Page:A history of architecture on the comparative method for the student, craftsman, and amateur.djvu/160

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.

102 COMPARATIVE ARCHITECTURE. probably also framed into deep coffers, as were the marble lacunaria of the peristyles (No. 21 b, c, e). E. Columns. — As the temples were usually one story hij^h, the columns with their entablature comprise the entire height of the building, except in some interiors, as the Parthenon (Nos. 23, 25), the Temple of Neptune, Paestum (No. 28 b), and elsewhere, where a second range of columns was introduced into the cella to support the roof. The orders having been fully dealt with on pages 59, 77, S^, are merely summarized as follows : — The Doi'ic (No. ig) is the oldest and plainest of the orders, the finest examples being the Parthenon and the Theseion (page 67). The Ionic (No. 29) was more ornate, and is best seen at the Erechtheion (page 81), and the Temple on the Ilissus (page 79). The Corinthian was little used by the Greeks, the best known examples being the monument of Lysicrates at Athens (Nos. 32, 38 A), and the Temple of Jupiter Olympius (No. 43 a), upon which the Romans founded their own special type. Caryatides (No. 42 g) and Canephora (No. 42 f), or carved female figures which were sometimes used in the place of columns, as at the Erechtheion, Athens (No. 30), and are of Asiatic origm. F. Mouldings. — Refer to illustrations of Greek mouldings compared with Roman given on Nos. 39 and 40. Mouldings are the means by which an architect draws lines upon his building, and a true knowledge of the effect of contour is best obtained from actual work rather than from drawings, the examples at the British Museum being available for this purpose. The principal characteristic of Greek mouldings was refine- ment and delicacy of contour due to the influence of an almost continuous sunshine, a clear atmosphere, and the hard marble in which they were formed. These mouldings had their sections probably drawn by hand, but approach very closely to various conic sections, such as parabolas, hyperbolas, and ellipses. As a general rule the lines of the enrichment or carving on any Greek moulding correspond to the profile of that moulding. This is a rule which was rarely departed from, and therefore, is worthy of notice, for the profile of the moulding is thus emphasized by the expression in an enriched form of its own curvature. The examples given from full-size sections taken at the Par- thenon, the Erechtheion, and elsewhere, may be studied on No. 40. The following classified list gives the most important mould- ings :— («.) The cynia-vccia (Hogarth's "line of beauty"). When enriched it is carved with the honeysuckle ornament, whose outline corresponds with the section (No. 39 j).