92 History of Art in Antiquity. side, paiallel to the architrave and at right angles with the axis of the shaft Thece is no junction or intermediary moulding between the tapering- column and the rectangular member at the beginning of the capital, akin to the echinus of the Doric capital. " Hence it is that the support presents harsh con- trasts. which imperfectly satisfy the eye, and are very near offending it'" The architect doubtless perceived, at one time, that this was faulty; that if his capital harmonized with the architrave and could be extended indefinitely along with it, its mode of attach- ment with the shaft was bad; hence he looked about him how * best " to prepare contact of and approach to the forms."' Figs. 32-37 show the way he went to work in order to reach the end he had in view. " He first reduced the height of the shaft, and crowned it with a capital which he divided, in a vertical direction, into two equal parts, but dissimilar in form. The lower member is cylindrical in shape and rests on the shaft, its generating lines being connected with a reversed quarter round, upon which rests the upper member of the capital, which likewise starts as a circular form and terminates in a cavetto. The capital, destitute of amplitude, has but a feeble salience beyond the shaft." ^ The quarter round and the upper part of the cavetto are adorned by a row of oves and beads respec- tively. If, neglecting minor details, we only regard the shape as a whole, it does not seem unlikely that the first notion of it was sugi^^estcd by the crowning tuft of a palm. The lower members of the capital would represent the dead twigs as they droop and fall about the stem of the tree ; the upper members, whose forms look upwards, would stand for the young shoots, which, full of fresh life and vigour, dart forward past the sere foliage with a slight outward curve;* the vertical striie that scar the surface throughout would be reminiscent of the intervals or fillets which, in nature, separate the leaves of the terminal bunch. It is a j)oetical conceit, and likely enough, but if there was imitation it did not originate direct from nature, since the Oriental palm is not found in the uplands of I'^ars. though it grows in the lower valleys towards the seaboard, notably the Persian Gulf and all over ' Ch. Cuipiez, Hist, critiqut its ori^ines ei «k la /tnrmaHon des orirts gnts^ p. 99.
- fbid., p. 10 1. ' JbUL * Fuutom, RdaHoHt torn. ii. p. 156.
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