Classical Studies 2500A/B Lecture 19: Unit 3.1 2

• School: Western University
• Department: Classical Studies
• Course: Classical Studies 2500A/B
• Professor: Beth Greene

Document Summary

At this point, monumental architecture has been around for 100ish years. Earliest phase was in 750; last phase was in 530; now we are at 450. So greeks have been experimenting for about 300 years. If you have a truly straight platform, when your eye perceives it, it looks like it is sunken in the middle. With straight columns, they look like they"re bulging. The greeks incorporated optical refinements into this struc; they curved the stylobase. If you"re on the acropolis and standing at the platform and lean down and look you can see that it goes up and goes back down so it"s actually curved. When you curve it, when observed from far away it looks straight. Columns are all leaning in on the whole parthenon; all columns are leaning in slightly, to the point where if you keep drawing the lines it"ll meet high up; gives appearance of how it looks straight.