How to Study Architecture by Charles H. Caffin (free reads .txt) 📕

As in the Doric order, the Ionic temple rested on a stylobate of three steps, but the column is also provided with a base. The latter was usually composed of two tori, of semi-circular profile, separated by a concave moulding or scotia. Sometimes, as in the Erechtheion at Athens, the base stood upon a square, flat base-block, or plinth. Frequently the tori were embellished with horizontal flutings or the interlacing wave-lines, called guilloche.

The Ionic shaft was proportionately higher than the Doric, being from 8 to 10 diameters in height as compared with the 4⅓ to 7 of the Doric. Consequently, the entasis was less. The intercolumniation was sometimes as much as two diameters. The shaft was incised with twenty-four narrow flutings, separated by flat-edged fillets.

The capital usually commenced with a narrow convex moulding, called the astragal, which was often enriched with the alternate bead and spool ornament. Above this was the echinus, decorated with the egg-and-dart pattern. But the echinus is only partly visible, since it is encroached upon by the main feature of the capital, a fillet that passes across the face and at the sides winds inward upon itself, forming a volute, which projects beyond the echinus. Above this was a low abacus, enriched with ornament, on which set the architrave.

In some instances, as in the Erechtheion, the fillet forms a looping curve, the volute is enriched with intermediate fillets and the necking is decorated with the anthemion ornament.

The Ionic capital presented awkward features which the ingenuity of the architects never quite succeeded in disguising. In the first place the abacus projected beyond the face of the architrave which from the side view offered an unsightly appearance. Secondly arose the problem of treating the volutes of the corner columns, so that the effect might be symmetrical on both sides of the building. This was solved by converting the side end of the capital into another face, the adjacent volutes at the corner being brought out at an angle of forty-five degrees. This results in an awkward arrangement at the back where two half-volutes intersect each other at right angles.

The Ionic architrave consists of two or more fasciæ, or vertical faces, projecting one over the other. This recalls the original wooden construction and suggests that the Ionians used planks, while the Dorians used a single beam. It was crowned with small mouldings, frequently enriched with ornament.

Above this was the frieze, sometimes left plain, at other times enriched with sculptured reliefs. It was joined by a moulding to the cornice.

The latter, in the simpler form adopted by the Athenians, consisted of a plain corona, a fillet of bead-and-spool ornament, a row of egg-and-dart moulding, and the cymatium or gutter, which was often embellished with lion heads.

In Asiatic-Ionic examples, however, the cornice was more elaborate: a row of narrow blocks or dentils, crowned with a carved fillet, being inserted beneath the corona, while, further, the cymatium was embellished with a repeat of the anthemion decoration. This style is distinguished by the term Ornamented Ionic.

The origin of the dentil may probably be traced to the Lycian Tombs, where they are represented by the ends of the beams of the roof or gable. The volute appears as a decorative feature on the façade of the so-called Tomb of Midas in Phrygia. It also occurs as a decorative feature in Assyrian art and is found in the capitals of the small columns of a pavilion represented in the reliefs at Khorsabad. The motive of the spiral is also found in Mycenæan jewelry. Professor William H. Goodyear in his “Grammar of the Lotus,” suggests that the volute may have originated in successive variations of the Egyptian lotus patterns.

The Doric and Ionic orders were sometimes combined in the same building, as in the Propylæa.

Corinthian Order.—The Corinthian order represents a still further advance in ornateness, which however by the Hellenic architects was confined to the capital of the column. For the base and shaft of the columns and the entablature followed the Ionic order. The embellishment of the capital may have been derived from the old custom of attaching metal ornaments or actual foliage to altars and pedestals; and it may be possible to trace the growth of the Corinthian style from the Ionic in the repeat of palmettes that occurs below the volutes in the capitals of the east portico of the Erechtheion. On the other hand, the general bell-form of the capital may have been derived from Egyptian lotus capitals.

The Corinthian order was used by the Athenians only in their smaller structures[2] and reached its most refined form in the Choragic Monument of Lysicrates in Athens. Here the flutings of the shaft terminate at the top in leaves that curve outward. Above them is a band that may have been covered with a bronze collar, from which spring a row of small lotus leaves. Then come eight beautiful acanthus leaves, between each of which is an eight-petalled rosette, suggesting a lotus-flower. They are surmounted at the corners by stalks of the acanthus, partly sheathed with leaves, that turn over with a spiral and form scrolls to support the abacus. The latter in the Corinthian order has concave sides.

The details vary so much in Hellenic examples of Corinthian capitals that, as we have already noted, the type had not yet been developed into an independent order. Its final development was worked out by the Romans, to whom its magnificence especially appealed.

Ornament.—The acanthus plant belongs to Southern Europe and the warmer parts of Asia and Africa. The common species found throughout the Mediterranean, has large, deeply cut, hairy leaves. As a decorative motive the Greeks first reproduced it in metal and then carved it in stone, using it with particularly fine effect on the upright form of tombstone known as stela. While they conventionalised the leaves, they preserved the character of vigorous and at the same time graceful growth. They gave a sharpness to the tips of the leaves that distinguishes their use of it from the Roman.

The anthemion ornament is often called the “honeysuckle pattern” from its resemblance to that flower. But it is supposed to be a conventionalisation of the flower of the acanthus, while related as a decorative motive with the forms of the Egyptian lotus and the Persian palmette.

The egg-and-dart border presents a repeat in which the form of an egg, set in a concave oval, alternates with a vertical bar that may or may not terminate below in a more or less pronounced arrow-tip. It permits the most subtle treatment of the planes of the egg, and of the contrast between the smooth surfaces and the sharpness of the other details.

The bead-and-spool repeat explains itself. It shows a variation, according as the conventionalisation was derived from a spool that is wound or that is unwound.

The heart-leaf, also sometimes called the lily-leaf, is a remarkable instance of the closeness with which the Greek artist studied nature and of the imagination he displayed in simplifying the natural form into a convention, while at the same time preserving the principles of its construction.

Projections.—Unlike Egyptian architecture, the Hellenic is distinguished by the number and importance of its projections; which may be compared to the lines, angles, and curves which constitute the features of a human face and give it expression. They are the means by which the architect engraves upon his buildings expressive designs of light and shade. We have already spoken of the projections involved in the column and entablature, but may now specifically enumerate the various types of moulding that these involve; noting at the same time the particular ornament that was employed on each, if it were decorated. For such was the logic and refinement of the Hellenic taste that it adopted motives of ornament that corresponded to the planes of the surfaces of the moulding.

Thus, when the moulding took the form of the cyma recta—a curve outward growing into a curve inward—Hogarth’s “line of beauty”—the decorative feature applied to it was the anthemion, whose curves have a corresponding direction. On the other hand, for the reversed form of moulding, known as the cyma reversa where the inward precedes the outward curve, they used the heart-leaf. Again, the moulding known as ovolo, in which the contour of an egg is followed, is enriched with the egg-and-dart.

The fillet, a small band used to separate the other mouldings, was usually left plain; as also were the simple hollow, called cavetto, and the deep hollow which separated the two tori in the base of columns. When the torus was embellished, the motives used on the semicircular surface were the interweave or plait, known as guilloche, or rows of leaves, tied with bands, so that the moulding resembled a wreath. Another small, separating moulding was the bead, which in contour approaches a circle, and, when decorated, received the bead-and-spool enrichment.

The distinction of the Hellenic use of all these mouldings and enrichments was the extreme delicacy of the cutting, which the hardness of the marble permitted and the clear sunshine helped to reveal; so that it has been said that “while the Hellenes built like Titans, they finished like jewellers.” But this did not involve a finicking precision, for it was but an instance of the feeling for proportion and choice relation of parts to one another that embraced the whole building.

Organic Relations.—The height of the building was thoughtfully proportioned to the length and width; the height of the shaft of the column was considered in relation to the diameter. Similar care was expended on the proportions of the several members of the capitals and entablature, and the intercolumniation bore relation to the lower diameter of the shafts. In every particular, great or little, the effort was to create a unified impression of organic harmony and rhythmical relations.

Now the term organic is primarily used of the living bodies of animals and plants, the parts of which are not only connected but perform certain functions in relation to the well-being of the whole. And it is an extension of this idea that the Hellenes applied to the geometrical harmony on which their architecture was based. They considered the functions of each part—the amount of support it gave or strain it had to sustain and so forth; and having made provision for this as constructors, they were consistent to the principle also in their æsthetic consideration as artists. They modified the sculptural decoration according to the function of the parts; giving least to those whose function of support was most important and increasing the quantity and the boldness of the curving as the structural strain diminished.

Thus the shaft of the column was free of any carving except the fluting, which, however, served the purpose of channels to carry the rain water and helped to preserve the mass from decay. The capital in the Doric style was not enriched with ornament, and similarly plain, with very few exceptions, was the architrave. Meanwhile, sculptured figures in high relief were introduced into the metopes which originally had been openings, while the tympanum or flat surface of the pediment received groups of figures in the round. This increased boldness of relief, accompanied by foreshortening of the figures, was adopted to offset the diminishing effect that their greater distance from the spectator’s eye would otherwise have suggested. Moreover, in the sculptures, as in the carving of the mouldings, the varying quantities of light were considered. The mouldings on the outside of a temple in full sunlight were differently planned from those in the interior; and the shadow cast by the cornices was taken into account in graduating the relief of the sculptures in the metopes and pediments.

Nor was the actual