23 ~ ANCIENT GREEK CITY PRIENE TURKEY ~ Antique D'ESPOUY Architecture Art Print

Description: EXACT TITLE ON PRINT : PERIENE (TRANSLATION: PRIENE) ARTIST: P. Bonnet PRINT INFORMATION PRINT DATE: This lithograph was printed in 1910 from an original restoration work completed by the artist in 1911. PRINT DIMENSIONS: 12 inches by 17 inches PRINT CONDITION: excellent condition, specifically as shown in this detailed scan. PRINT TYPE: Heliogravure print (see description of process below). PAPER TYPE: Thick rag stock cardboard type paper. BACKGROUND INFORMATION AND HISTORY ABOUT THIS PRINT : Priene (mod. Samsun kale), was an ancient city of Ionia on the foot-hills of Mycale, about 6 m. N. of the Maeander (now Menderes) river. It was formerly on the sea coast, but now lies some miles inland. It is said to have been founded by lonians under Aegyptus, a son of Jeleus. Sacked by Ardys of Lydia, it revived and attained real prosperity under its "sage," Bias, in the middle of the 6th entury. Cyrus captured it in 545; but it was able to send twelve ships to join the Ionian revolt (500-494). Disputes vith Samos, and the troubles after Alexander's death, brought Priene down, and Rome had to save it from the kings of Pergamum and Cappadocia in 155. Orophernes, the rebellious brother of the Cappadocian king, who had deposited a treasure there and recovered it by Roman intervention, restored the temple of Athena as a thankoffering. Under Roman and Byzantine dominion Priene had a prosperous history. It passed into Moslem hands late in the 13 th century. The ruins, which lie in successive terraces, were the object of missions sent out by the English Society of Dilettanti in 1765 and 1868, and have seen thoroughly laid open by Dr Th. Wiegand (1895-1899) for the Berlin Museum. The city, as rebuilt in the 4th and 3rd centuries, was laid out on a rectangular scheme. It faced south, its acropolis rising nearly 700 ft. behind it. The whole area was enclosed by a wall 7 ft. thick with towers at intervals and three principal gates, of which one was in the west, and the two others in the east. The "East Gate" situated to the north - east of Theatre Street and which could be reached by a long, stone - paved ramp, was the main gate of Priene. Next to the south - east gate named the "Source Gate" there was a tower with an epigraph on it, the technique of which provides proof that the tower was built at the same time as the city. The West Gate opens onto the widest street of Priene. Water for the city was provided from the sources at Mycale. It was brought down by aqueducts to the reservois located to the north - east of the city, and from there was distributed to the whole city by baked earthen pipes. Through this distribution many fountains (Nymphaea) were built in Priene. Some of these were situated to the south of the Athena Temple, at the eastern end of the Sacred Stoa, and in the southeastern corner of the theatre. On the lower slopes of the acropolis was a shrine of Demeter. The town had six main streets, about 20 ft. wide, running east and west and fifteen streets about 10 ft. wide crossing at right angles, all being evenly spaced; and it was thus divided into about 80 insulae. Private houses were apportioned four to an insula. The systems of water-supply and drainage can easily be discerned. The houses present many analogies with the earliest Pompeian. In the western half of the city, on a high terrace north of the main street and approached by a fine stairway, was the temple of Athena Polias, a hexastyle peripterial tonic structure built by Pythias, the architect of the Mausoleum. Under the basis of the statue of Athena were found in 1870 silver tetradrachms of Orophernes, and some jewelry, probably deposited at the time of the Cappadocian restoration. Fronting the main street is a series of halls, and on the other side is the fine market place. The municipal buildings, Roman gymnasium, and well preserved theatre lie to the north, but, like all the other public structures, in the centre of the plan. Temples of Isis and Asclepius have been laid bare. At the lowest point on the south, within the walls, was the large stadium, connected with a gymnasium of Hellenistic times. See Society of Dilettanti, Ionian Antiquities (1821), vol. ii.; Th. Wiegand and H. Schrader, Priene (1904); on inscriptions see Hiller von Gartringen, Inschriften van Priene (Berlin, 1907), with collection of ancient references to the city. INFORMATION ON THE HISTORY OF THIS PRINT: Louis XIV, the King of France, was a generous patron of the arts. During his long reign (1643-1715), he sought to raise standards of taste and sophistication in the Arts and so a number of royal academies were founded, including the Academy of Painting and Sculpture (1648), the Academie de France in Rome (1663) and the foundation of the Academie royale d'Architecture (1671). This formalized a system for the training of French architects and by elevating artisans to academicians, the power of the medieval guilds was eroded and centered instead on the patronage of the king. Subsidized by the state, the Academy of Architecture was free to those, aged fifteen to thirty, who could pass the entrance examinations. By the nineteenth century, students were obliged to complete a number of increasingly demanding concours or competitions, the most prestigious of which was the Grand Prix de Rome, a rigorous annual examination (a first competition was in 1702, then 1720, then yearly) that provided the winner advanced study at the French Academy in Rome at the Villa Medici, where classical antiquities could be seen at first hand. Each year, for the four or five years they were in Rome, the students, supported financially with pensions, (hence their name of pensionnaires) were required to produce two sets of drawings, or envois, of Rome's ancient and medeival monuments: the état actuel, which was an exacting representation of the extant state, documenting the site with the precision of an archaeologist, and the état restauré, a more imaginary and often idealized restoration including the rendering of shade and shadow, which was accompanied by a written description of the monument's antiquity and construction. Often times, the views of the architects differed from those of the archaeologists in that the students wanted to use such buildings as inspiration for their own work, and hence reconstructed them omplete and coloured, often at the disagreement of the archaeologists. The drawings submitted for the annual Grand Prix de Rome were on themes chosen by the Academy. The subjects set are indeed grand in scale and often in reach: triumphal arches (1730, 1747, 1763), palaces (1752, 1772, 1791, 1804, 1806), city squares and markets (1733, 1792, 1801), town halls (1742, 1787, 1813), law courts (1782, 1821) museums (1779) and educational institutions including libraries (1775, 1786, 1789, 1800, 1807, 1811, 1814, 1815, 1820) - all schemes for the promotion of civilization as the ancients would have understood the term. Stylistically, the entries usually share common characteristics: a grand Roman manner, with columns and orders, vaults and polychromy; an insistent and regular geometry, usually the square or the circle but sometimes the triangle; a penchant for the hemicycle, the propylaea and the pyramid; and finally a desire to impress by symmetry and the contrast between plain and decorated surfaces. These ground plans (a drawing projected on a horizontal plane) and elevations (which was projected on a vertical plane) first were shown in Rome at the French Academy and then were forwarded to Paris to be shown to the members of the Academie des Beaux Arts, one of the constituent bodies of the Institut de France, which was responsible for the Rome Academy. They were also exhibited to the public in Paris. In the fourth year, after a thorough study of architectural detail, the student presented a complete restoration of a classical building. Although drawings of ancient classical ornament had been made for generations before the winners of the Grand Prix de Rome descended on the Villa Medici, the young Frenchmen were the first to go about the work systematically. The drawings were limited to, and solidly based on, the carefully studied remains. Further, their presentation in formal academic renderings offers more information than could possibly be supplied even by a large number of photographs. Appreciation of these drawings cannot be complete without some explanation of the technique of India Ink was rendering. Extreme discipline is required to produce these finely studied works of art. Even the simplest drawings require painstaking care and preparation before any of the washes are applied. Great skill is required to do the neccesary linework. All of the information must be recorded before tone is even thought about. The drawing is then meticulously transferred in ink to the watercolor paper and the paper mounted on a board. The rendering itself requires infinite care and patience. Each tone is built up through many faint layers of wash so that the ink seems to be in the paper rather than on it. Each surface is graded so that the final effect of the drawing is that of an object in light and space, with a sense of atmosphere surrounding it.

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Location: New Providence, New Jersey

End Time: 2025-01-27T18:45:48.000Z

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