Polychromy in Greek Revival Architecture

The revival’s development was greatly influenced by the discovery of painted Greek temples. When Cockerell, Otto Magnus von Stackelberg and Karl Haller von Halllerstein discovered painted fragments of masonry in impermanent colors, the notion of the Greek temple as timeless, fixed and pure was questioned.

In 1823, Samuel Angell uncovered the colored metopes of Temple C at Selinunte, Sicily. The French architect Jacques Ignace Hittorff, inspired by Angell’s findings, in turn excavated Temple B at Selinus. In 1824, his innovative recreations of the temple were exhibited in Rome and Paris. He later printed the replicas in the “Architecture polychrome chez les Grecs” in 1830, and the “Restitution du Temple d’Empedocle a Selinote” in 1851. Von Klenze’s Aegina room at the Munich Glyptothek was the first of his many Greek color reconstructions.

Hittorff stated the Greek temples were originally painted yellow, with the molding and sculptural details in red, blue, green and gold. Similarly, Henri Labrouste envisioned a restoration of the structures at Paestum in bright colors. These visions questioned the chronology of the three Doric temples, implying that the evolution of Greek architecture did not increase in formal complexity. Both discoveries caused a minor scandal. The findings that Greek art was subject to changing environmental and cultural forces were a direct assault on the architectural rationalism of the day.

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