POLYCHROMY, a modern term (from the Greek swath and xpiaaa) used to express the ancient practice of colouring statues and the exteriors of buildings.
Among the earliest civilised nations it was a universal onstom to decorate not only their temples and palaces with colours, but the statues with which they were adorned. The Egyptians appear to have covered almost every part of their buildings, and the sculpture on the wally, with brilliant colours and gilding. [Eclat-Tr/or ARCHITECTURE.] Upon the relic, of Assyrian architecture, and the carved slabs, which have been discovered in such largenumbers at Kouyunjik, at Nimroud, and especially those of Khorsabad, traces of colour and gilding were in many instances distinctly visible when first found ; and we have evidence in the Scriptures (Ezek. xxiii. 14 ; Jeremiah sail. 14 ; Zephaniah ii. 14, Sc.), that the walls and ceilings were adorned with figures portrayed in vermilion and other bright colours. [Nrarveri, ARCHITECTURE OP.] So again, the Babylonians, the successors of the ancient Assyrians, whilst imitating the sculpture and architecture of their predecessors, were equally profuse in the application of poly chromatic decoration. [PERSIAN ARCHITECTURE.] It is, however, the polyehromy of the ancient Creeks that has most engaged the attention of artists and arclurologists. The sources of information respecting It are the remains of Greek art, and the writings of classic authors. There is scarcely any distinct notice of the system or practice of colouring Architecture in any of the ancient writers. A few remarks occur in Vitruvius and Pausanias, which may be construed into an allusion to it, but they are vague, and the systems which have been laid down by several modern writers rest chiefly upon conjecture. It is more than probable, where the architectural :members were subject to so great a variety of forms and proportions, that the decorations in colour, which admit of endless variety, were quite arbitrary. Remains of colour have been found by travellers upon ornamental work in most of the architectural ruins of Greece. Many traces were discovered by Dodwell, Stuart, Chandler, Brondsted, Semper, and others, upon the principal Athenian monuments: upon the temple of Theseus, the Parthenon, the Propylrea, the Erechtheium, the temple on the Ilissus, the monument of Lysicrates, the outer propylaea of the temple of Ceres at Eleusis, and the greater temple at Rites:inns ; also upon the temple of Apollo at Basso in Arcadia, the Doric ruins at Corinth, the temple of Athene in allgiria, and by Newton upon the remains of the great mausoleum at Halicarnassus ; upon Cho temples of Sellnns in Sicily, and upon the basilica at Prestum.
As to the extent to which the colouring of the exterior of build ings was carried by the Greeks there I. considerable difference of opinion. Some excellent authorities, both English and continental, hold that their buildings were entirely covered with colour ; while the majority believe that the balance of evidence indicates that In marble buildings the colouring was (seamed to the capitals of columns, the mouldings and other ornaments, the friezes, the metopes, and the tympana of the pediments. The exterior of the wall of the cella of
the temple of ,Egina, and the columns of the Doric temple at Corinth (which, however, were not of marble), they admit were covered with a stucco and coloured red. There is, however, direct evidence that the Greeks carried their colouring much farther, even in marble building. Several travellers have found oolour on portions of the Theseum which are not merely ornamental. In like manner it appears from the analysis by Mr. Faraday of stucco brought by Mr. Donaldson from Athens, that "the surface of the shafts of the columns of the Theseum and other parts of the edifices from which these coatings were taken were covered with a coloured coating." (Report of Com mittee of the Royal Institute of British Arehitecta, appointed in 1830 to Investigate the evidence bearing on the employment by the Greeks of Colour in Architecture and Sculpture, published in the "I•rana actions ' of the Institute, vol. 1., 1842.) Wax seems to have been present in most, if not all, of the speciniens analysed by Mr. Faraday. Mr. Bracebridge, as is stated in the same lteport, found in the northern portico of the Erechtheium, which is sheltered from the sea-breeze, clear remains of "colour of various shades" in the upper part of the fluted columns as well as In the capitals. Also in excavating, in 1835-36, at the south-east angle of the Parthenon, according to the same authority, the workmen came, at a depth of 25 feet, upon a place where, as he conjectures, the workmen of the Parthenon threw their refuse materials, and there "were found many pieces of marble, and among these fragments of triglyphs, of fluted columns, and of statues, particularly a female head. These three last-mentioned fragments were painted with the brightest red, blue, and yellow, or rather ver milion, ultra-marine, and straw-colour, which last may have faded in the earth." Mr. Penrose found traces of colour of a peculiar yellow tinge upon some parts of the columns of the Parthenon, especially en those of the west front, but he thinks it was originally most likely only a delicate tint to reduce the high light of the marble. Professor Semper and others have also found traces of colour on the constructive as well as the decorative features of Grecian monuments. The latest testimony is that of Mr. Newton, who found in excavating the ruins of the mausoleum of Halicarnassus "an immeuse number of pieces of painted stucco from the sides of walla," with, among other things, painted borders of the well-known Greek ante-fixal flowers, in several colours ; the colours, from the nature of the soil, being preserved in unusual freshness. (' Parliamentary Papers respecting excavations at Budrum,' 1858, p. 4, and Mr. Newton's Letter in Falkener's Thedalus,' 1800.) In later times amongst the Romans, in the times of Vitruvius and Pliny, the practice seems to have degenerated into a mere taste for gaudy colours, and to have been very general, as we see in the ruins of Pompeii, where, however, occasionally the arabesque decorations upon the walls of the courts in the larger houses are very elegant.