Acanthus Leaf
No. 235. Acanthus Leaf. Composed of groups of Anthemions. Brush-work.
Leaves of this type are known as Acanthus, and it is a tradition that the leaf in its original employment was derived from a natural source. The anthemion, too, is often mis-called the honeysuckle owing to the supposed resemblance; but it is much more probable that both were purely artistic creations developing as previously suggested from the painted anthemion details. Elaboration and relief expression were the natural outcome of material, and desire for surface interest. The honeysuckle origin is completely confuted by comparison of the Greek anthemion with the Assyrian treatment of the Palm, by which it was evidently inspired.
In Greek ornament such flowers as occur are mostly of the rosette type, quite conventional in character, though in the painted decoration such natural forms as the ivy and vine are evident; but these were always conventional in treatment and symbolic in interest.
No. 236. Acanthus Scroll. Brush-work.
The Greeks were not creative in art either in their architecture or ornament, and were evidently indebted to the earlier culture of Mesopotamia for many of their details. As they based the anthemion on the Assyrian treatment of the Palm, so they borrowed the Ionic capital from Persia and the Corinthian variety had its prototype in the Egyptian Papyrus capital. Even their architecture was no advance in principle on that which previously existed.
Their treatment, however, was extremely artistic, and they invested all their work with great refinement and delicacy of detail. At a later period under subjugation the Roman art development was practically in the hands of Greek designers and craftsmen, and acquired great freedom of expression marked by exquisite workmanship in the Græco-Roman period.