Rudimentary Architecture for the Use of Beginners / The Orders and Their Æsthetic Principles

by W. H. Leeds

Astragal.—A small convex moulding. The term is applied chiefly to that which is employed to separate the capital from the shaft of a column.

Astylar.—From the Greek privative α, and στύλος (stylos), a column: columnless or without columns, a term that expresses the absence of columns or pilasters, where they might otherwise be supposed to occur.

Attic.—This is usually defined to be a small Order placed over a principal one; from which it might be supposed that it differed from the Orders in general chiefly by being applied on a smaller scale; instead of which it has nothing of columniation and trabeation in it. There is far greater analogy between an attic and a stylobate, or continuous pedestal, both of them consisting of base, a dado or die, and a simple cornice, and the difference between them consisting chiefly in their application, the stylobate being below, and the attic above the Order. Attics are either plain or pilastered accordingly as the building itself is astylar or the contrary; but what are called attic pilasters are no more than slight breaks or projections on the general surface, with the mouldings above and below breaking round them, without any sort of capital, but just after the manner of pedestals: their faces, however, are sometimes distinguished from the intermediate surfaces by being panelled and otherwise enriched, as is done, for instance, in the façade of the new Treasury Buildings: another mode of decoration is to place either a statue, or else a caryatid figure, before each break in the front of the Attic, an example of which occurs in the Strand front of Somerset House. When introduced only over particular portions of a façade, such as the centre or extremities, the Attic is an exceedingly useful element in composition, inasmuch as it serves not only to give such parts greater importance, but also to produce play of outline or sky-line; whereas, if continued throughout, it is apt to produce heaviness as well as monotony, and some degree of feebleness of expression also, its cornice forming, in comparison with the principal cornice below, but a very insignificant finish to the general structure.

Axis.—An imaginary line through the centre of a column, &c., or its geometrical representation. Where different members are placed over each other, so that the same vertical line, on the elevation, divides them equally, they are said to be on the same axis, although they may be on different planes. Thus, triglyphs and modillions are so arranged that one coincides with the axis or line of axis of each column. In like manner, the windows or other openings in the several stories of a façade must all be in the same respective axis, whether they are all of the same breadth or not.

Baluster side of Ionic capital, [33].

Bed-Mouldings.—This may be understood as a collective term for all the mouldings beneath the corona or principal projecting member of a cornice, which, without bed-mouldings, would appear too much like a mere shelf.

Cabled fluting, [60].

Capital.—The capitals of the columns constitute the principal and most obvious indicial mark of the respective Orders. For those of each of the Three Classes or Orders a certain character conformably with the rest of the Order is to be observed; but that attended to, further restriction is unnecessary. Between several examples, all decidedly referable to one and the same Order, very great special differences occur, and there might easily be a very great many more. Although the capital itself is indispensable, it is so only æsthetically, and not out of positive necessity. The necessity is only artistic: decoration of the kind there must be, but the express mode of it is one of those matters which should be left to design, to which it properly belongs. Capitals are just as legitimate subjects for the exercise of taste and invention as any thing else in decorative design. The capital is only an ornamental head to the column, and therefore admits of being as freely designed as any other piece of ornament, on the conditions of its being accordant in character with the rest of the Order, and of forming an agreeable transition from the shaft of the column to the architrave.

Caryatides.—Anthropostylar pillars or human figures (usually female ones) employed instead of columns to support an entablature. Such figures ought always to be perfectly free from all attitudinizing, and to appear to support their burden without any effort. Some very matter-of-fact critics object to caryatides as being at the best only beautiful absurdities; as if statues so applied were particularly liable to be mistaken for living persons subjected to a more severe punishment than that of being posted up in a niche, or on the top of a building.

Columniation, [68].