“The very essence of everything Classic”
Charles Lock Eastlake (1793-1865), describing the Acropolis
A debate regarding whether Ancient Greece or Ancient Rome was the “true fountainhead” of Western civilization divided eighteenth-century antiquarians. When the Greek side, championed by Johann Joachim Winckelmann (1713-1788), prevailed, many of the antiquarians who had flocked to Rome came to realize they were in the wrong place. Alongside this shift in historical interest, Greece, though still under Ottoman control, conveniently became more accessible to Westerners.
In 1751 the Englishmen James Stuart (1717-1788) and Nicholas Revett (1720-1804) traveled from Rome to Greece to study and document the ancient Greek remains. They were particularly interested in the ruins on the Acropolis. Their Antiquities of Athens, published in four volumes between 1762 and 1816, sparked further interest among antiquarians, architects, and artists, many of whom found their way to Greece in the following decades.
The drawings, paintings, and publications of these so-called “Early Travelers” renewed the taste for the antique and led directly to Greek Revival architecture in Western Europe and North America. It also caused a groundswell of support for Greek independence from the Ottoman Empire, achieved in 1830.
James Stuart (British, 1713–1788) and Nicholas Revett (British, 1720–1804)
(NA) Left: Doric Portico at Athens (Vol. I. Chap. I. Pl. IV)
(NA) Right: Library of Hadrian (Vol. I. Chap. V. Pl. VI)
From The Antiquities of Athens, Volume 1 (1762)
Private Collection, Middlebury
In 1742 James Stuart, a fan painter from London, walked to Rome where he worked as an artist, antiquarian, and guide while studying art and architecture as well as Italian, Latin, and Greek. Influenced by Winckelmann’s ideas, in 1751 he and Nicholas Revett traveled to Greece to record the ancient ruins of Athens.
When the first volume of the Antiquities of Athens was published in 1762, it was criticized because it did not include monuments from the High Classical period but focused on Hellenistic and Roman structures. Among these were the Doric portico, now identified as the gate into the Roman agora, constructed in 11 BCE with donations from Julius Caesar and Augustus, and the Library of Hadrian, built in 132 CE.
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James Stuart (British, 1713–1788) and Nicholas Revett (British, 1720–1804)
A View of the Eastern Portico of the Parthenon (Vol. II. Chap. I. Pl. I)
From The Antiquities of Athens, Volume 2 (1787)
Rare Books and Manuscripts, Special Collections, Middlebury College Library
Gift of James Morton Paton
In recording the ancient monuments, Stuart and Revett followed a set procedure. Stuart first depicted the ruins as they appeared in the 18th century, often including locals and even himself. Scaled plans, sections, and elevations of the reconstructed ruins supplemented these illustrations.
The second volume of the Antiquities of Athens, dated 1787, contained the High Classical monuments on the Acropolis, first and foremost the Parthenon, designed by Ictinos in 448 BCE. The image seen here shows the east façade of the temple surrounded by Byzantine, Ottoman, and other post-antique structures. In the text Stuart comments: “In the space between the Columns is seen the present Moschea [mosque], built within the area of the Parthenon.”
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James Stuart (British, 1713–1788) and Nicholas Revett (British, 1720–1804)
Temple of Theseus (Vol. III. Chap. I. Pl. I)
From The Antiquities of Athens, Volume 3 (1794)
Rare Books and Manuscripts, Special Collections, Middlebury College Library
Gift of James Morton Paton
Standing near the agora, the Hephaisteion ranks among the best-preserved Greek temples. Dedicated to the god of metalworking and craftsmanship, it was constructed in the middle of the fifth century BCE, around the same time as the High Classical monuments on the Acropolis. When Stuart drew the temple in 1751 it was still in use as the Greek Orthodox church of Saint George.
Less than a decade after his return from Greece, Stuart used the Hephaisteion’s façade for the design of a garden pavilion at Hagley Park in Worcestershire, England, erected in 1758. Following the publication of the third volume of The Antiquities of Athens, the temple served as inspiration for numerous Greek Revival buildings, including the Vermont State House in Montpelier, constructed between 1857 and 1859.
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Charles Lock Eastlake (British, 1793–1865)
A View of the Erechtheum on the Acropolis, Athens, 1818
Oil on paper, laid on canvas
Gift (by exchange) of Wilson Farnsworth, George Mead, and Henry Sheldon
2015.020
Charles Eastlake visited Athens in the summer of 1818, where he painted many of the classical monuments. Among these was the Erechtheum, a temple dedicated to Athena Polias and several other divinities. Constructed between 421 and 406 BCE, the building was possibly designed by Mnesicles, the architect of the Propylaia.
This painting depicts the Caryatid porch of the Erechtheum at an interesting moment in its history: the second frontal Caryatid is missing. Thomas Bruce, the Earl of Elgin, had removed it between 1801 and 1812 and sold it to the British government as part of the “Elgin Marbles” in 1816.
Eastlake made at least two copies of this painting, one of which is now at the Yale Center for British Art. Later in life, he became a noted arts scholar, served as president of the Royal Academy, and was appointed the first director of the National Gallery in London.
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Charles Robert Cockerell (British, 1788–1863)
Temple of Apollo at Bassae, early 19th century
Pencil and ink on laid paper
Private Collection, Middlebury
Ictinos, the architect of the Parthenon, also designed the Temple of Apollo at Bassae in Arcadia. Charles Cockerell, a British architect who was in Greece between 1810 and 1815, made this drawing, depicting that temple in its reconstructed state.
In 1814 Cockerell wrote: “I have also […] ascertained what I spoke of before as a matter of conjecture—viz. the entasis or swelling of the Greek columns. A straight line stretched from the capital to the base showed the swelling at about a third of the height to be an inch [at the Parthenon].
In 1824 Cockerell designed the Scottish National Monument in Edinburgh as a replica of the Parthenon. Left unfinished shortly after construction started, it resembles a ruin. The Ionic capitals on the Bixby Library in Vergennes, Vermont, are modeled directly after those of the Temple of Apollo at Bassae, as published by Cockerell in 1860.
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Sanford Robinson Gifford (American, 1823–1880)
The Parthenon, May 10, 1869
Oil on canvas
Purchase with funds provided by the Christian A. Johnson Memorial Art Acquisition Fund
2016.102
Sanford Gifford, a leading painter of the Hudson River School, traveled widely in Europe and the Near East, painting small-format oil sketches en plein air. Upon his return he used these studies to create the large, luminous paintings for which he became famous.
Painted in the early afternoon of May 10, 1869, with the sun almost directly overhead, this sketch depicts the Parthenon from the north. The Doric columns and entablature are silhouetted against Mount Hymettos and a cloudless sky. Sanford’s timing was serendipitous: the small mosque inside the Parthenon’s ruin had been dismantled some years prior to his visit, and the 1890s reconstructions had not yet begun.
This study was used as a preparatory sketch for Gifford’s last major painting, The Ruins of the Parthenon (1880), now at the Corcoran Collection of the National Gallery in Washington, D.C.