The Greek World [antikvár]

THE GREEK WORLDNo architecture has been able to explore the problems of being and action quite so forcefully or with such permanent particularity. The Greek was prepared to use his intellect both freely and with reverence upon the traditions of awe, joy and terror which he had inherited from the pre-rational ages. Expecting, most often, no immortal reward for proper action, he has moved to test the poignancy of human desires against the hard reality of nature's demands, saw both in strong, clear shapes and took nothing from the force of either. Believing himself to be unique, but at his best neither arrogant nor despairing in the circle of the world, he was able not only to conceive of the fundamental oneness, but to face the apparent separateness, of things. So the world he built, strictly selective though its elements were, was the world entire. In this he was aided by the special landscape which was his home, where movement always found its focus and variety its balance Vincent Scully, The Earth, the Temple and the Gods