Evolution in Art: As Illustrated by the Life-histories of Designs

by Alfred C. Haddon

Fig. 86.—Compound flower, based on the lotus, Thebes, Eighteenth to Twentieth Dynasties; from Goodyear, after Prisse d’Avennes.

Thus, according to this view, the volute of the Ionic capital is merely a drooping lotus sepal, which became spiral in the Grecian Archipelago. Many of the Ionic capitals, especially the earlier ones, exhibit distinct traces of the central palmette, but eventually only the spirals persisted, and the cleft between the curling sepals was gradually reduced so that their stems came to appear as a transverse band ending in volutes.

Fig. 87.—Lotus pendant from an Egyptian necklace of the Nineteenth Dynasty; after Goodyear.

Fig. 88.—Anthemion from the Parthenon.

In following this view of the history of the Ionic capital we have practically traversed that of the anthemion. The more typical examples of this pattern not only present us with the element which we have already briefly studied, but alternating with it is a trefoil. For this again there are any number of Egyptian originals in which the trefoil indicates a lotus flower; in this case all the petals have been eliminated and only the sepals persist.

Lack of time prevents me from attempting to follow the fascinating evolution of various patterns and designs which adorn Grecian temples and vases; but I must permit myself to indicate a probable origin of an exceedingly common pattern which has also overrun our own art. I refer to the so-called egg-and-dart moulding of Greek entablatures (Plate [V.], Fig. 5), and the same motive painted on vases or moulded on the later Samian ware (Plate [V.], Fig. 6). In these two figures the pattern is drawn in its usual position, but, the better to follow the argument, a typical variety is figured (Fig. [89]) reversed. There are many varieties, from a series of U-shaped figures with alternating dots, as many Greek vases (Fig. [89], E), through the Samian device (Plate [V.], Fig. 6) and Erechtheium variety (Fig. [82] and Plate [V.], Fig. 5), to others in which there is greater complexity and more floral forms (Fig. [89], D).