The centre-piece and most celebrated of the new projects was the temple to Athena the Virgin, known as the Parthenon. A deliberate attempt was made in the design of this building to achieve visual perfection, using a very sophisticated knowledge of optics. It seems to be constructed according to a plan based entirely upon straight lines, yet there is hardly a single straight line in it, although the tolerance for error is a fiftieth of an inch. Its perceived aesthetic perfection is a deliberately contrived optical illusion of a high level of sophistication only fully revealed during the mid-nineteenth century by the work of the British archaeologist Roger Penrose. It had been realised that our eyes play tricks upon us, and that in order to produce in observers the visual impression of a perfectly designed and constructed building, it would be necessary to take these distortions of perception into account by systematically compensating for them in the design.
The ancient architect realised that if the temple was constructed on a perfectly flat surface, our eyes, being deceived by the bright sunlight, would falsely perceive the floor to sag in the middle. He saw that if the columns were constructed perfectly perpendicular to the base platform on which they were erected, they would appear to lean slightly outwards. He also realised that if each of the columns were to be erected with exactly the same diameter from top to bottom, they would each appear to be narrower in the middle than they really were. Moreover, if all the columns were made with the same diameter, the outer columns would appear slightly thinner than the others due to the effect of the bright Attic sunlight; for the more well-lighted an object is, the less voluminous it appears.
The architects employed all their insight and skill to compensate for these and other distortions of visual perception in their design. Thus the surface of the platform on which the columns stand has been made slightly convex, so that it appears to be flat. The outer columns have been made to lean slightly inwards, so that if each were to be extended upwards they would meet in the centre about one thousand metres above the roof. This exactly eliminates the illusion that perfectly perpendicular columns would create, of leaning slightly outwards. The forty-six outer columns were deliberately made slightly thicker in their middle drums, where most of the light falls, so as to appear perfectly straight. The corner columns, being lighted from both sides, have been made slightly larger in diameter than the others.
These "special effects" are by no means limited to the major features of the construction. The frieze decorations were also systematically distorted to allow both for the effects of being seen from a distance and also for being viewed from the vantage point of observers below. Thus the figures on the frieze stoop slightly downwards. The lower parts of the decorations have a depth of three centimetres, while the upper have a depth of five and a half.
The ancient architects understood not merely those illusions which viewing a large building in a glaring light might generate, they knew how to compensate for them. But most surprising of all is the fact that they also knew exactly by how much to compensate for them.
One much-praised aspect of the appearance of the Parthenon, however, was not the result of ancient knowledge and skill. Travellers of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries praised its beautiful golden patina. This had developed over the centuries, and could not have been foreseen by the ancient builders. It was due to the oxidisation of tiny particles of iron in the marble. Much of the building would, in any case, originally have been painted in gaudy colours, the reliefs being picked out in bright blue, red and gold. Today, with the gradual replacement of the old marble, subjected to decay from traffic fumes, by bright white newly cut blocks, the famous patina has been lost.
Learn more about Ancient Greece, Athens and Greece in general.
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