To understand, however, the Doric order, we must not regard it as a merely masonic form. Sculpture was always used, or intended to be used, with it. The Metopes between the triglyphs, the pediments of the porticoes, and the acroteria or pedestals on the roof, are all unmeaning and useless unless filled or surmounted with sculptured figures. Sculpture is, indeed, as essential a part of this order as the acanthus-leaves and ornaments of the cornice are to the capitals and entablature of the Corinthian order; and without it, or without its place being supplied by painting, we are merely looking at the dead skeleton, the mere framework of the order, without the flesh and blood that gave it life and purpose.
It is when all these parts are combined together, as in the portico of the Parthenon (Woodcut No. [139]), that we can understand this order in all its perfection; for though each part was beautiful in itself, their full value can be appreciated only as parts of a great whole.
Another essential part of the order, too often overlooked, is the colour, which was as integral a part of it as its form. Till very lately, it was denied that Greek temples were, or could be, painted: the unmistakable remains of colour, however, that have been discovered in almost all temples, and the greater knowledge of the value and use of it which now prevails, have altered public opinion very much on the matter, and most people now admit that some colour was used, though few are agreed as to the extent to which it was carried.
It cannot now be questioned that colour was used everywhere internally, and on every object. Externally too it is generally admitted that the sculpture was painted and relieved by strongly coloured backgrounds; the lacunaria, or recesses of the roof, were also certainly painted; and all the architectural mouldings, which at a later period were carved in relief, have been found to retain traces of their painted ornaments.
It is disputed whether the echinus or carved moulding of the capital was so ornamented. There seems little doubt but that it was; and that the walls of the cells were also coloured throughout and covered with paintings illustrative of the legends and attributes of the divinity to whom the temple was dedicated or of the purposes for which it was erected. The plane face of the architrave was probably left white, or merely ornamented with metal shields or inscriptions, and the shafts of the columns appear also to have been left plain, or merely slightly stained to tone down the crudeness of the white marble. Generally speaking, all those parts which from their form or position were in any degree protected from the rain or atmospheric influences seem to have been coloured; those particularly exposed, to have been left plain. To whatever extent, however, painting may have been carried, these coloured ornaments were as essential a part of the Doric order as the carved ornaments were of the Corinthian, and made it, when perfect, a richer and more ornamental, as it was a more solid and stable, order than the latter. The colour nowhere interfered with the beauty of its forms, but gave it that richness and amount of ornamentation which is indispensable in all except the most colossal buildings, and a most valuable adjunct even to them.
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.