Greek sculptural ornament is comparatively devoid of natural suggestion, the branching scrolls with sheath leaves being æsthetic rather than imitative. The leaves employed bear little resemblance to those of the later Roman period, and consist generally of a succession of radial grooves with undulating or prickly edges, and are obviously adapted from the anthemion detail.
In the scrolls employed on the Choragic monument at Athens the desire was evidently play of line and silhouette.
The flexible and open form, though possible in bent metal or in painted work, is unsuitable to carving in stone. Adequate support being essential, the scrolls had to be united by the leaves, which were necessarily massed in form and decorated by channellings or grooves to give further detail and interest.
A development of the leaf treatment was the division into lobes, each lobe being channelled with a group of radial grooves ending in serrations. The lobes were divided by holes, or, as they are generally termed, eyes, more or less circular in shape, and these were connected with the base of the leaf by pipes or Tines in relief, conforming with the general radial distribution.
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.