In the year 1855 an artist sat on an eastern hillside hard at work. I like to imagine that from this same Olympian perch the gods were peering over his shoulders at the bustling city of Syracuse below. They must have gasped with incredulity at the scene, for one can almost hear old Zeus roaring, 'What Athens is this?". His concern is understandable, for the neo-Greece with its Parthenon, Propylaea Und Erectheum which he saw scattered ten-fold throughout the narrow valley is ascribable to conditions of which he could have no possible comprehension.
Some forty years earlier a new industrialism had begun to corrupt and demolish life of the staid "Federal" period. Rapidly developing industrial sources produced wealth, the chaoticism of a transitional period and a new generation with new thoughts and visions. In the shifting scene, this new blood had sought stability, a new way of life, a new peace and liberty, as the basic ideals of a democracy. The search regressed to the fifth century B.C., when on the Acropolis at Athens these ideals were substantially symbolized by structures climaxing such aesthetic attainments that they have never been surpassed. From this Parthenon-crowned height there emerged the Greek Revival - a reconstructed "Golden Age".
Other than the minds of the people being receptive to a revival, there was the more tangible factor of the Greek crusade in 1821, for freedom from the Turks. This struggle captured the imagination and sympathy of the protagonistic blood looking for a cause and in an unconsciously self-satisfying tribute to the Greek culture, a race of pseudo Greeks surged over their Roman Georgian forms to Doric temples, social stiffness, Homer's Iliad and other manifestations of a rampant Greek enthusiasm. With new wealth contemporary with the new mode, the people could well afford the expensive sentimental living required by the Greek Revival.
This tremendous new mode was not confined to Syracuse. It was a national expression, for the skeptic wandering down the main residential street of 1835 in almost any town or along the most inconsequential side road will at every crossroad be accused by a column, a pediment or an acanthus leaf, and these only outward symbols of an inner emotionalism. The cause of the spread may be easily traced to the waves of visionary eastern immigrants streaming through the recently opened Erie Canal and the mountain passes, headed west. "Wherever the warm rays of fashion could penetrate, up sprang an acanthus, and every covered wagon, along with the rifle and the plowshare, found room for the porticoes of the Parthenon and the Choragic Monument of Lysicrates".* These architectural bits were not in three dimensions to be sure, but they were in Visual images and more important, in books.
In 1762 Stuart and Revett, after extensive travels, published five huge volumes illustrating with line drawings and detailed descriptions the glories of Greece. These drawings were largely confined to architectural details, the most obvious remnants of a past civilization, and a medium through which the neo-Greeks of 1830 found the best release for their revival spirit. However, Asher Benjamin's "The Architect or Practical House Carpenter" with its many editions, and Minard Lafever's "Modern Builder's Guide" were largely responsible for Greek architecture being placed on a workable basis. By means of books like these the use of Greek forms was spread over the country filling it with the characteristic temple-shaped houses. These handbooks carry the beginner through high school geometry to exact specifications and dimensions of a stairway, door, or the flutes of a column. Being understandable to the most backward pioneer, they found wide acceptance among amateur architects and builders who desired to adopt the new mode, yet could not afford the services of the very few professionals then practicing. In the words of Benjamin's 1844 edition, "I have therefore been very particular in the descriptive part of the orders; which care, together with that I have taken in drawing aid representing the most difficult parts on a large scale, will, I am persuaded, make them so plain and easy, that a workman of ordinary capacity can make himself perfect master of the orders, without the aid of an instructor -----". But Lafever and Benjamin not only tried to clarify the orders, they enlarged the vocabulary of ancient forms, subtlety blending new designs with the old.
With forms and thought so thoroughly established and easily achieved, is it any wonder that the Greek Revival became a genuinely popular preference of laymen and amateurs? Is it any wonder that a new Athens greeted the eyes of Zeus and an unknown artist in the valley of the Onondagas?
Figure 2: Syracuse in 1855Note 1: "Story of Architecture in America" by Tallmadge