3 ~ GREEK COLONY SELINUNTE SICILY PLAN MAP, 1910 D'ESPOUY Architecture Art Print

Description: EXACT TITLE ON PRINT : SELINONTE (COLONIE DORIENNE EN SICILE FIN DU VE S. AV. J-C.) (SELINONTE (DORIAN COLONY IN SICILY END OF THE VE S. AVE J C.)) ARTIST: Jean Hulot PRINT INFORMATION PRINT DATE: This lithograph was printed in 1910 from an original restoration work completed by the artist in 1904. 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 in our Glossary). PAPER TYPE: Thick rag stock cardboard type paper. PAYMENT INFORMATION : Visa & Mastercard through Paypal. Please email us if you have any questions. All returns accepted! BACKGROUND INFORMATION AND HISTORY ABOUT THE SUBJECT OF THIS PRINT :Selinus was an ancient city on the south coast of Sicily, 27 miles S.E. direct from Lilybaeum (the modern Marsala) and 7 miles S.E. of Castel Vetrano, which is 74 m. S.S.W. of Palermo by rail. It was founded, according to Thucydides, in 628 B.C. by colonists from Megara Hyblaea, and from the parent city of Megara. The name, which belonged both to the city and to the river on the West of it, was derived from the wild celery which grows there abundantly, and which appears on some of its coins. We hear of boundary disputes with Segesta as early as 580 B.C. Selinus soon grew in importance, and extended its borders from the Mazarus to the Halycus. Its wealth is shown by the fact that several of its temples belong to the first half of the 6th century B.C. Its government was at first oligarchical, but about 510 B.C. a short-lived despotism was maintained by Peithagoras and, after him, Euryleon (Herod. V. 43, 46). In 480 B.C. Selinus took the Carthaginian side. After this it seems to have enjoyed prosperity: Thucydides (vi. 20) speaks of its wealth and of the treasures in its temples, and the city had a treasury of its own at Olympia. A dispute between Selinus and Segesta (probably the revival of a similar quarrel about 454, when an Athenian force appears to have taken part 2) was one of the causes of the Athenian expedition of 415 B.C. At its close the former seemed to have the latter at its mercy, but an appeal to Carthage was responded to, and an overwhelming force (the Siceliot cities delaying too much in coming to the rescue) under Hannibal took and destroyed the city in 409 B.c.; the walls were razed to the ground; óooo inhabitants were killed, 5000 taken prisoners, and only 2600 escaped to Agrigentum (Acragas). In 408 Hermocrates, returning from exile, occupied Selinus and rebuilt the walls; and it is to him that the fine fort on the neck of the acropolis must be attributed. Hence he attacked Motya and Panormus and the rest of Punic Sicily. He fell, however, in 407 in an attempt to enter Syracuse, and, as a result of the treaty of 405 B.C., Selinus became absolutely subject to Carthage, and remained so until its destruction at the close of the first Punic War, when its inhabitants were transferred to Lilybaeum. It was never afterwards rebuilt, and Strabo (vi. p. 272) mentions it as one of the extinct cities of Sicily. The ancient city occupied a sand-hill running North and South; the South portion, overlooking the sea, which was the acropolis, is surrounded by fine walls of masonry of rectangular blocks of stone, which show traces of the reconstruction of 408 B.C. It is traversed by two main streets, running N. and S. and E. and W., from which others diverged at right angles. There are, however, some traces of earlier buildings at a different orientation. Only the S.E. portion of the acropolis, which contains several temples, has been excavated: in the rest private houses seem to predominate. The deities to whom the temples were dedicated not being certainly known, they are as a rule indicated by letters. In all the large temples the celia is divided into two parts, the smaller and inner of which (the adytum) was intended for the cult image. The opisthodomus is sometimes omitted. All of them lie in a state of ruin, and, from the disposition of the drums of the columns, it is impossible to suppose that their fall was due to any other cause than an earthquake. Temple C is the earliest of those on the acropolis. It had six columns at each end (a double row in the front) and seventeen on each long, side. From it came the three archaic metopes now in the museum at Palermo, which are of great importance in the history of the development of art, showing Greek sculpture in its infancy. Portions of the coloured terra-cotta slabs which decorated the cornice and other architectural members have also been discovered. Next to it on the North lies temple D, both having been included in one temenos, with other buildings of less importance. At the N. end of the acropolis are extensive remains of the fortifications of Hermocrates across the narrow neck connecting it with the rest of the hill. In front of the wall lies a deep trench, into which several passages descend, as at the nearly contemporary fort of Euryelus above Syracuse (qov.). Outside this again lies a projecting semicircular bastion, which commands the entrance from the exterior of the city on the E., a winding trench approached by a pair of double gateways, which are not vaulted but covered by the gradual projection of the upper courses. Capitals and triglyphs from earlier buildings have been used in the construction of these fortifications: from their small size they may be mostly attributed to private houses. A way across the curving trench leads to an open space, where the Agora may have been situated: beyond it lay the town, the remains of which are scanty, though the line of the walls can be traced. Outside the ancient city, on the W. of the river Selinus, lie the ruins of a temple of Demeter, with a propylon leading to the sacred enclosure: the temple itself has a celia with a narrow door and without columns. A large number of votive terra-cotta figures, vases and lamps were found in the course of the excavations. The earliest temple must have been erected soon after the foundation of the city, while the later building which superseded it dates from shortly after 600 B.c. The propylon, on the other band, may date from after 409 B.C. On the hill E. of Selinus, separated from it by a small flat valley, lies a group of three huge temples. No other remains have been found round them, though it seems improbable that they stood quite alone and unprotected. It is likely that they were outside the town, but stood in a sacred enclosure. All of them have fallen, undoubtedly owing to an earthquake. The oldest of the three is F. A peculiarity of the construction of this temple is that all the intercolumniations were closed by stone screens. In it were found the lower parts of two metopes. Next in date comes the huge temple G, which, as an inscription proves, was dedicated to Apollo; though it was never entirely completed (many of the columns still remain unfluted), it was in use. The columns vary somewhat in diameter (more than even the difference caused by fluting would warrant) and three different types of capital are noticeable. The plan is a curious one: despite the comparative narrowness of the celia, it had two rows of ten columns in it, in line with the front angles of the inner shrine. The third temple, E, has been proved by the discovery of an inscription to have been dedicated to Hera. It is famous for its fine metopes now in the museum at Palermo, belonging to the beginning of the 5th century B.C. 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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End Time: 2025-02-08T15:58:06.000Z

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