal Analysis by reading an essay by Sigrid de Jong,
“Subjective Proportion: 18th-Century Interpretations of Paestum’s ‘Disproportion’,”
published in Architectural Histories 4, no. 1 (February 2016).
You are not expected or required to read the full essay, but only as much as you need to
answer the questions below.
Read especially pages 1 through 4, addressing the following questions in your notebook:
1. What elements about the temples at Paestum, compared to other Greek and Roman
buildings, added to the awkward impression the temples made on visitors? (See
page 1)
2. On page 2, de Jong author writes, “. . . this article focuses on one specific aspect of
Paestum’s particularity: the proportions of temples that visitors viewed as strange.”
She examines not “proportions-as-ratio, which are based on measurements,” but
rather “proportions-as- . . .” what?
3. Consider the author’s goal. On page 2, she writes that, “In analysing proportion as
an aesthetic rather than a numerical phenomenon, I focus on the reactions to
unfamiliar proportions, on how viewers subsequently interpreted them, and on
what these reactions meant for the ways in which” . . . what . . . “was understood”?
4. On page 4, the author suggests that eighteenth-century travelers “explained the
strangeness of Paestum’s architectural forms and proportions” by suggesting that it
was “ancient, or even primitive.” As such, the site’s “temples were seen as
architecture that still had to” . . . what?
* * *
ARTS 1A
Chapter 11
Formal Analysis
First, click on the link below and watch the
following short video,
“Christo and Jean-Claude’s Running Fence”:
https://youtu.be/nBVpgN4JAsE
Pair 1: Christo and Jeanne-Claude
and April Gornik
Christo and Jeanne-Claude
I. In 1972, collaborative artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude began
“a project”—in their words—”that involved the life of the people
related to the ocean from the urban, rural, to the countryside in
California.” As far as the artists were concerned, it was not a project
about gender, women’s experiences, colonialism, economics, or any
other subject that could be explored by means of socially-based art
historical analysis. Ultimately, their project, Running Fence, took the
shape of a 24.5 mile nylon fence which stretched from Sonoma and
Marin counties into the Pacific Ocean.
The visual power of Running Fence stemmed largely from its
appearance as a ribbon of light upon the northern California hills.
While artists are often required to be skillful manipulators of line,
Running Fence is particularly dynamic as a result of the artists’
understanding of line direction, in which line is manifest as
vertical, horizontal, diagonal, or variable, in relation to the
viewer’s eyes. Since Running Fence follows the contours of natural
hills, its line direction shifts constantly; its direction is variable.
Christo and Jeanne-Claude
Running Fence
Sonoma and Marin Counties, California
1972-1976
White nylon fabric mounted on steel cables
II. When analyzing Running Fence all these years later, we are
faced first and foremost with the elements of art, especially light and
line. And since Running Fence depended upon nature—one might
go so far as to say that it revealed nature, since the contours of the
hills in Sonoma and Marin counties became more noticeable with
Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s white nylon fence atop them—is it not
appropriate to focus on these aspects of the work when engaging in
interpretation? Formal analysis is a method of interpretation which
asks, “How did elements of art and principles of design shape the
production and meaning of this work of art?”
April Gornik
I. One who seeks to make meaning of April Gornik’s Light
Falling Through Trees might try to determine the location of the
site she depicts. However, the site is imagined.
Light Falling Through Trees is a charcoal drawing. Charcoal is
a dry drawing material made of charred wood. When applied to
paper, an artist using charcoal can achieve a wide range of values
and textural effects. Charcoal drawing became a popular way to
depict the landscape in Europe in the nineteenth century. As such,
April Gornik is working in a highly traditional mode when she
chooses charcoal to produce a large-scale landscape drawing.
The image part with relationship ID rId2 was not found in the file.
April Gornik
Light Falling Through Trees
2014
Charcoal on paper
II. What is not as traditional, of course, is that Gornik
imagines a site rather than represents an actual site. How are we
to characterize such an approach, in the language of style? She is
not imitating something she sees in nature, hence the word
“natural” is not quite appropriate. Nor does she observe nature
and then move away from it, so the word “abstract” does not
quite fit. Is she idealizing nature? Is she trying to outdo nature—
attempting to make forms that are somehow better than nature?
Most artists who idealize nature remove nature’s irregularities.
The landscape Gornik depicts is full of irregularities. We come up
short when trying to explore this work from the standpoint of
style.
Another approach to understanding the production and
meaning of this work may be to reconsider what April Gornik
offers us in her title: Light Falling Through Trees. While the forms
of the trees are imagined, the artist has labored to provide the
natural effect of light among them. The idea of a specific place
lessens in importance when we consider the skill with which she
manipulates an element of art—specifically, light—convincing us
that it, alone, is real.
An element of art closely tied to light is color. Without light,
color does not exist. What is April Gornik’s approach to color?
Even though she works in a reduced palette—only black,
white, and shades of grey—we understand that she does so by
choice. A subjective approach to color is one in which the artist
imposes her idea of color upon nature. An objective approach to
color is when an artist carefully observes nature and tries to
match nature’s colors. Accordingly, Light Falling Through Trees
demonstrates April Gornik’s subjective approach to color.
Pair 1
The image part with relationship ID rId2 was not found in the file.
The image part with relationship ID rId2 was not found in the file.
Analysis Exercise: Pair 1
Christo and Jeanne-Claude called attention to hills by building
an enormous white fence on them. April Gornik meticulously
works to convey the appearance of light falling through trees
that do not exist.
Why do you think so many artists use the natural world as a
starting point for their work?
Pair 2: Bouts and Nolde
Dieric Bouts
I. In 1464, during the era of the Renaissance in northern Europe,
Dieric Bouts was commissioned by the Church of St. Peter in
Louvain to produce an altarpiece: a work of art which stands or
hangs behind an altar. The surviving contract stipulated the subjects
Bouts was responsible for depicting, and precluded him from taking
other large commissions until the project was complete. In an era
when artists’ ”freedoms” were limited by the needs of patrons, how
was Bouts able to work creatively?
The interpretive method of formal analysis reveals how Bouts
manipulated the elements of art and principles of design to produce
an altarpiece that was an especially ambitious undertaking for a
northern European Renaissance artist.
Dieric Bouts
Last Supper
Center panel of the Altarpiece of the
Holy Sacrament
1464-1468
Oil on wood
II. Note how the floor tiles as well as the ceiling beams draw
your eyes to the center of the painting, where Christ sits at the head
of the table. The artist attempted to create the appearance of space
receding into the distance, and within such a context these
otherwise parallel lines are called orthogonal lines. Their presence
indicates Bouts’s implementation of linear perspective: a means by
which artists convey the illusion of a three-dimensional world on a
two dimensional surface, by placing each figure and object within
the picture plane into a pre-determined mathematical grid.
Linear perspective was used by Renaissance painters in Italy as
early as the 1420s; it took decades for northern European artists to
begin implementing it. That Bouts tries to implement it here, in an
important public commission, indicates his willingness to work to
the “best of his ability”.
Emil Nolde
I. Discussion about linear and aerial perspective systems are
part of a larger discussion about one of the elements of art: space.
Another aspect of space of constant concern to artists is the notion
of postive versus negative space. Within a work of art, positive
space includes the areas occupied by forms. In Sunflowers in the
Windstorm by Danish-born artist Emil Nolde, the sunflowers,
clouds, and leaves occupy positive space. Negative space
includes the areas not occupied by forms. In Nolde’s painting, the
negative space is the bright teal sky at the upper left as well as
what may be the remaining moments of an orange-hued sunset on
the horizon at the lower right.
Emil Nolde
Sunflowers in the Windstorm
1943
Oil on board
II. Like most works of art, Sunflowers in the Windstorm may be
interpreted through numerous methods of analysis. However,
given the historical circumstances of its production, formal
analysis offers an especially effective lens with which to look at
Nolde’s work. Having pursued a successful career as a modern
artist in Germany during the early decades of the twentieth
century, Nazis deemed the boldness of his subject matter and
technique troubling. More than a thousand of Nolde’s works were
removed from public museums after he was labeled a
“degenerate” by the Nazi government in the 1930s. His work
featured prominently in “Entartete Kunst” (“Degenerate Art”): an
exhibition in Germany in 1937 designed to educate the public
about artists whose works had been rejected by Nazi leaders.
The exhibition ridiculed those artists.
Eventually, Nolde was forbidden to paint by the German
government. He spent years secretly producing small watercolors
in his apartment. Such works could be easily hidden, and
watercolor paints do not emit an odor that is detectable.
The existence, therefore, of Sunflowers in the Windstorm, is
remarkable. Nearly three feet wide and more than two feet high,
and painted in the artist’s medium of choice—oil paint—which
carries a very strong odor, Nolde risked his safety to produce this
work in 1943, two years before the war ended.
What do these strong, albeit wind-blown, blooms suggest to
you? And the sky, with its passages of heavy violet clouds over a
piercing blue, and a brilliant orange sunset deep in the distance?
Pair 2
Analysis Exercise: Pair 2
The subjects of these works by Bouts and Nolde are compelling:
the last meal Jesus shared with his disciples before his public
execution; and large but fragile flowers weathering a storm.
What advantage is there to using the elements of art and
principles of design to interpret these works of art?
ARTS 1A: Document Analysis 11
Dieric Bouts
Read and analyze our final primary source document, which is a contract between
representatives of St. Peter’s Church in Louvain and master painter Dieric Bouts.
Address the questions which follow.
A contract between painter Dieric Bouts and representatives of St. Peter’s Church in
Louvain for an altarpiece, 1464
All who will see the present document or will hear it read are hereby informed and
notified that on the fifteenth of March 1464 (after the reckoning of the venerable court of
Liége) a firm agreement and contract was set up and concluded between the four
administrators of the Brotherhood of the Holy Sacrament at the Church of St. Peter in
Louvain, who act on and in behalf of said Brotherhood—that is, Rase van Baussele as
principal, Laureys van Winghe, Reyner Stoop, and Staas Roelofs Beckere as the first party,
and the painter, Master Dieric Bouts, as the second party, that he should make for them a
precious altarpiece with scenes pertaining to the Holy Sacrament.
In this altarpiece there shall be presented on the center panel the Supper of our Beloved
Lord with his Twelve Apostles, and on each of the inner wings two representations from
the Old Testament: 1) the Heavenly Bread, 2) Melchizedek, 3) Elijah, and 4) the Eating of
the Paschal Lamb as described in the Old Covenant. On each of the outer wings there
shall be one picture: on one, the scene with the Twelve Loaves which only the priests
were allowed to eat, and on the other . . . [portion of text is lost].
And the aforementioned Master Dieric has contracted to make this altarpiece to the best of
his ability, to spare neither labor nor time, but to do his utmost to demonstrate in it the art
which God has bestowed on him, in such order and truth as the Reverend Masters Jan
Vaernacker and Gillis Bailluwel, Professors of Theology, shall prescribe to him with regard
to the aforementioned subjects. And it is understood that said Master Dieric, after having
begun work on this altarpiece, shall not contract any other work of this kind until this one
has been completed.
For his work said Master Dieric shall be paid and receive the sum of two hundred Rhenish
guilders of twenty stivers each: to wit, twenty-five Rhenish guilders as soon as he has
begun to paint this altarpiece, and further, twenty-five Rhenish guilders during the next
half year, fifty Rhenish guilders after completing the work, and the remaining one hundred
Rhenish guilders during the following year. . . . But if, by the grace of God, the good
1
people should so amply demonstrate their charity and liberality toward said work that the
above named sum can be paid in full to said Master Dieric for his completed work, and if
that sum of money would otherwise lie unused in awaiting the aforementioned time limit,
it has been contracted that said Master Dieric shall be paid in full as soon as he has
fulfilled his obligation.
This has been witnessed (in addition to the Reverend Professors mentioned before) by
Claes van Sinte Goericx, Knight, Master Laureys van Maeldote, Priest, and Master Gheert
Fabri, Schoolmaster.
* * *
In your notebook, write a response to each of the following questions. Quote from
this document as part of your answer to each question.
After completing your written responses to the questions below, keep them in your
notes portfolio, to use during this week’s quiz and the final exam.
1. What did Dieric Bouts contract to make for the four administrators of the
Brotherhood of the Holy Sacrament at the church of St. Peter in Louvain?
2. The contract specified the subject to be painted on the central panel. What
was it?
3. What did Bouts further obligate himself to do as he completed the project?
4. Who would oversee the project, to make sure that the subjects were painted in
“order and truth”?
5. How much money would Bouts be paid for this project?
* * *
2
de Jong, S 2016 Subjective Proportions: 18th-Century Interpretations
of Paestum’s ‘Disproportion’. Architectural Histories, 4(1): 2, pp. 1–16,
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5334/ah.125
RESEARCH ARTICLE
Subjective Proportions: 18th-Century Interpretations of
Paestum’s ‘Disproportion’
Sigrid de Jong*
When 18th-century travellers saw the Doric temples of Paestum in Southern Italy with their own eyes,
they observed for the first time true examples of the proportions of archaic Greek architecture. Contrary
to the Roman proportional systems, the Greek ones had been largely unavailable to architects until then.
With the rediscovery of Paestum, conveniently located south of Naples and not in far away Greece, the
secret of Greek proportions was no more. Architects were able to precisely measure the temples and
wrote many accounts about their primitive forms and proportions.
But what did architects mean exactly when describing the proportions as primitive? What kinds of
reflections did these proportions provoke? This article treats proportions as aesthetics, or as visible
proportions, not as a numerical system. The discourse on proportions changed in this period, giving more
weight to their cultural and historical meaning. The writings by such architects as Soane, Wilkins, and
Labrouste demonstrate how Paestum functioned as a laboratory to unveil the secret of primitive proportions, and how, with the different meanings architects attached to them, it enlarged and renewed the
debate on proportions.
Introduction
In 1752 a British traveller, Lascelles Raymond Iremonger,
on his grand tour, described the contrast between the startling immensity of the Greek Doric temples at Paestum
and the unpleasantness of their architecture and, most of
all, the disproportion of their baseless columns:
[A]ll [three temples are] of the Dorick order[;] these
antiquities surprise you by their greatness, but give
you no great pleasure by their elegance or taste,
the Pillars in my opinion being short, out of proportion, & vastly overcharged in their Capitals, &
the Entablature & pediments are very heavy.1
Iremonger was not the only one with such an opinion.
In the second half of the 18th century, just after the
rediscovery of these temples in southern Italy, many visitors expressed their bewilderment with the unfamiliar
proportions of the three buildings (Fig. 1). The Baron
d’Hancarville wrote about the temples, ‘In the midst of
[these] ruins stand three Edifices of a sort of architecture
whose Members are Dorick, altho’ its proportions are not
so’ (d’Hancarville 1766–67: vol. 1, 96–97).2
Why were these proportions thought to be so strange?
The temples, the oldest to be found on Italian soil, were
very different from Roman classical architecture and from
buildings travellers had seen before in publications and at
*
Leiden University, Netherlands
s.d.de.jong@hum.leidenuniv.nl
other sites. We now know that what the 18th-century visitors called the Temple of Neptune (now named Temple of
Hera II and dated c. 460 BC), the Temple of Ceres (Temple
of Athena, c. 520 BC), and the Basilica (Temple of Hera
I, c. 530 BC) were the creations of Greek colonists who
had founded Poseidonia in 600 BC (the city was renamed
Paestum after the Roman conquest of 273 BC). Towards
the end of the 18th century, in a comparative plate in
his publication Les Ruines de Paestum (1799), the French
architect Claude-Mathieu Delagardette showed how dissimilar the proportions of the Paestum temples were
from those of other Greek Doric monuments, notably
the Parthenon, the Temple of Theseus, the Propylaea in
Athens and the Thorieion temple, and Roman ones that
included a Roman Doric order, including the Theatre of
Marcellus and the Coliseum in Rome (Fig. 2).
Compared to other Greek or Roman buildings Paestum
featured exceptionally short and thick baseless columns
with a pronounced entasis and flat, unusually wide capitals. The columns were densely placed next to each other,
and, in addition, the building material used at Paestum
was a rough and porous limestone, rather than a smooth
marble. All these elements added to the awkward impression the temples made on their 18th-century visitors.
The temples were measured ever more precisely during the 18th century, and architects constantly discussed,
debated, and contested these measurements well into
the 19th century.3 But measuring the monuments was
only one way of dealing with an unfamiliar architecture.
As I demonstrate in my book Rediscovering Architecture,
there were other ways, such as, for example, invoking the
Art. 2, page 2 of 16
de Jong: Subjective Proportions
Figure 1: Giovanni Battista Piranesi, The three temples at Paestum, seen from the south. Study drawing for Piranesi
(1778), plate I. Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Département des estampes et de la photographie.
concepts of the sublime, the picturesque, theatricality or
primitivism (de Jong 2014). While my book shows a kaleidoscope of different reactions to the temples at Paestum
and reconstructs their roles in 18th-century architectural debates, this article focuses on one specific aspect
of Paestum’s peculiarity: the proportions of the temples
that visitors viewed as strange. In this article I shall examine visible proportions or, as Matthew Cohen has defined
them, proportions-as-beauty — e.g., aesthetics — rather
than proportions-as-ratio, which are based on measurements (Cohen 2014). I shall concentrate on the viewers’
responses to the aesthetic meaning of proportions rather
than studying proportions in the sense of mathematical
ratio or systems, and on their perception that the forms
of the temples at Paestum appeared strange. What is this
‘proportion’ when used in this aesthetic sense, and how
did this meaning of the term drive the 18th-century reception of the Paestum monuments? In analysing proportion
as an aesthetic rather than a numerical phenomenon, I
focus on the reactions to unfamiliar proportions, on how
viewers subsequently interpreted them, and on what
these reactions meant for the ways in which architecture
in general was understood.
While Antoine Desgodetz, in his measurements of
ancient Roman buildings published in 1682 in Les édifices
de Rome, was the first to show that the Romans did not
use one common proportional system, Claude Perrault
paved the way for the idea of arbitrary proportions. As
is well known, in his Ordonnance des cinq espèces de
colonnes of 1683, Perrault distinguished between ‘positive’ and ‘arbitrary’ beauty, differentiating between the
general ‘positive’ beauties that all people would agree
upon as symmetry, magnificence or quality of execution,
and the ‘arbitrary’ beauty that was not universal but the
result of custom, which was related to proportions. This
last, arbitrary, beauty formed taste, and was essential to
Perrault, as was the use of proportions. Still, he insists
in the preface of the Ordonnance that proportions are
‘one of the principal foundations of beauty’, and that
through custom they account for positive qualities of
buildings. As Wolfgang Herrmann observes, Perrault
presented this connection between custom and the
beauty of proportions as ‘an indisputable fact’ (Herrmann
1973: 63). But the differentiation Perrault made also
meant that he opened up architectural discourse, and
enabled a shift from an interest in the mathematics of proportions towards a focus on the effects of proportions on
the observer of architecture. That Perrault had called
proportions arbitrary rather than universal would, in
the 18th century, when the observer of buildings took
centre stage in architectural theories, lead to the inclusion of proportions in aesthetic discourse. Personal
observations became crucial in these debates, and they
continued to be when proportions entered historical
de Jong: Subjective Proportions
Art. 2, page 3 of 16
Figure 2: Claude-Mathieu Delagardette, Comparative details of the Doric order of Paestum and of other buildings, from Delagardette ([1799]: plate XIV). Left to right, top: Temple of Neptune, Paestum; Temple of Theseus,
Athens; Parthenon, Athens. Middle: Basilica, Paestum; Temple of Ceres, Paestum; Theatre of Marcellus, Rome;
Coliseum, Rome. Bottom: Propylaea, Athens; Basilica, Paestum; Temple of Theseus, Athens; Temple of Ceres,
Paestum; Thorieion Temple.
Art. 2, page 4 of 16
discourses in the 19th century. Perrault had made way
for subjectivity in the perception and interpretation of
proportions.
It was at Paestum that the inevitability of this new
manner of looking at buildings became clear. This article
will show some of the ways in which the rediscovery of
the Paestum temples changed the way architecture was
thought about, in focusing on how 18th-century spectators judged proportions as aesthetics, and ultimately
applied these judgements to a discourse on the cultural
meaning of architecture.
The Beginnings of Building
Travellers explained the strangeness of Paestum’s architectural forms and proportions, and the roughness of the
building materials, by supposing them to be ancient, or
even primitive. The temples were seen as architecture that
still had to develop. Delagardette admired the ‘primitive
purity’ of the temples. The French abbé Richard de SaintNon, comparing the monuments to other examples of
classical architecture, put it this way:
[J]udging from the heaviness and solidness of their
proportions, it is indubitable that these monuments have been constructed by the Greeks in
the origin of Architecture, and that they are of a
primary antiquity, being very certain that all that
remains in Italy of Temples constructed by the
Romans is of a much lighter architecture, and of a
very different proportion and form. (de Saint-Non
2000: 124)4
The French academician Quatremère de Quincy described
how travellers to Paestum,
because of the contrast between the Greek Doric
and the modern [version of Doric architecture], &
struck by the heaviness, the short proportion, the
masculine and massive forms of the ancient Doric,
[. . .] viewed it as a precursor of this order, & from
the lack of a base, concluded that such a taste
must go back to the infancy of art. (Quatremère
1788–1825: vol. 2, 235)
Other writers made connections with the first beginnings
of building, with the Temple of Solomon, or with the
idea of the primitive hut — first presented as a model in
Marc-Antoine Laugier’s Essai sur l’architecture (1753). The
English architect John Soane made a link between Paestum and the primitive hut in his Royal Academy lectures.
Soane had travelled to Paestum in 1779 and noted in his
diary,
the Architecture of the three Temples is Doric,
but exceedingly rude, the Temples at the extremities in particular, they have all the particulars of
the Grecian Doric, but not the elegance & taste;
they seem all form’d with the same Materials, of
Stone formed by Petrification which continues to
this day.5
de Jong: Subjective Proportions
The rude architectural forms of the temples and the
porous limestone that was used to build them led Soane
to believe that these buildings were constructed in remote
times, when building began. Soane deemed the temples so
ancient that he connected Paestum directly to the primitive hut, to the origins of architecture. In his Royal Academy lectures Soane explained the concept of the primitive
hut. In his first lecture, which he read on 27 March 1809,
he showed a sequence of images to illustrate the evolution of the wooden primitive hut into the stone Grecian
Doric temple.6 In his drawing of a primitive hut (Fig. 3) he
depicted tribal people wearing animal hides, just as they
appeared in the frontispiece for the British edition of Laugier’s Essai (Laugier 1756).7
In Soane’s drawing we can see many similarities with the
way different artists had depicted the Temple of Neptune
at Paestum. Artists and engravers such as Piranesi, Major,
Dumont, and Joli had all used this same viewpoint to
represent the interior of the temple (de Jong 2014), and
images of these perspective views were widely disseminated through publications, examples of which were
found in Soane’s extensive collection of books and drawings, such as the one by Major (Fig. 4) in his The Ruins of
Paestum (1768).8
Soane’s image of the primitive hut shows the double
storey of columns, just as in the aforementioned image
of the Neptune temple, but more importantly, the perspective chosen to depict the primitive hut is the same
as the perspective that many artists used to represent the
interior of the temple at Paestum. Apart from differences
in the scale and plans of these buildings, the parallels in
these depictions of the primitive hut and the temple are
striking. People appear in the middle of the drawing of the
primitive hut as they had in the Paestum depictions, and
the wooden beams in the foreground resemble the stone
architectural remains represented in the Paestum views.
Also, the effect of perspective draws the viewer of these
images into the middle of each building. The structure
plays the main role in Soane’s image, with its four rows of
columns, and a second level of columns placed on top of
the two central rows.
The similarities between these images demonstrate
that the visual precedents of depicting the Neptune temple had an influence on the manner in which Soane illustrated the construction of the first dwelling. He would
thus convince his public, whose minds were well stocked
with architectural examples, of the correctness of this
version of the primitive hut as architecture’s predecessor.
The more the primitive hut resembled an abstract version of an antique temple, the more plausible it seemed
that the primitive hut really had been the model for
Greek architecture. In the drawing of the primitive hut
for his lecture, Soane mimicked the often-pictured perspective — one of the archetypal compositions — of the
interior of Paestum’s Neptune temple to compose the
image of the primitive hut, and he then used this image
to show what Paestum’s predecessor had been. Thus, in
these depictions, history was reversed: Paestum served as
a model for the building that was supposed to have been
its model.
de Jong: Subjective Proportions
Art. 2, page 5 of 16
Figure 3: John Soane, Drawing of a primitive hut, undated, for Royal Academy lecture 1. London, Sir John Soane’s
Museum, 27/2/4.
When we study the text of Soane’s lecture, his intention to establish a connection between the origins of
architecture and Paestum becomes unmistakeable. There
he formulated a new argument about the structure of the
primitive hut to account for the constructional method
that was so specific to the Temple of Neptune. As families
became larger, Soane said, dwellings had to be enlarged
as well:
The horizontal beams, in particular, being of course
considerably lengthened, curved downwards and
threatened ruin. A row of posts or supports however, placed from front to rear, dividing the entire
space into two equal parts, removed the defect and
gave security to the inhabitants. This mode of construction probably suggested the idea of that particular manner of using columns to be seen in one
of the temples at Paestum. (Soane 1996: 497)
By connecting a private dwelling to a divine temple,
Soane claimed that, in this context, the construction
method was of importance, rather than the function of
the building. Tectonic aspects took precedence over the
orders of columns and their roles in architectural design.
But compared to Laugier’s primitive hut, in its construction method Soane’s primitive hut was entirely new.
In his choice of Paestum as his model for the primitive
hut — and not Laugier’s simplified version of the Roman
Maison Carrée at Nîmes — Soane had to clarify the rather
complicated double stack of columns of the Neptune
temple in the formulation of a new structural argument
for his version of the primitive hut. He did so when he
explained how a larger dwelling required new design solutions. When the dwelling became much higher, the rafters
needed to be longer and therefore required more support:
These supports were placed immediately over the
others, under the beams, and probably gave the
first indication of pillars placed upon pillars; and
in this early work we perceive the reason why the
Greeks, faithful to their primitive model, made the
upper pillars in the hypaethral temples so very
short in proportion to those immediately under
them. (Soane 1996: 498)
The unorthodox double-stacked columns at Paestum had
thus entered the 18th-century narrative of the primitive
hut. Soane, linking Greek construction methods to the
primitive hut, and viewing the first wooden dwelling as
having served as a model for the Greeks, illustrated this
passage with the drawing of the primitive hut based
on the depiction of Paestum’s Neptune temple. Soane
argued how the primitive hut, and consequently architecture, fulfils human beings’ basic need of shelter. His
depiction of the primitive hut was in line with Vitruvius’s
ideas of the primitive hut as a construction that served
Art. 2, page 6 of 16
Figure 4: Thomas Major, Interior of the Temple of Neptune, from Major (1768: plate IX).
de Jong: Subjective Proportions
de Jong: Subjective Proportions
a protective function. Laugier had similarly proposed the
birth of a primitive hut as shelter, but where he had used
a Roman building as a first architectural outcome of his
‘cabane’, Soane turned to the oldest example of Greek
architecture on Italian soil. This shift in focus demonstrates the key role Paestum played around 1800 in the
debates about the origins of architecture.
History Writing
Soane explained Paestum’s proportions historically, as
they demonstrated to him that the temples represented
the beginnings of building. While in his view history
is seen as the oldest past, it can also be viewed as a
development in time. This evolutional sense of history
gained a crucial place in architectural thought towards
1800, and we can trace in this period an increasing urge
to put the temples in a chronological sequence, and
to compare them to other Greek temples, in Sicily, for
example. A clear exponent of this method is the British
architect William Wilkins. In his publication on Greek
architecture, The Antiquities of Magna Graecia (1807),
Wilkins compared the Paestum temples to the Sicilian
temples, and the temples at Paestum became examples
of a type. He also identified what he thought had been
Paestum’s model: the Temple of Jerusalem (Solomon’s
Temple). Wilkins’ ideas on Solomon’s Temple and the
Temple of Neptune at Paestum might have influenced
Soane, who opened his second Royal Academy lecture
in London (1810) with the Temple of Jerusalem, and
subsequently treated the evolution of the Greek Doric
order, while he showed first an image of the order of the
Temple of Neptune at Paestum.9
While Soane referred to Solomon’s Temple mostly in
passing, Wilkins built an entire discourse around a purported connection between Paestum and the Temple of
Jerusalem. He argued that the architects of these temples
‘were guided by the same general principles, in the distribution and proportion of the more essential parts of their
buildings’ (Wilkins 1807: vi). He had extensively measured
the temples of Paestum during his trip there in 1803,
and viewed them as the beginnings of architecture. In his
publication Wilkins turned to what he believed to be the
earliest example of temple architecture — the Temple of
Jerusalem:
The Temple at Jerusalem is the earliest of which
we have any written documents. Upon its claims to
attention, as it is connected with our holy religion,
it were surely needless to expatiate. But, independently of the interest excited by its antiquity and
sanctity, we shall find that an enquiry into the
arrangement and dimensions of its component
parts will be amply repaid by the light which it
tends to diffuse upon the history of Architecture
in general. (Wilkins 1807: vi)
In writing at length on this temple in his introduction to
Magna Graecia, Wilkins aimed also to shed light on the
history of architecture. Wilkins argued that the Temple
of Solomon had been the model of Paestum’s Neptune
temple, and illustrated this proposed connection in
Art. 2, page 7 of 16
engravings. He combined a plan of the Neptune temple
at Paestum and a plan of the Temple of Jerusalem and
represented sections of the Temple of Jerusalem with
proportions taken from the Neptune temple at Paestum
(Fig. 5) (Wilkins 1807: vii). Wilkins thus used Paestum as a
model for the proportions of the building that to him represented the beginnings of architecture. He also viewed
Solomon’s Temple mainly as having been a model for
Greek architecture.
In his ideas on a possible relationship between
the Temple of Jerusalem and Greek temple architecture, Wilkins claimed to have been influenced by Isaac
Newton’s Chronology (Cambridge 1728) and Juan Bautista
Villalpando’s descriptions in Ezechielem explanationes
(1596–1604).10 Furthermore, he could have derived his
ideas about the Temple of Jerusalem as an ancestor of classical architecture from Paolo Paoli’s writings on Paestum
(Paoli 1783–84; Paoli 1784). Villalpando’s reconstructions
preceded others by Claude Perrault (1678), Isaac Newton
(1728) and Johann Berhard Fischer von Erlach (1721).11
Perrault’s proposal was not symmetrical like Villalpando’s,
and lacked the colonnades of the latter. Perrault claimed
that Villalpando had not illustrated the historical truth
and that he had mainly aimed to conform to Vitruvian
rules, while claiming that Greek and Roman architects had
taken inspiration from the Temple of Jerusalem (Perrault
1969: 146). Newton proposed a design different from
Villalpando’s, in that it had no grid plan, but agreed with
the idea of the temple as the model of all temples, representing the ‘Mind of the Supreme Architect — the Mind of
God’ — and the template for all Greek and Roman architecture.12 This perceived great significance of the Temple
of Jerusalem was the basis of Wilkins’ theories, although
without him referring to religion.
While Perrault had already ironically remarked that
Villalpando and other writers thought that ‘God had by
special inspiration taught all proportions to the architects
of the Temple of Solomon,’13 Piranesi did away with the
idea that God had instructed the builders of the Temple
of Jerusalem, in his Della Magnificenza (1761).14 Piranesi,
however, did think that it was from the Temple of
Jerusalem that the Greeks took their orders. Wilkins’ opinion, that the Temple of Jerusalem was the model for all
Greek temples, was thus not new. What was revolutionary,
however, was his selection of the one temple at Paestum
to represent these Greek temples, and most of all, that he
modelled his reconstruction so closely after the Neptune
temple that the Temple of Jerusalem began to look very
much like a Greek temple.
Wilkins provided sections through the pronaos and
cella of the Neptune temple, and combined them with a
section through Solomon’s Temple to show that the proportions were the same (Fig. 6). He proposed ‘that the
Temple at Paestum, as well as other Grecian temples of the
same era, were designed after the model of the Temple at
Jerusalem’ (Wilkins 1807: xiv), and argued that their relationship was a special one:
[T]here existed a connection between the plans of
ancient Grecian temples, particularly that of Paestum, and the Temple of Solomon. The proportions
Art. 2, page 8 of 16
de Jong: Subjective Proportions
Figure 5: William Wilkins, Superimposed plans of the Temple of Neptune and the Temple of Solomon, from Wilkins
(1807: vii).
de Jong: Subjective Proportions
Art. 2, page 9 of 16
Figure 6: William Wilkins, Cross-sections of the Temple of Neptune and the Temple of Solomon, from Wilkins (1807).
Art. 2, page 10 of 16
of the latter may therefore be assumed as the standard, by which the early Greeks were directed in the
construction of their temples; and which was followed, with little variation, by the Greeks of later
times. (Wilkins 1807: xv)
In providing measurements of the ‘Paestum temple’
(as he called the Neptune temple) that he claimed
corresponded more or less to the dimensions of the
Temple of Jerusalem, Wilkins reasoned that small differences in proportion were normal, characteristic features
of Greek architecture. Thus he notes,
We ought not however to be surprised that the
proportion of the height to the diameter of the
columns does not more exactly correspond:
among the early Greeks, it does not appear that
there existed any rule for determining the height
of columns from the diameter. (Wilkins 1807: ix)
His reasoning is the outcome of the aforementioned
historical development that had allowed proportions to
be subjective or even arbitrary.
So convinced was Wilkins of the analysis he had presented in his book on Greek architecture that he revisited
his idea of the closeness of the proportions of Paestum
and those of the Temple of Jerusalem thirty years later,
in a publication entitled Prolusiones Architectonicae; or,
Essays on Subjects Connected with Grecian and Roman
Architecture (1837). In one of those essays, entitled ‘The
Temple of Jerusalem The Type of Grecian Architecture’,
Wilkins again compared Paestum with Solomon’s Temple,
and concluded that ‘a mode of constructing temples was
transmitted directly, and with little of the intermediate
assistance of a third state’ (Wilkins 1837: 118). Although
the arrangements of the Greek temples and the Temple
of Jerusalem were different, Wilkins found a similarity
between these buildings in their proportions: ‘we shall
find an intimate correspondence of proportions, which
will lead us to the conclusion that both were constructed
upon similar principles.’
According to Wilkins, there had been a historical transfer, regarding ‘Syria as the parent of the settlers in Greece,’
and the differences were only to be found in their respective rites: ‘although the proportions externally might be
similar, the division of the interior would be regulated
by circumstances’ (Wilkins 1837: 119). In stating how the
knowledge and the tradition had spread through contacts
between Minos and Solomon and between the Cretans
and the Phœnicians, Wilkins argued that historical
facts proved that ‘the chain which connects Syria [. . .]
with Greece, Sicily, and Magna-Græcia, connects also
their arts and architecture’ (Wilkins 1837: 121). The way
Wilkins placed Paestum in a historical context, from its
predecessor in Jerusalem to the Grecian temples of Sicily,
was the result of a growing tendency among 18th-century
critics and historians to put buildings in a chronological
sequence or historical comparison, a method that had an
important precedent in Julien-David Le Roy’s comparative
diagrams, and that would continue into the 19th century.15
de Jong: Subjective Proportions
It seems, however, that rather than the Greeks basing
the design of their temple on the Temple of Jerusalem,
Wilkins used the Temple of Neptune at Paestum to reconstruct the Temple of Jerusalem. Just as Soane would use
Paestum to illustrate the primitive hut, Wilkins based
his interpretation of the Temple of Jerusalem on the
Temple of Neptune (Wilkins 1837: 106). First he made
a general connection to the architecture of early Doric
temples, when he observed that the height of the different architectural elements in the elevation of the building of the Temple of Jerusalem is ‘in perfect consistency
with the proportions observed in such members of the
early Doric order’ (Wilkins 1837: 113). Even the ‘lily-work’
ornaments of the capitals of the Temple of Jerusalem
probably resembled ‘the painted ornament so frequently
found in Grecian temples’ (Wilkins 1837: 116). The resemblance to the Temple of Jerusalem was the closest in the
Neptune temple, much more than in other Greek temples
as in Sicily and Ægina, he argued, because at the Temple
of Neptune in Paestum ‘not only the proportions, but
the actual magnitudes are so nearly alike, as to remove
all doubt that the one served as the type for the other’
(Wilkins 1837: 118).
In a lecture for the London Architectural Association
in 1886, ‘A Review of the Various Theories Respecting the
Form and Style of Architecture of the Temple of Solomon’,
Edward Cookworthy Robins treated some of the reconstructions and theories about the Temple of Jerusalem
‘chiefly by eminent architects’ (Wilkins included) (Robins
1887: 2). He showed that, relying on different sources, or
interpreting differently the biblical passage in Ezekiel that
describes the Temple of Jerusalem, the reconstructions
by diverse authors, continuing into the 19th century,
are characterised by their dissimilarity. These reconstructions were most of all reflections of the authors’
periods and their own theories. Robins identified three
types of reconstructions: the African (Egyptian style), the
European (Grecian) and the Asiatic (Phoenician, Assyrian,
Babylonian and Persian).16
With Wilkins’ reconstruction, Robins demonstrated
how several elements were adapted to make the Temple
of Jerusalem consistent with Paestum’s Neptune temple.
Wilkins introduced narrow passages in the thickness of
the walls, said Robins, to ‘eke out the thickness of the
walls’; external dimensions were taken for internal ones.
Robins said that Wilkins explained the ‘lily-work’ ornaments of the capitals as ‘an ornamental fascia, resembling
the painted ornament so frequently found in Grecian
temples’, making the assumption that the temple had
classical features as an entablature and a pediment.
In short, Robins claimed, ‘every distinctive peculiarity
of Solomon’s Temple is merged into that of a succeeding period, of which it is proclaimed the type’ (Robins
1887: 17). He demonstrated in images how different the
outcomes were in the reconstructions — for example, the
Egyptian version of the temple after Canina as opposed
to the Grecian temple after Wilkins — and remarked
that it was ‘curious to observe how the Grecian architect
Wilkins, and the Indian architect Fergusson [were] each
seeing just what he want[ed] to see and establishing
de Jong: Subjective Proportions
its probability, but neither is supported by [the Bible]’
(Robins 1887: 27).
Obviously, Wilkins’s Temple of Jerusalem was an imaginary reconstruction, certainly based on sources such as
Villalpando and Newton, as he claimed in a footnote, as
opposed to the Temple of Neptune at Paestum, which
he had seen with his own eyes and had measured thoroughly on the spot. Just as Soane had never seen the
primitive hut, Wilkins had never laid eyes on Solomon’s
Temple. They both had been to Paestum, however, and
both used the Temple of Neptune as a model for the
building that was supposed to have been its model, be
it a primitive hut or the Temple of Jerusalem. But in
making a historical connection between the temples of
Jerusalem and of Neptune, and subsequently relating
them to all three temples at Paestum and the temples at
Sicily, Wilkins aimed to give history a much more important place than Soane in the debate on proportions.
Wilkins’s interpretation of Paestum’s proportions in a
historical development that had started with Solomon’s
Temple imbued architecture with historical meaning.
Materiality and Locality
While Soane explained Paestum’s primitive proportions
from the idea of architecture as a basic function of shelter,
and Wilkins presented the temples as buildings anchored
in history, the French architect Henri Labrouste proposed
a third way of giving cultural meaning to the proportions
of Paestum in his account of the site. He visited the temples as a Prix de Rome winner in 1828, and decided to dedicate his fourth-year envoi (submission to the Académie
des beaux-arts in Paris) to the site. Along with preparing
drawings of existing conditions and reconstructions of
the Paestum temple complex, as a pensionnaire (as a student at the French Academy in Rome was called) he was
required to write a mémoire, explaining his reconstructions. Labrouste’s mémoire sparked a fierce debate on the
Paestum temples, on Greek architecture and on the applicability of the latter in contemporary buildings (Levine
1977; Bressani 2013; de Jong 2014).
In light of Soane’s emphasis on the ancientness of
Paestum in relation to the primitive hut, and Wilkins’s
proposed historical connection between the Temple of
Jerusalem and the Greek temples in Sicily, Labrouste’s
view of the Paestum temples offers a very different interpretation. Labrouste did not associate the apparently
peculiar proportions of Paestum with the origins of architecture, but with the artistic options an architect has in
the process of designing a building. According to him, the
chronology of the temples was not what other writers on
Paestum had presented before, with the most primitively
proportioned temple, the Basilica, as the oldest, and the
temples of Ceres and Neptune as consecutive followers.
To Labrouste, the Neptune temple was the oldest because
it was the closest in style and proportions to the temples
of mainland Greece, and the Basilica was the youngest
because it was the most different in these characteristics from classical Greek architecture (Fig. 7). Thus while
most authors dated primitive style before more sophisticated style, Labrouste argued that the builders at Paestum
Art. 2, page 11 of 16
progressively discovered a primitive style more in keeping
with their own character.
Most of all, the Basilica, according to Labrouste,
adhered to the local conditions of the site by incorporating two different types of local stone, and the characteristics of these stones had determined the architectural
forms of this building: ‘the use of different materials,
the mixture of hard and soft stones, is a sign if not of an
advance, at least of a better knowledge of the materials
provided by the locality’ (Labrouste 1877). Furthermore,
the Temple of Ceres and the Basilica for him expressed
how the inhabitants of Poseidonia had aimed to create
a new architecture, independent of the architecture of
their homeland:
These observations lead one to consider the Temple
of Neptune as Greek Architecture and constructed
in a period when the [. . .] founders of Posidonia
had not yet forgotten the principles of architecture
that they had brought with them from Greece;
and to consider the Portico [the Basilica] and the
Temple of Ceres as later than the Temple of Neptune
and constructed in a Period when the Posidonians,
having become more powerful, wanted to create a
new architecture. (Labrouste 1877)
Labrouste argued that this architecture truly belonged
to Poseidonia, and concluded that there could be no
general norm of Greek architecture, but rather, that the
design of buildings depends on local circumstances. He
explained the primitive proportions of the Basilica as
artistic choices. Labrouste thus tried to trace the origins
of architectural invention. Because architectural forms
were connected to local conditions, he thought it inconceivable to transfer Paestum’s building forms, or even the
forms of classical Greek architecture, to contemporary
buildings in Paris.
Labrouste was wrong in his chronology of the temples of Paestum, but that does not matter; he presented
their primitive forms and proportions as outcomes of
artistic choice rather than representations of the origins
of architecture, as Soane and Wilkins had done. In doing
so, Labrouste introduced, next to the historical meaning
of primitive proportions, the cultural meaning of those
proportions. Labrouste’s interpretation of Paestum’s proportions as an outcome of the material characteristics of
the stones and of the site, and of the genius of the place,
attempted to explain how a society creates its own architecture. In his view these forms and proportions were the
expressions of a specific society; the influences of local
conditions should provide every society with its own
unique architecture.
We have seen how the particular proportions of the temples at Paestum prompted architects to associate the temples with the origins of architecture either in the primitive
hut or in Solomon’s Temple, and to explain their perceived
strangeness as a function of the ancientness of these buildings. In the case of the primitive hut they stressed the simplicity of the construction, while in the case of Solomon’s
Temple, the historical aspects were put to the fore. In the
Art. 2, page 12 of 16
de Jong: Subjective Proportions
Figure 7: Henri Labrouste, Elevations, plans and cross-sections of the Basilica, current and restored, 1828. Paris, École
nationale supérieure des beaux-arts, Env. 22.
latter we can detect a growing emphasis on history, already
present in the architectural debates of that time.
Labrouste applied this importance of history in his interpretation of Paestum by proposing a different historical
development of the three temples at Paestum: the temple
with the most primitive proportions was not the oldest but
the youngest. He interpreted the architectural forms and
proportions as an artistic choice of the Poseidonian architects that was the result of the natural and local conditions
of the site. Contrary to the arguments of many 18th-century
architects, Labrouste argued that a direct use of Paestum’s
proportions and building forms in modern buildings was
problematic. He stressed the importance of the architect as
inventor of building forms, and most of all insisted on the
use of local characteristics as a major factor in design.
Towards 1800 the role of history became increasingly important, not least in the debate on proportions.
Architects came to stress the historical or cultural meaning of proportions, as Wilkins and Labrouste did. In that
way 18th-century architects were able to apply strange
and unfamiliar proportions to a discussion of the cultural
meaning of architecture. They could explain architecture’s
basic functionality as shelter, architecture’s place within a
historical development, or architecture’s creation out of
local conditions and circumstances.
The Physical Effect of Architecture
In a fourth way of giving meaning to proportions perceived as peculiar, architects found that it was crucial
to be in situ. Unlike Labrouste, however, who had exam-
ined the temples thoroughly at the spot, concentrating on their history and materiality, other visitors were
more emotionally engaged in experiencing the building
first hand. They had begun to walk through the temples
and to write about how this experience affected them.
These visitors saw the proportions not from a historical
perspective, nor from the point of view of the architect
as designer. Rather, they concentrated on the impression
building forms made on them when they moved through
architectural space.
Several of its 18th-century visitors associated Paestum’s
architecture and proportions with human characteristics.
The French architect Antoine-Laurent-Thomas Vaudoyer,
for example, observed that ‘this order conveys sadness in
its character and its proportions, as well as in its sense
of closure, an allusion to what one experiences during
misfortunes.’17 To French architects Jacques-Guillaume
Legrand and Jacques Molinos the temples’ ‘robust proportions and masculine style’ recalled the athletic forms
of sculpted depictions of Hercules (Le Barbier 1808:
300–301).
At Paestum the German poet Goethe succeeded in
transforming his initial bewilderment into a familiarity
with the temples after he moved through them and began
to comprehend their strange architectural forms (von
Goethe 1988: 205–206): ‘It is only by walking through
them and round them that one can attune one’s life to
theirs and experience the emotional effect which the
architect intended’ (von Goethe 1970: 218).18 The Scottish
traveller Joseph Forsyth similarly came to a positive
de Jong: Subjective Proportions
assessment of the proportions of the temples, after having perceived them by walking among the architectural
spaces of the temples. Forsyth claimed not to agree with
Vitruvius’ statement that ‘the intercolumniations should
be in direct proportion to the relative thickness of the columns’. At Paestum Forsyth had observed that
these, in proportion to their height, are the thickest columns that I have seen, and yet their relative
distance is the least. This closeness makes the columns crowd advantageously on the eye, it enlarges
our idea of the space, and gives a grand, an heroic
air to monuments of very moderate dimension.
(Forsyth 1813: 341–342)
Forsyth’s account of Paestum recalls how Julien-David
Le Roy described the Louvre colonnade. He focussed
entirely on the movements of the spectator in perceiving
the different scenes the architecture has to offer when
the viewer, in moving towards and through the building, becomes the actor and director in his own play. Le
Roy described how this spectator came within touching
distance of the columns when he approached them, and
how each step meant a new scene, entirely conducted
by himself. Le Roy examined the effects of the changing
movements of the viewer’s body and the altering of speed
in these movements:
As we come closer, our view alters. The mass of the
building as a whole escapes us, but we are compensated by our closeness to the columns; as we
change position, we create changes of view that are
more striking, more rapid, and more varied. (Le Roy
2004: 372; Le Roy 1770: vol. 2, viii)
The French architect and engineer Pierre-Joseph Antoine
formulated similar bodily reactions to architecture when
he interpreted the idea of breathing in connection to the
movements of a spectator. He wrote about ‘our physical constitution’, and how one moves and breathes in
architectural space, as the basis for one’s appreciation of
rhythm in architecture:
Our breathing is measured by equal moments;
the working of the heart’s valves, which causes
the circulation of blood, is thus constituted as
well; the movements of our body, when we walk,
are repeated at equal intervals. Therefore poetry
was found to be very agreeable, because it fits
very well with these physical measures. (Antoine
1782: n.p.)
The travel accounts written about Paestum and similar
ones about other buildings that stressed the role of the
moving body in observing a building might have laid
the groundwork for late 19th-century theories on how
physical movements and reactions to architecture change
the way buildings are viewed. The art historian Heinrich
Wölfflin, for example, took the 18th-century ideas further
when he asked, ‘how is it possible that architectural forms
Art. 2, page 13 of 16
are able to express an emotion or a mood?’ According to
him, proportions have a major role in this expression
(Wölfflin 1994: 167–71). Wölfflin connected proportions
to forces at play in human beings’ bodies:
Of great interest is the relation of proportions to
the rate of breathing. It cannot be doubted that
very narrow proportions produce the impression
of an almost breathless and hurried upward striving. Naturally, we immediately associate them with
the idea of tightness, which makes it impossible
for us to continue to breathe deeply with the necessary lateral expansion. Thus Gothic proportions
are oppressive: there is sufficient space for us to
breathe, but in living in and with these forms we
sense them to be squeezing together, pressing
upward, and consuming themselves in their own
tension. The lines appear to run together with an
increasing speed. (Wölfflin 1994: 169)
According to Wölfflin, architecture can be understood
in terms of the bodily movement of the viewer, and this
movement is what gives life to architecture. Wölfflin
associated bodily reactions to architecture with historical
development:
Considering the importance of the rate of respiration for the expression of moods, this is a highly
important aspect of historical character. It can
even be observed that the older a nation is, the
more rapidly its architecture begins to breathe; it
becomes excited. How still and restful are the lines
of the ancient Doric temple: everything is broad
and slow-measured. With the Ionic there is already
a quicker movement, a pursuit of slenderness and
lightness. As antique culture approached its end, it
ever more feverishly demanded faster movement.
(Wölfflin 1994: 170)
In the same text Wölfflin addressed the impression a
square (‘bulky, heavy, contented, plain, good-natured, stupid, etc.’) makes on a viewer, and what happens to its form
if one changes its proportions, ‘the relations of height to
width’, as he defined it:
With increasing height, the bulkiness transforms
itself into a solid, compact form and becomes
elegant and forceful. It ends up as a slim, unstable form, at which point the form then appears to
deteriorate into a restless, eternal, upward ascent.
Conversely, as the width increases, the figure undergoes proportional development from an ungainly,
compacted mass to an ever freer, more relaxed figure, which in the end loses itself in a dissipating
languor. One gets the impression that without support the figure would continue to spread out flat
along the ground. (Wölfflin 1994: 168–169)
He added, ‘This impression, I note in passing, has been
observed in numerous experiments with people of all
Art. 2, page 14 of 16
ages’. The perceptions at Paestum have shown, much as
Wölfflin later formulated, how ultimately proportions
made the visitors aware of their own physicality, of the
relationships and interactions between their bodies and
architecture. Labrouste’s argument resonates also in
Wölfflin’s reasoning when Wölfflin claims, ‘Proportions
are what every nation presents as its very own. Even if
the system of decoration is introduced from abroad, the
national character will time and again become apparent in the dimensions of height and width’ (Wölfflin
1994: 170).
In Labrouste’s ideas about Paestum, history had gained
an even larger role than in Soane’s and Wilkins’ texts. He
saw how the temples represented the development of
architecture, which was the result of the interactions of a
society with a specific natural environment.
At Paestum we have thus seen what happened when
proportions became subjective. Different questions
emerged about buildings once architects accepted that
proportions are arbitrary: questions about the way architecture was constructed, about its place in history and in
society, and about how buildings make people feel. The
impact of 18th-century interpretations of Paestum on
these different questions that determined architectural
discourse was revolutionary. Architects saw with their
own eyes that these subjective proportions could not to
be judged on paper, but only on site in the directness of
experience.
These architects’ interpretations of the strange proportions of these ancient temples in southern Italy unveiled
this much: that unlike proportion-as-ratio, which is objective, proportion-as-beauty is personal and the point of
view of the observer is primordial. When architects were
on the spot at Paestum, the temples inspired them to
explore how to interpret architecture individually, and to
imbue it with meaning as a kind of interpretation: from a
basic function of shelter, as in Soane’s lectures, to its place
in history, as Wilkins did, to a local expression of a society,
as Labrouste argued, and lastly, to an empathic reflection
of an emotional response to a building, as Goethe demonstrated. The 18th- and 19th-century interpretations of
proportion-as-beauty, here examined through reactions
to Paestum, demonstrate the importance of studying how
individual observers of architecture interpret proportions.
Paestum revealed how these observers imbued architecture with meaning.
de Jong: Subjective Proportions
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
Competing Interests
The author declares that they have no competing interests.
Notes
1
Lascelles Raymond Iremonger, letter to Sir Roger Newdigate, Naples, 22 July 1752, Warwick County Record
Office, published in McCarthy (1972: 761).
2
D’Hancarville’s publication was meant to illustrate
Hamilton’s rich collection of vases; since 1764
Hamilton had been the envoy extraordinary of Britain
to the Neapolitan court. The section in which he writes
about Paestum is called ‘De l’origine des Etrusques et
de leurs lettres’.
10
11
In 1868 A Aurès published Étude des dimensions du
Grand Temple de Paestum au double point de vue de
l’architecture et de la métrologie. He used, and dismissed, earlier measurements by C M Delagardette,
Ernest Beulé (in Beulé 1858), Léonce Reynaud (in Reynaud 1865: part 1, plates 14, 15), and Henri Labrouste
(drawings given to him by an architect named Debacq,
because these were not yet published, according to
Aurès) (Aurès 1868: 7).
All translations by author, unless otherwise stated.
John Soane, on 26 January, in sketchbook ‘Italian
Sketches/J; Soane/1779’, Sir John Soane’s Museum,
London, Drawings Collection, vol. 39, 31r.
The same lecture was read four times, on 8 January
1810, 12 February 1813 (altered), 20 February 1817
(altered), and 18 February 1819 (altered). The last version was read three times by Henry Howard, on 16 February 1832, 9 January 1834, and 7 January 1836. See
Soane (1996: 731–732).
Sir John Soane’s Museum, London, Drawings Collection, Royal Academy Lecture drawing, 1807, Drawer
27, Set 2, no. 4.
Thomas Major, ‘The Original Drawings for a Work Intituled the Ruins of Paestum or Posidonia Engraved by
T. Major 1768’, London, Sir John Soane’s Museum,
Drawings Collection, vol. 27; partly published in Major
(1768), which is also part of the collection in London,
Sir John Soane’s Museum, Drawings Collection, vol. 28.
Soane also owned fifteen Piranesi drawings of
Paestum, of which one is the interior perspective of
the Temple of Neptune: Giovanni Battista Piranesi,
study drawings for Différentes vues de [. . .] Pesto,
London, Sir John Soane’s Museum, Drawings
Collection: plates II (F20 (71)), III (F9 (51)), IV (F78
(146)), V (F24 (76)), VI (F23 (75)), VII (F10 (54)), VIII
(F70 (133)), IX (F64 (125)), X (F21 (72)), XI (F19 (70)),
XII (F18 (69)), XIII (F22 (74)), XIV (F25 (77)), XVI (F76
(139)), XVII (F77 (140)). Two others ended up in the
collection of the Bibliothèque nationale de France in
Paris and the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. All were
published as engravings in Piranesi (1778).
Soane showed other drawings of Paestum in the third
lecture (two, a section and a perspective of the Temple
of Neptune), and the fifth lecture (two, an interior view
of the Temple of Neptune, and a perspective view of
the three temples, from Major’s Ruins of Paestum). Sir
John Soane’s Museum, London, Royal Academy Lecture drawings, Drawer 19, Set 5, drawing 1–5; Drawer
23, Set 3, drawing 8. In the second lecture Soane compared the columns of the Paestum temple with those
of Corinth, the Temple of Theseus, the Temple of
Minerva and the Temple of Augustus in Athens
(Drawer 25, Set 1, drawing 1), but only with respect to
their dimensions, the diameters of their columns and
the proportions of their entablatures to the heights of
the columns. See Soane (1996: 504)
He named Newton twice in a note (Wilkins 1807: vii,
xv, xvii), and referred to Juan Bautista Villalpando on
pages ix, x, xii.
On Newton’s reconstruction, see Morrison (2011). On
Villalpando, see Morrison (2009).
de Jong: Subjective Proportions
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
Isaac Newton, The Original of Religions (Yahuda
MS 41), unpublished manuscript, Jewish National
and Universal Library, undated, f.1r and 6r, cited in
Morrison (2009: 596, n33).
Perrault (1683: xviii), cited in Herrmann (1973: 36).
As Kantor-Kazovsky (1997) states, ‘the approach of the
Enlightenment to architecture in the 18th century had
no need of the hypothesis that God gave his instructions to the builders of the Temple of Solomon’, cited
in Morrison (2009: 596, note 39). See also KantorKazovsky (2006).
See Hvattum (2004: 114–136).
Robins analysed Hosking, Canina, Thrupp and Count
de Vogüé for the African method; Wilkins, Hakewill,
and Josephus for the Greek; and Fergusson for the
Asiatic. Robins mostly agreed with Fergusson’s
argument and reconstruction.
From a letter to Hippolyte Lebas, Rome, 10 August
1785, in Antoine-Laurent-Thomas Vaudoyer, ‘Voyage
pittoresque en diverses parties de l’Italie: Extraits de
lettres adressées à Paris à M. Lebas père, par A.L.T. Vaudoyer, architecte, pensionnaire du Roi à l’Académie
de France à Rome, années 1786, 1787, 1788’, Paris,
private collection, letter no. 49.
In German: ‘Doch nahm ich mich bald zusammen,
erinnerte mich der Kunstgeschichte, gedachte der
Zeit, deren Geist solche Bauart gemäß fand, vergegenwärtigte mir den strengen Stil der Plastik, und in
weniger als einer Stunde fühlte ich mich befreundet,
ja ich pries den Genius, daß er mich diese so wohl erhaltenen Reste mit Augen sehen ließ, da sich von ihnen
durch Abbildung kein Begriff geben läßt’ (von Goethe
1988: 206).
References
Antoine P-J 1782 Série des colonnes. Dijon: Frantin.
Aurès, A 1868 Étude des dimensions du Grand Temple de
Paestum au double point de vue de l’architecture et de la
métrologie. Paris: J. Baudry.
Beulé, C E 1858 Architecture au siècle de Pisistrate. Revue
générale de l’architecture et des travaux publics, 16.
Bressani, M 2013 The Paestum Controversy. In: Bélier,
C, Bergdoll, B, and Le Cœur, M (eds.) Henri Labrouste:
Structure Brought to Light. New York: Museum of
Modern Art. pp. 88–93.
Cohen, M A 2014 Beyond Beauty: Re-Examining Architectural Proportion Through the Basilicas of San Lorenzo
and Santo Spirito in Florence. Venice: Marsilio.
de Jong, S 2014 Rediscovering Architecture: Paestum
in Eighteenth-Century Architectural Experience and
Theory. London/New Haven: Yale University Press and
Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art.
Delagardette, C M 1799 Les ruines de Paestum, ou
Posidona, ancienne ville de la Grande-Grèce, a vingtdeux lieues de Naples, dans le golfe de Salerne: Levées,
mesurées et dessinées sur les lieux, en l’an II. Paris:
Delagardette/Barbou.
de Saint-Non, J-C R 2000 Panopticon Italiano: Un diario di
viaggio ritrovato, 1759–1761. Revised by P Rosenberg.
Rome: Ed. dell’Elefante.
Art. 2, page 15 of 16
d’Hancarville, P F H 1766–67 Antiquités étrusques,
grecques et romaines, tirées du cabinet de M. Hamilton /
Collection of Etruscan, Greek and Roman Antiquities
from the Cabinet of the Hon. William Hamilton. 4 vols.
Naples: s.n.
Forsyth, J 1813 Remarks on Antiquities, Arts, and Letters,
During an Excursion in Italy in the Years 1802 and
1803. London: T. Cadell and W. Davies.
Herrmann, W 1973 The Theory of Claude Perrault.
London: A. Zwemmer.
Hvattum, M 2004 The Comparative Method. In: Gottfried
Semper and the Problem of Historicism. Cambridge/
New York: Cambridge University Press, pp. 114–136.
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO97805114977
11.007
Kantor-Kazovsky, L 1997 Piranesi and Villalpando The
Concept of the Temple in European Architectural
Theory. Jewish Art, 23–24: 226–44.
Kantor-Kazovsky, L 2006 Piranesi as Interpreter of Roman
Architecture and the Origins of His Intellectual World.
Florence: Leo S. Olschki.
Labrouste, H 1829 Antiquités de Pestum, Posidonia,
Labrouste jeune 1829 [mémoire]. Paris, École nationale
supérieure des beaux-arts, PC 77832–7.
Labrouste, H 1877 Les Temples de Paestum: Restauration
exécutée en 1829 par Henri Labrouste. Restaurations des
Monuments Antiques par les Architectes Pensionnaires de
l’Académie de France à Rome. vol. 3. Paris: Firmin-Didot.
Le Barbier, J-J-F 1808 Notice nécrologique sur M.
Legrand, architecte, membre de l’Académie Celtique.
In: Mémoires de l’Académie Celtique, vol. II. Paris: L.-P.
Dubray. pp. 300–301.
Le Roy, J-D 1770 Les ruines des plus beaux monuments
de la Grèce, considérées du côté de l’histoire et du côté
de l’architecture. 2nd edn, 2 vols. Paris: Louis-François
Delatour.
Le Roy, J-D 2004 The Ruins of the Most Beautiful Monuments of Greece. 2nd ed. [1770]. Introduction by
R Middleton, trans. D Britt. Los Angeles: Getty Research
Institute.
Levine, N 1977 The Romantic Idea of Architectural Legibility: Henri Labrouste and the Néo-Grec. In: Drexler, A (ed.)
The Architecture of the École des Beaux-Arts. New York/
Cambridge, Mass.: Museum of Modern Art/MIT Press.
pp. 325–341.
Major, T 1768 The Ruins of Paestum, Otherwise Posidonia,
in Magna Graecia. London: T. Major.
McCarthy, M 1972 Documents on the Greek Revival in Architecture. Burlington Magazine, 114(Nov 1972): 760–765.
Morrison, T 2009 Juan Bautista Villalpando’s Ezechielem
Explanationes. A Sixteenth-Century Architectural Text.
Lewiston: The Edwin Mellen Press.
Morrison T 2011 Isaac Newton’s Temple of Solomon
and his Reconstruction of Sacred Architecture. Basel:
Birkhäuser. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-30348-0046-4
Paoli, P A 1783–84 Lettera sull’origine ed antichtà
dell’architettura al signor abate Fea. In: Winckelmann, J J
(ed.) Storia delle arti del disegno presso gli antichi.
Rome: Pagliarini, vol. 3: pp. 127–186.
Art. 2, page 16 of 16
Paoli, P A 1784 Paesti, quod Posidoniam etiam dixere,
rudera. Rovine della città di Pesto, detta ancora
Posidonia. Rome: [in typographio Paleariniano].
Perrault, C 1683 Ordonnance des cinq espèces de colonnes selon la méthode des anciens. Paris: J.B. Coignard.
Perrault, C 1969 Unknown Designs for the ‘Temple of
Jerusalem’. In: Fraser, D, Hibbard, H and Lewine, M J
(eds.) Essays Presented to Rudolf Wittkower. London/
New York: Phaidon.
Piranesi, G B 1778 Différentes vues de quelques restes de
trois grands édifices qui subsistent encore dans le milieu
de l’ancienne ville de Pesto, autrement Possidonia qui est
située dans la Lucanie. Rome: s.n.
Quatremère de Quincy, A C 1788–1825 Encyclopédie
méthodique: Architecture, dédiée et présentée a Monseigneur de Lamoignon, Garde des sceaux de France, &
c. 3 vols. Paris: Panckoucke.
Reynaud, L 1865 Traité d’architecture. 2nd ed. Paris:
Librairie pour l’architecture.
de Jong: Subjective Proportions
Robins, E C 1887 The Temple of Solomon: A Review of the
Various Theories Respecting Its Form and Style of Architecture. London: Whittaker & Co.
Soane, J 1996 Sir John Soane: Enlightenment Thought
and the Royal Academy Lectures. Edited by D Watkin.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
von Goethe, J W 1970 Italian Journey, 1786–88. Trans.
W H Auden and E Mayer. London: Penguin.
von Goethe, J W 1988 Italienische Reise [1829]. Munich:
Wilhelm Goldmann Verlag.
Wilkins, W 1807 The Antiquities of Magna Graecia.
London: Longman, Hurst, Orme and Rees.
Wilkins, W 1837 Prolusiones architectonicæ; or Essays on
Subjects Connected with Greek and Roman Architecture.
London: Weale.
Wölfflin, H 1994 Prolegomena zu einer Psychologie
der Architektur (1886). In: Mallgrave, H F, and
Ikonomou, E (eds.) Empathy, Form, and Space: Problems in
German Aesthetics, 1873–1893. Santa Monica: Getty Center
for the History of Art and the Humanities. pp. 149–187.
How to cite this article: de Jong, S 2016 Subjective Proportions: 18th-Century Interpretations of Paestum’s ‘Disproportion’.
Architectural Histories, 4(1): 2, pp. 1–16, DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5334/ah.125
Published: 26 February 2016
Copyright: © 2016 The Author(s). This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons
Attribution 4.0 International License (CC-BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium,
provided the original author and source are credited. See http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
Architectural Histories is a peer-reviewed open access journal published by Ubiquity Press.
OPEN ACCESS
Purchase answer to see full
attachment