The mouldings were some of them enriched, to use the technical word, by having such ornaments cut into them or carved on them as, though simple in form, lent themselves well to repetition.[18] Where more room for ornament existed, and especially in the capitals of the Ionic and Corinthian orders, ornaments were freely and most gracefully carved, and very symmetrically arranged. Though these were very various, yet most of them can be classed under three heads. (1.) Frets (Figs. [116] to [120]). These were patterns made up of squares or
-shaped lines interlaced and made to seem intricate, though originally simple. Frequently these patterns are called Doric frets, from their having been most used in buildings of the Doric order. (2.) Honeysuckle (Figs. [94] and [111] to [114]). This ornament, admirably conventionalised, had been used freely by the Assyrians, and the Greeks only adopted what they found ready to their hand when they began to use it; but they refined it, at the same time losing no whit of its vigour or effectiveness, and the honeysuckle has come to be known as a typical Greek decorative motif. (3.) Acanthus (Figs. [84] and [85]). This is a broad-leaved plant, the foliage and stems of which, treated in a conventional manner, though with but little departure from nature, were found admirably adapted for floral decorative work, and accordingly were made use of in the foliage of the Corinthian capital, and in such ornaments as, for example, the great finial which forms the summit of the Choragic Monument of Lysicrates.
Fig. 84.—The Acanthus Leaf and Stalk.
The beauty of the carving was, however, eclipsed by that highest of all ornaments—sculpture. In the Doric temples, as, for example, in the Parthenon, the architect contented himself with providing suitable spaces for the sculptor to occupy; and thus the great pediments, the metopes (Fig. [86]) or square panels, and the frieze of the Parthenon were occupied by sculpture, in which there was no necessity for more conventionalism than the amount of artificial arrangement needed in order fitly to occupy spaces that were respectively triangular, square, or continuous. In the later and more voluptuous style of the Ionic temples we find sculpture made into an architectural feature, as in the famous statues, known as the Caryatides, which support the smallest portico of the Erechtheium, and in the enriched columns of the Temple of Diana at Ephesus. Sculpture had already been so employed in Egypt, and was often so used in later times; but the best opportunity for the display of the finest qualities of the sculptor’s art is such an one as the pediments, &c., of the great Doric temples afforded.
Fig. 85.—The Acanthus Leaf.