529 



GRECIAN ARCHITECTURE. 



GRECIAN ARCHITECTURE. 



630 



of the column, which is divided into two modules or 'sixty minutes. 

 Modern systematisers, who have laid great stress upon proportions, 

 have, contrary to the practice of the Greeks themselves, attempted to 

 fix certain invariable proportions for each order ; and some have 

 maintained that by them, quite as much as by peculiarities of detail 

 and embellishment, the character of an order is determined. In regard 

 to proportions, however, even greater discrepancy is found between 

 different examples of the same order, than between two distinct orders. 

 We must therefore attend to certain indicial features and marks by 

 which the particular order may be immediately recognised ; thus the 

 absence of base or mouldings at the bottom of the column, the plain 

 capital composed of merely an echinus and abacus, and a triglyphed 

 frieze, enable us to pronounce at once that the order is the Doric. In 

 like manner the voluted capital, or the foliaged one, as distinctly 

 denotes that it is either Ionic or Corinthian. In regard to the two 

 last-mentioned, the principal distinction between them is confined to 

 the capital ; there being no other determinate difference between the 

 columns or the entablatures of the one or the other. Were we to 

 see only the shaft of the column, we should be able to decide from 



that alone whether it were Doric or not ; the flutings peculiar to that 

 order being broad and shallow, and forming sharp ridges or arrises on 

 the circumference of the shafts ; whereas in the other two they arc 

 narrower and deeper, rounded at their extremities, and divided from 

 each other by fillets or spaces left between the channels on the surface 

 of the shaft. In like manner were we to see the fragment of an 

 architrave, we could pronounce with tolerable certainty whether it 

 was Doric or not; although in the latter case not quite so clearly 

 whether it was Ionic or Corinthian. The Doric architrave consists of 

 a single plain face surmounted by a broad fillet, here termed the 

 t&nia, to which another fillet with small cylindrical gutta: or drops is 

 attached beneath each triglyph ; but the architraves of the other two 

 orders are divided into (generally) three faces or facias, slightly pro- 

 jecting one above the other, and crowned by curved mouldings, 

 sometimes plain, but more frequently enriched. By attending to these 

 few simple and obvious distinctions, no one can feel any difficulty in 

 ascertaining the particular order to which a building belongs. Illus- 

 trations are given of the details of the entablatures of the several 

 orders under COLUMN. 



Peristyle of the Parthenon. 



Doric Order. In attentively examining the Grecian Doric, we can 

 hardly fail to note what admirable taste and study of effect it exhibits 

 throughout, and how every part is made to conduce to the character of 

 the whole. The columns are of short proportions, the entablature 

 deep ; the former have no bases, which, owing to the narrowness of 

 the inter-columns, would have proved highly inconvenient, and 

 instead of producing an air of finish would rather have occasioned 

 heaviness. The proportions themselves are such as to reject any 

 aiMiti.m of that kind at the lower extremity of the column, because 

 the difference between the upper and lower diameter which, owing to 

 the shortness of the shaft, occasions so visible an inclination as to 

 produce the effect of tapering upwards causes it also to appear to 

 spread out below in such manner that the lower extremity becomes a 

 sufficiently wide basis. This inclination is further rendered more 

 apparent than it would be by the outline alone of the column, owing 

 to the lines being repeated in the fluting. The fluting, while it 

 diminishes the heaviness, produces great variety of light and shade in 

 every direction ; and the mode of fluting peculiar to this order is 

 admirably in unwon with the expression of all the rest, the channels 

 being wide and shallow, and separated from each other by mere ridges 

 on the surface ; both which circumstances contribute to that breadth 

 and simplicity which pervade the other parts. No less appropriate 

 and well imagined is the capital, which consists of little more than an 

 echinus and deep square abacus above it ; the former expanding itself 

 out from the neck, or upper part of the column, until its diameter 

 becomes equal to that of the foot of the column : in reality, it is 

 something greater, but not more so than is requisite to counteract the 

 apparent diminution caused by the greater distance from the eye. 

 Thus harmony is kept up between both extremities of the column, 

 vertjsality is restored, the projection above (as in the case of the 

 sloping wall and coved cornice of Egyptian structures) is made to 

 restore perpendicularity by adding just as much as had been taken 

 away by the diminution of the shaft upwards, and a play, variety, and 

 contrast are produced, unattainable by any other mode. 



The architrave is plain and deep, well proportioned both as to the 

 weight which it has to bear and to the column below, its average 

 height being equal to the upper diameter or narrowest part of the 

 column. The width of its iojjit, or under side, is about a medium 

 between the two extreme diameters, BO that it overhangs the upper 



ARTS AXD SCI. DIV. VOL. IV. 



part of the shaft ; yet it is not so broad as the abacus of the capital, 

 which by opposing a greater surface to it appears better calculated to 



The Parthenon. 



support its pressure. The frieze is generally of the same dimensions 

 as the architrave, very rarely deeper, in some examples not so deep. 

 The triglypht which decorate it, and are peculiar to the order itself, 

 are upright, slightly projecting tablets (in width rather more than half 

 the lower diameter), channelled with two grooves or glyphs (y\v<pal), 

 and with a half groove chamfering off each of its outer edges. The 

 spaces between these ornaments, which were originally intended to 

 represent the extremities of the beams (whether stone or timber) 

 resting upon the architrave and forming the inner roof or ceiling are 



M M 



