A History of Architecture in all Countries, Volume 1, 3rd ed. / From the Earliest Times to the Present Day

by James Fergusson

Ionic Order.

The Ionic order, as we now find it, is not without some decided advantages over the Doric. It is more complete in itself and less dependent on sculpture. Its frieze was too small for much display of human life and action, and was probably usually ornamented with lines of animals,[^[141]] like the friezes at Persepolis. But the frieze of the little temple of Nikè Apteros is brilliantly ornamented in the same style as those of the Doric order. It also happened that those details and ornaments which were only painted in the Doric, were carved in the Ionic order, and remain therefore visible to the present day, which gives to this order a completeness in our eyes which the other cannot boast of. Add to this a certain degree of Asiatic elegance and grace, and the whole when put together makes up a singularly pleasing architectural object. But notwithstanding these advantages, the Doric order will probably always be admitted to be superior, as belonging to a higher class of art, and because all its forms and details are better and more adapted to their purpose than those of the Ionic.

140. Ionic order of Erechtheium at Athens.

The principal characteristic of the Ionic order is the Pelasgic or Asiatic spiral, here called a volute, which, notwithstanding its elegance, forms at best but an awkward capital. The Assyrian honeysuckle below this, carved as it is with the exquisite feeling and taste which a Greek alone knew how to impart to such an object, forms as elegant an architectural detail as is anywhere to be found; and whether used as the necking of a column, or on the crowning member of a cornice, or on other parts of the order, is everywhere the most beautiful ornament connected with it. Comparing this order with that at Persepolis (Woodcut No. [96]), the only truly Asiatic prototype we have of it, we see how much the Doric feeling of the Greeks had done to sober it down, by abbreviating the capital and omitting the greater part of the base. This process was carried much farther when the order was used in conjunction with the Doric, as in the Propylæa, than when used by itself, as in the Erechtheium; still in every case all the parts found in the Asiatic style are found in the Greek. The same form and feelings pervade both; and, except in beauty of execution and detail, it is not quite clear how far even the Greek order is an improvement on the Eastern one. The Persepolitan base is certainly the more beautiful of the two; so are many parts of the capital. The perfection of the whole, however, depends on the mode in which it is employed; and it is perfectly evident that the Persian order could not be combined with the Doric, nor applied with much propriety as an external order, which was the essential use of all the Grecian forms of pillars.

141. Ionic order in Temple of Apollo at Bassæ.

142. Section of half of the Ionic Capital at Bassæ, taken through the volute.

When used between antæ or square piers, as seems usually to have been the case in Assyria, the two-fronted form of the Ionic capital was appropriate and elegant; but when it was employed, as in the Erechtheium, as an angle column, it presented a difficulty which even Grecian skill and ingenuity could not quite conquer. When the Persians wanted the capital to face four ways they turned the side outwards, as at Persepolis (Woodcut No. [96]), and put the volutes in the angles—which was at best but an awkward mode of getting over the difficulty.

The instance in which these difficulties have been most successfully met is in the internal order at Bassæ. There the three sides are equal, and are equally seen—the fourth is attached to the wall—and the junction of the faces is formed with an elegance that has never been surpassed. It has not the richness of the order of the Erechtheium, but it excels it in elegance. Its widely spreading base still retains traces of the wooden origin of the order, and carries us back towards the times when a shoe was necessary to support wooden posts on the floor of an Assyrian hall.

Notwithstanding the amount of carving which the Ionic order displays, there can be little doubt of its having been also ornamented with colour to a considerable extent, but probably in a different manner from the Doric. My own impression is, that the carved parts were gilt, or picked out with gold, relieved by coloured grounds, varied according to the situation in which they were found. The existing remains prove that colours were used in juxtaposition, to relieve and heighten the architectural effect of the carved ornaments of this order.

In the Ionic temples at Athens the same exquisite masonry was used as in the Doric; the same mathematical precision and care is bestowed on the entasis of the columns, the drawing of the volutes, and the execution of even the minutest details; and much of its beauty and effect are no doubt owing to this circumstance, which we miss so painfully in nearly all modern examples.