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GRECIAN ARCHITECTURE. 



GRECIAN ARCHITECTURE. 



* 



531 



unless the frieze be enriched with sculpture, so as along with th 

 cornice to produce a rich ornamental mass above the architrave, no 

 only is the cornice apt to appear meagre, but the whole entablature tx 

 look cold and naked, even plainer than that of the Doric order, and t< 

 offer anything but a pleasing contrast to the elegant richness of th< 

 capitals below it. 



What has already been said in regard to the pediment will suffice fo 

 this order likewise, there being no other difference than what is occa 

 sioned by the cornices themselves. But having thus far explained th 

 two chief Greek orders or styles of columns, in regard to columns an< 

 entablatures, we now proceed to notice what in certain situations are 

 employed as adequate to, or substitutes for, columns, namely, untie 

 or pilasters. In Italian architecture, pilasters are very frequently 

 employed in lieu of columns, or are placed against a wall to correspom 

 with a range of columns in front of it ; their bases and capitals, too 

 are made to correspond with those of the columns, as far aa th< 

 difference between a square and circular plan will allow. The Greeks 

 on the contrary, never employed ante, except at an angle or the ex 

 tremity of a wall ; and instead of aiming at perfect similarity, they 

 purposely gave to such pilasters, bases and ante-caps, dissimilar from 

 those f of the columns ; neither did they diminish them, but made 

 them of the same width above and below, which width was deter 

 mined by that of the soffit of the architrave, and was therefore some- 

 thing less than the lower diameter of the column, but greater than the 

 upper one, since both in the Doric and Ionic the architrave overhangs 

 the upper part of the column. Thus they kept the ante and columns 

 quite distinct in character, thereby producing variety and contrrusl 

 without injury to consistency. Sometimes the Doric anta has a 

 simple kind of moulding and groove at its foot, which seems requisite 

 to detach it from the wall, whereas the plain foot of the column 

 resting on the pavement or steps defines itaelf to the eye quite suffi- 

 ciently. The Doric anta-cap is very simple, and its abacus and other 

 moulding* much narrower than those of the column-capital. 



Although more ornate than those of the Doric, Ionic ante-caps 

 differ still more than the others do from the capitals of their respective 

 columns, inasmuch as they have nothing whatever answering to those 

 exceedingly characteristic features, the volutes ; nevertheless they are 

 so strongly marked by the same style as to render it impossible to 

 mistake them, or attribute them to any other order. Between the bases 

 of the ante and those of the columns there are very slight differences ; 

 the chief is that besides the upper torus being fluted like that to the 

 base of the column, the under one is also enriched, but by reeding 

 or convex mouldings. There is also an additional concave sweep 

 moulding placed beneath the torus. It is further to be observed, that 

 ante are never fluted, as is generally the case with Roman and Italian 

 pilasters whenever the columns are BO, and consequently a stronger 

 distinction is kept up between the ante and the columns. 



In the above sketch of this order we have merely pointed out in a 

 general manner the leading characteristics, without taking notice of 

 the very numerous varieties, since hardly any two examples are per- 

 fectly alike, and some are strikingly dissimilar from any other. One of 

 the most remarkable is that of the internal order of the Temple of 

 Apollo at Bassac, near Phigaleia, in Arcadia. The base, which is 

 altogether different from the Attic one, is of great diameter compared 

 with the shaft, which spreads down to it with a sudden sweep ; 

 hardly lew peculiar is the style of the fluting, the channels being very 

 broad and shallow, and the fillets very narrow, while the extremities of 

 the channel are hardly curved at all, so that it seems but the first 

 remove from Doric fluting. The capital is still more extraordinary, 

 inasmuch as there are four voluted faces; at least there would be, 

 if the columns were not attached to projecting piers. In order to 

 effect this the faces are made concave, so that the volutes turn out 

 towards the angles, and are placed at only half the usual distance from 

 each other, so as to reduce still more the width of each face, else, as 

 has already been remarked, the capital being square, it would be too 

 bulky for the column. In its detail this capital is so plain that it looks 

 very much like one of the earliest essays at a voluted capital ; nor is it 

 improbable that at first the design was to make such capitals perfectly 

 square like the Doric abacus, and to produce four uniform voluted faces. 

 Under COLCICH will be found a list of the principal Grecian Ionic 

 temples. One of the best modern specimens of Athenian Ionic is the 

 portico of St. Pancras' church, London, by Mr. Inwood, a well-finished 

 copy of one of the most florid specimens of the order, that of the 

 Erechtheium. On the lateral porches at the eastern end he has given an 

 application of caryatides supporting an entablature after the small 

 building called the Pandrosmm, attached to one angle of the Erech- 

 theium. Other modern examples of the Ionic order in the metropolis 

 are, the British Museum, the Post Office, the India House, which is 

 more Asiatic Ionic than Athenian ; and the portico of the College of 

 Surgeons, Lincoln'a-inn-fields. 



Corinthian Order. Though the small structure at Athens, called 

 the Choragic Monument of Lysicrates, furnishes one of the most ex- 

 quisitely designed examples of the Corinthian or foliaged-capital order 

 that have been preserved to us, it is almost a solitary extant instance 

 of the application of it by the Greeks ; since the capitals of the small 

 columns of the Tower of the Winds, have merely a single row of 

 acanthus leaves at bottom. It is true that some magnificent edifices 

 belonging to this order, such as the Temple of Jupiter Olympius 



at Athens, were erected in Greece ; but they belong to a later period, 

 after the order had been extensively employed by the Romans, who 

 must be regarded as having brought it to perfection as a distinct 

 style. That the order was derived in the first instance from Egypt 

 we have already seen ; eventually the Greeks added the Ionic volute, 

 and produced a composite order entirely their- own. In the Tower 

 of the Winds, at Athens, the height of the column is little more than 

 eight, in the Monument of Lysicrates it is nearly ten, diameters. 

 [COLUMN.] In the former example, as we have seeu, there are no volutes, 

 and the upper row of leaves are those of the water lily. But the Lysi- 

 crates and later capitals are composed of two rows of acanthus leaves 

 [ACANTHUS], those of the upper row springing up from between the 

 lower ones; and from the sides of the ceutre-leaf spring out other 

 leaves, whence emerge the helices or spirals, placed diagonally to 

 support the extremities of the abacus, besides lesser spirals which 

 meet, and sometimes intertwine each other above each middle leaf. 

 The abacus itself, which is peculiar to this order, may be described as 

 square in its general plan, but having its sides made somewhat con- 

 cave, so as to curve out towards the angles, yet not overhang the body 

 of the capital. The Corinthian entablature differs little from that of 

 the Ionic, except in the cornice being made richer and deeper, and the 

 number of its members being increased, in order to harmonise with 

 the deeper capital of the columns. One of the features peculiar to it is 

 the series of modillions or small brackets supporting the corona. We 

 have mentioned the two Athenian examples of this order. In the 

 metropolis most Corinthian capitals are Roman. But an imitation of the 

 Temple of Lysicrates occurs oddly placed on the church of St. Philip, 

 Regent Street, to serve as a belfry ; and a careful restoration of it may 

 be seen in the Crystal Palace, at Sydenham. 



For all that concerns the plans of Grecian temples, their peculiarities 

 of construction, and the terms employed to express their varieties, as 

 designated from the number and position of the columns, we rnflst 

 refer the reader to the articles TEMPLE, and PORTICO ; but it will be 

 more convenient here to explain some points in the arrangement of 

 columns, and other matters which are distinctive of Greek architecture. 



In regard to Intercolumniatim, or the distances at which columns 

 are placed from each other, and upon which so much of their effect 

 depends, it has already been mentioned that in the Doric order this is 

 regulated by the triglyphs, and that monotriglyphic intercolumniation 

 may be considered aa the extreme of pycnostyle (thickly set), as it will 

 sometimes occasion the columns to be less than a diameter and a half 

 apart, the limits assigned to pycnostyle. But this of course depends 

 upon the proportion which the metopes and triglyphs bear to the lower 

 diameter of the columns. That such very close arrangement should 

 be employed for the most solid of the orders, would almost appear an 

 incongruity ; yet it should be observed that in reality this arrangement 

 is not so close as it appears to be when expressed by the proportion 

 which the foot of the column bears to the intercolumn, because the 

 shafts taper so much that what would be an inter-column of less than 

 a diameter and a half below, would be two of the upper diameters, or 

 more, above. The second mode is termed mjityle, or two diameters 

 apart ; the third eiutylc, or two and a quarter ; the fourth diattyle, or 

 three diameters; and, lastly, araostyle, or four or more diameters. 

 But the precise spaces thus defined do not seem to have been adhered 

 M ; and the Greeks, who appear never to have worked according 

 M fixed rules, although precise rules have been since laid down 

 :rom then- works, seem to have allowed themselves any intermediate 

 interval from a diameter and a quarter to two diameters, which they 

 rarely exceeded, except when particular circumstances required it, and 

 when the columns themselves were so small, that had they not been 

 more than two diameters apart, the intercolumns would have been 

 nconveniently narrow. When the columns are pycnostyle or less than 

 ;wo diameters apart, they produce richness not only by their increased 

 number in a given space, but also owing to their being forcibly relieved 

 by the increased depth of shadow behind them. 



So far from employing pedestals to columns, which some have con- 

 sidered as forming as essential a part of an order as the entablature, 

 he Greeks placed their columns immediately on the floor, or upper- 

 most step ; the whole temple being generally raised on a low platform, 

 ;o which the ascent was usually by three deep steps, or gradini, serving 

 as a base to the edifice. The depth of the steps was not accommodated 

 <> the human stature, but regulated so as to accord with the dimensions 

 'f the column : it has, therefore, been conjectured, that either a sloping 

 ilatform of wood, or lesser steps of the game material, were employed 

 H the real ascent to the temple. The Greeks invariably placed their 

 olumns singly, never in pairs, as has frequently been done by modern 

 rchitects, and which, if not indefensible, ought never to be resorted 

 a, unless required by positive necessity. Of engaged columns, that 

 a, columns half or three-quarters of a circle in plan, and placed 

 against a wall as if built into it, there are so very few instances in 

 Grecian architecture, that they are to be considered merely as exceptions. 

 Jne such authority for the use of half-columns occurs in the west front 

 f the triple temple, or Erechtheium, at Athens [see plan under ERECH- 

 HEIUM], In the Italian or Palladian school, they prevail almost to the 

 xclusion of insulated columns. Yet not only is much of the effect of 

 lie columns themselves lost, but also that of light and shade. But if 

 ramething like the authority of the Greeks themselves can be pleaded 

 n support of engaged columns, it cannot be adduced as countenancing 



