Parian marble

“ Parian marble hardens by exposure to the air, and is one of the most permanent kinds that is known. Varro and Pliny each state that it was named lychnites, by the ancients, from a Greek word signifying a lamp, because it was generally hewn in quarries by the light of lamps. The finest Grecian sculpture that has been preserved to the present time is of Parian marble. The principal statues of it now extant are the Medicean 102Venus, the Diana Venatrix, and Venus leaving the Bath. It is also Parian marble on which the celebrated tables at Oxford are inscribed. ”

“ Independently of the injurious effects which the large grain of the Parian marble produces on the transparent surface of sculptured works, and the false lights which it thus introduces into the contour, it interferes materially with the requisite correctness of drawing in the lesser works, and is thus inapplicable to the details of small sculptures in relief. It is nevertheless susceptible of a good polish, a quality however, of little value in the eyes of the statuary, and one which in this variety only serves to render the defects of its texture more apparent. ”

“ The celebrated Arundelian marbles at Oxford consist of Parian marble, as does also the Medicean Venus. More than twenty centuries have elapsed since the Parian quarries were abandoned in consequence of the decay of Grecian art; but in our enterprising days a company has been formed (1857) for working the beautiful marble which has been recently discovered near St. Minas, not far from the site of the ancient quarries, and is said to be superior not only to that of Carrara but even to the renowned Lychnites of the ancients. ”

“ This shield is of the most exquisite workmanship. The other is a table of the most beautiful black marble incrusted and inlaid with figures and hieroglyphics of silver. It is called the Table of Isis, was brought from Egypt and is supposed to be of the most remote antiquity. It is always kept polished. Among the many valuable pieces of sculpture to be met with here is a most lovely Cupid in Parian marble. He is represented sleeping on a lion's skin. It is the most beautiful piece of sculpture I have ever seen next to the Apollo Belvédère and the Venus dei Medici ”

“ There remains still another source of light to be considered, that passing through the Parian marble tiles of the roof; the superior translucency of Parian to any other marble may have suggested its employment for the roofs of temples, and if, in the framed ceilings carried over the cella, openings were left, some light from the Parian tile roof might have been obtained. ”

“ In 1811, several statues of Parian marble were discovered by two English gentlemen and two Germans [5] , the rivals in the style of which are said nowhere to be found. They were excavated from the two extremities of the temple below the tympana, from which they had fallen at some unknown period. Mr. Dodwell has given the following account of them:—"I shall not attempt," says he, "a minute description of these precious remains of the Æginetic school; the discovery of which, in its importance, has not been surpassed by any of the kind in modern times. ”

“ This uncommonly beautiful figure of Parian marble represents a woman, whose feminine features and form seem to have contracted the impression of the masculine habits of warfare. Clad in a very fine tunic, which, leaving the left breast exposed, is tucked up on the hips, she is in the act of bending a large bow. ”

“ It is carbonate of lime, pure when the colour is white and of various shades of colour when combined with oxide of iron and other substances. The marble favoured by the ancients was the Parian which is finely granular, waxy when polished, and lasting. The beautiful Venus de Medici and other 263exquisite Greek statues were formed of Parian. Another favourite variety was the more finely grained and whiter marble of Pentelicus from which the Parthenon was built. ”

“ It cut well, and bore a tolerable Polish, and the Statues, &c. made of it, were common in Greece, and called Πώρινα, as those of the Parian Marble were called Πάρια. The Tophus, to which our Author compares this Marble for Lightness, is a rough Stone of the Pumice Kind, brittle, and easily crumbling into Powder. It is not much known in England, but common in Germany, where it is used instead of the Pumice, and called Topffstein and Tugstein. This was a Stone well known among the Greeks, and was what they called the Porus, without any Addition ”

“ There are three quarries on the mountain, and the largest has several lateral cuttings. The marks of the ancient wedges are everywhere visible, and it is evident from the manner in which the blocks were taken out that the utmost care was exercised to avoid waste. In consequence of the numerous fissures through the beds, comparatively small blocks could be obtained, generally not more than five feet in length.
Parian marble is of a yellowish white, very near the tint of white wax. Theocritus compares it to the color of teeth. ”

“ The world has nothing else like the Pantheon. So grand it is, that the pasteboard statues over the lofty cornice do not disturb the effect, any more than the tin crowns and hearts, the dusty artificial flowers, and all manner of trumpery gew-gaws, hanging at the saintly shrines. The rust and dinginess that have dimmed the precious marble on the walls; the pavement, with its great squares and rounds of porphyry and granite, cracked crosswise and in a hundred directions, showing how roughly the troublesome ages have trampled here ”

“ No altar or shrine or image: there is no god but God. No carving or lattice-work: but the simple pillars and arches, the few cupolas and domes, are yet the richest of ornamentation. No paint or gems—only the clear harmonious veining of the marble. Only space and proportion, form and whispers of colour—and it is so beautiful that you can hardly breathe for rapture. The radiant marble ripples from shade to shade—snow-white, pearl-white, ivory-white—till it seems half alive. The bells and pinnacles are so light that they seem to float in the air. ”

“ The marble is dazzlingly white and fine-grained, but it sometimes contains little pieces of quartz or flint, which give some trouble to the workmen. The Parthenon, crowning like a perfect capital of human art the summit of Nature's rough workmanship in the Acropolis, was built of this marble; and the immortal sculpture of Pheidias on the metopes, the frieze of the cella, and the tympana of the pediments of the temple, known as the Elgin Marbles, were carved out of a material worthy of their incomparable beauty. Innumerable specimens at one time existed in Rome. ”

“ The twisted shafts of the upper stage of the Ducal Palace, and the triple and chevroned shafts of the Ca’ d’Oro, are not improvements upon the refinement of the earlier mode.
I have already spoken of the exquisite beauty of the inlaid marbles in S. Mark’s; nothing can be better than their effect, and nothing seems more wonderful than that they should not have been used more frequently in later buildings. I was, perhaps, a little disappointed in not finding, as I had expected, the marble arranged generally in geometrical patterns ”

“ However, a female heart is often like marble; the cunning stone-cutter strikes a thousand blows, without the Parian block showing the line of a crack; but all at once it breaks asunder into the very form which the cunning stone-cutter has so long been hammering after. ”

“ In the plaster-cast, from this clay model, the beauty of the statue strangely disappears, to shine forth again with pure white radiance, in the precious marble of Carrara. Works in all these stages of advancement, and some with the final touch upon them, might be found in Kenyon’s studio.
Here might be witnessed the process of actually chiselling the marble, with which (as it is not quite satisfactory to think) a sculptor in these days has very little to do. ”

“ Can you suggest something that is likely to prove agreeable to his cast of mind?’
‘Article him to a marble manufacturer,’ replied Geometrus eagerly; ‘it is the grandest trade going. We want marbles and granites for every building, nowadays; we cannot obtain enough of them. There is plenty of scope for further invention, for instance, porphyry has not yet been successfully imitated but in appearance only, for it is too brittle for any purpose necessitating strength and durability. A new “Stone Age” is dawning, for not a brick will be used save in the cottage of the poorest. ”

“ Up to the highest quarries the road is steep, and strewn with broken marble, and after that there is an hour's scramble through bushes and over a rocky path. From these quarries was hewn the marble for the Temple of Theseus, the Parthenon, the Propylæ, the theaters, and other public buildings, to which age has now given a soft and creamy tone; the Pentelic marble must have been too brilliant for the eye, and its dazzling luster was, no doubt, softened by the judicious use of color. ”

“ These galleries are supported by the most precious columns which ancient art could afford: among them eight shafts of green marble, from the Temple of Diana, at Ephesus; eight of porphyry, from the Temple of the Sun, at Baalbek; besides Egyptian granite from the shrines of Isis and Osiris, and Pentelican marble from the sanctuary of Pallas Athena. Almost the whole of the interior has been covered with gilding, but time has softened its brilliancy, and the rich, subdued gleam of the walls is in perfect harmony with the varied coloring of the ancient marbles. ”

“ In the majority of marbles those lines or spots that give to any stone its peculiar attractiveness are in reality flaws, and hence their presence must add greatly to the cost of working. It is safe to say that the beautiful breccia marble from the French Pyrenees, which has been used for wall-panels in the cash-room of the Treasury Building at Washington, would not be worked to any extent from quarries in this country, so long as the imported article can be obtained at present rates. ”

“ If you build in marble you must either carve it into joyous decoration, like the lives of dancing children that adorn the marble castles of the Loire, or fill it with beautiful sculpture, frieze and pediment, as the Greeks did, or inlay it with other coloured marbles as they did in Venice. Otherwise you had better build in simple red brick as your Puritan fathers, with no pretence and with some beauty. Do not treat your marble as if it was ordinary stone and build a house of mere blocks of it. ”

“ Taxater, “that, I think, is an admirable symbol of what this place represents. Clay at the top and sandstone at the bottom! I wonder whether it is better, in this world, to be clay or stone? We four poor foreigners have, I suspect, a preference for a material very different from both of these. Our element would be marble. Eh, Andersen? Marble that can resist all these corrupting natural forces and throw them back, and hold them down. I always think that marble is the appropriate medium of civilization’s retort to instinct and savagery. The Latin races have always built in marble. ”

“ Of all the marbles employed in the works of the antients, and of which many specimens have descended to our days, that of Carrara is almost the only one which is at present held in estimation, or is now accessible to modern sculptors. This marble is of a very fine grain and compact texture; it is also susceptible of a high polish when required, and is consequently applicable to every species of sculpture, except when, as is too often the case, dark veins intrude and spoil the beauty of the work. ”

“ This is more intensely black than any of our modern marbles; it is extremely scarce, occurring only in sculptured pieces. The red antique marble, Egyptum of the ancients, and Rosso antico of the Italians, is a beautiful marble of a deep blood-red colour, interspersed with white veins and with very minute white dots, as if strewed over with grains of sand. ”

“ Yet who, even in the measures of Homer, shall sing the marble pastures gathered on the lofty walls and spreading pavement of the mighty church? These the iron with its metal tooth has gnawed—the fresh green from Carystus, and many-coloured marble from the Phrygian range, in which a rosy blush mingles with white, or it shines bright with flowers of deep red and silver. There is a wealth of porphyry too, powdered with bright stars, that has once laden the river boat on the broad Nile. ”

“ Each slab of white marble is wrought in rich tracery in the most delicate manner, pierced through and through so as to be the same when seen from either side; the pattern of each slab differs from the next one, and the rich variety, as well as beauty of the designs, fixes the attention of the beholder in amazement at the taste and patient skill that could originate and execute this vision of beauty, which seems like an imagination rising before the fancy, and then, by some wondrous wand of power, transmuted into a solid form forever, to be touched, and examined, and admired. ”

“ The purest marbles generally contain some accessory minerals, and in many of these rocks they form a considerable proportion of the whole mass. The commonest are quartz in small rounded grains, scales of colourless or pale yellow mica (muscovite and phlogopite) , dark shining flakes of graphite and small crystals of pyrites or iron oxides. Even fine Carrara marble leaves a residue of this sort when dissolved in acid. Many marbles contain other minerals which are usually silicates of lime or magnesia. ”