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Articulation and the Origins of Proportion in Archaic and Classical Greece

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Articulation and the Origins of Proportion in Archaic and Classical Greece Articulation and the origins of proportion in archaic and classical Greece Lian Chang School of Architecture McGill University, Montreal, Canada August 2009 A thesis submitted to McGill University in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy © Lian Chang 2009 Abstract This dissertation searches for the origins of western ideas of proportion in the archaic and classical Greek conceptual terrain of articulation. We think of articulation, in the first instance, as having to do with the joining of parts to fabricate an object, such as in the physical connection of pieces of wood, cloth, metal, or stone. However, the early Greek language that described these craft processes also, and inextricably, spoke in a number of ways about what it meant for a person, thing, or the world to be beautiful, healthy, and just. Taking Homer as its primary source, Part One therefore explores archaic ideas of bodily experience (Chapter One); of crafts (Chapter Two); and of the interrelations between the two (Chapter Three). These chapters lay emphasis on how the language and concepts of articulation constructed a worldview particular to early Greece. Part Two then examines early ideas of proportion, in social and political life as depicted by Homer (Chapter Four); in classical ideas about the medicalized human body and the civic body of the polis (Chapter Five); and in the cosmogonic theories of Empedocles and Plato (Chapter Six). In so doing, I aim to demonstrate how ideas of articulation allowed for and expanded into those of proportion, binding together the ordering of bodies, of the kosmos, and of crafts, including architecture. Cette dissertation cherche l’origine des idées occidentales de proportion à partir du concept de l’articulation dans la Grèce archaïque et classique. De nos jours, l’articulation est perçue comme étant le jointoiement de pièces pour fabriquer un objet, telle la connexion physique entre des pièces de bois, tissu, métal, ou pierre. Toutefois, dans le grec archaïque, les mots utilisés pour décrire ces procédés d’assemblage parlaient aussi, et inextricablement, de la signification pour une personne, une chose, ou le monde, d’être beau, sain et juste. La première section de la dissertation explore, à partir de l’œuvre d’Homère, les idées archaïques d’expérience corporelle (chapitre un); de métiers d’art (chapitre deux); puis de leurs interrelations (chapitre trois). Ces chapitres mettent l’emphase sur la manière dont le langage et les concepts d’articulation construisirent une perception du monde particulière à la Grèce antique. Ensuite, la deuxième section examine les idées antiques de proportion, dans la vie sociale et politique telle que dépeinte dans Homère (chapitre quatre); dans les idées classiques du corps humain médicalisé et le corps humain civique de la polis (chapitre cinq); puis dans les théories cosmogoniques d’Empédocle et de Platon (chapitre six). Ainsi, cette dissertation vise à démontrer comment les idées d’articulations permirent d’une part et évoluèrent d’autre part en celles de proportions, fusionnant l’ordre du corps, du cosmos, et des métiers d'art, incluant l'architecture. Acknowledgments I owe thanks, first, to my parents, who have shown me unconditional love and support, and to my dearest friends, Sunita Chowdhury and Colin McLellan. Thanks also to my sister, Anthea, and my cousins, uncles, aunts, and grandparents, who have shared so much; and to my professors and friends at the University of Alberta and Old Scona Academic in Edmonton, for setting the bar. My colleagues in McGill’s History and Theory of Architecture program have been a constant source of wisdom and amusement, and frequent partners in crime; I most often collaborated and commiserated with Lawrence Bird, Jennifer Carter, Diana Cheng, Jason Crow, Abe Gomel, Kalandar Kamalkhan, Maria-Elisa Navarro, Peter Olshavsky, Suresh Perera, and Lori Riva, but my thanks are due to all. I am also grateful for the friendship of Nima Najand and Fauzia Virani, as well as of my colleagues from the professional program and everyone from tennis—too numerous to name here, but no less loved. Over the past five years, Stephen Parcell shared his knowledge in teaching and editing, as his irrepressible humor, setting an impossibly high standard in all three. Michael Jemtrud led me to better understand the value both of teamwork and of my own abilities. Among the many faculty members at the McGill School of Architecture who have shared their experience and advice, I should also thank, in particular, Annmarie Adams, Torben Berns, Martin Bressani, David Covo, Howard Davies, and David Theodore. The school, which has been my home for the past seven years, is lovingly held together by Carrie Henzie, Marcia King, Larissa Kowbuz, Mary Lanni-Campoli, and David Speller—as well as by Luciana Adoyo and David Krawitz, whom I would like to especially thank for their humor and friendship. I was introduced to the magic of Greece on a summer trip led by Ricardo Castro, who also shared his wisdom on my advisory committee. Faith Wallis provided an immeasurably rich introduction to the study of ancient medicine and generously served as the committee’s external member. Margaret Palczynski kindly took in a late-starting student of ancient Greek. I have also received feedback from professors and others from other institutions, who have been generous towards a student with many unformulated ideas. David Leatherbarrow’s thoughtful guidance and Roger Conover’s pointed questions have steered my research at a number of crucial stages, as have suggestions from Louis Brillant, Gregory Caicco, Marco Frascari, and Louise Pelletier. Brooke Holmes gave me advice early in the process, Shigehisa Kuriyama read a draft of Chapter One and generously shared his ideas, and many others, too numerous to name, responded to my queries with encouragement and advice. Natacha Boucher and Marc-André Plasse kindly translated my abstract into French. Ian Drummond loaned me his patience and deep knowledge of ancient Greek to help with corrections, saving me from many errors and frequently improving my argument; his contributions are not acknowledged in the text itself simply because they are so numerous. Of course, all remaining errors are my own. The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, the province of Alberta, the Canadian Centre for Architecture, and McGill University provided the financial support that made this project possible. This list of acknowledgments would not be complete without mention of Alberto Pérez-Gómez, my professor, mentor, and friend, whose work over the years has meant so much to so many students, including me. His wisdom, guidance, and trust have made this dissertation possible from beginning to end, and for that reason I dedicate it to him. Contents INTRODUCTION 1 PART ONE ARTICULATION 1 BEING 19 Death By Disarticulation Articulating Life Sinews and Self Fluid Articulations 2 CRAFTING 7 Achillesʼ Armor Articulate Objects Fitting Things A House like Armor 3 CRAFTING BEING 111 Joined for Battle The Look of Cunning Crafted Life Reintegration PART TWO PROPORTION . 4 PORTIONING 157 Shares and Prizes Those who Fight in Front Equal Feasting Portioning Meat 5 BODIES 201 Order Good Mixture Unequal Feasting Marching in Step 6 PROPORTIONING BODIES 257 Articulating Mortality One, Two, Three Means as Joints CONCLUSION 321 BIBLIOGRAPHY 335 Introduction Therefore, since nature has composed the human body so that its members are duly proportioned to the frame as a whole, it appears that the ancients had good reason for their rule, that in perfect buildings the many members must be exactly commensurable to the whole general scheme.1 This statement, from Vitruvius’ introduction to the design of temples in his Ten Books on Architecture, seems timeless and self-evident: the proportions of the human body are written into its very nature, and from this universal source of beauty and order we find inspiration and guiding principles for what we in turn construct. Although Vitruvius lived over two thousand years ago in Rome, and the Greek temples he described originated five hundred years earlier and a thousand kilometers away in the areas surrounding the Aegean sea, his words—like the temples themselves, whose rows of austere white marble columns lend many of our own courthouses, museums, and homes not only their forms but their sense of order and stability—seem familiar. This familiarity even extends to Vitruvius’ Latin: in the above quote, our “nature” is his natura, “proportion” is proportio, and “commensurable” (or, more literally, as a noun, “commensurability”) is commensus. And indeed, in the widest sense, what the ancients sought in their world is not so 1 Ergo si ita natura composuit corpus hominis, uti proportionibus membra ad summam figurationem eius respondeant, cum causa constituisse videntur antiqui, ut etiam in operum perfectionibus singulorum membrorum ad universam figurae speciem habeant commensus exactionem. Vitruvius On Architecture 3.1.4. Trans. Morris Hicky Morgan, modified at composuit from “designed,” and at commensus exactionem from “in exact symmetrical relations.” Articulation and the origins of proportion 2 different from what we find today. The expression of order was rooted in bodily experience, in the way that the world and our own selves make themselves present to us. Nothing could be more human, or more universal. But this familiarity is also deceiving. The ways in which architecture, in its Greek origins, was and is understood and encountered in relation to the larger world and to understandings of the body—and even this formulation of “the body” in the singular, in the face of human experiences that are undeniably both partial and plural—are neither inevitable nor self-evident. Nor are they particularly well understood. Our ideas about our bodies, which literally and metaphorically construct our point of view on everything else in any given time and place—and about our architecture, which frames everything that we place within our sights as human, as within the domain of culture—are so basic to our experience that shifts in this frame of reference, like the rotation of the earth, are difficult to perceive.
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