Page:History of Architecture in All Countries Vol 1.djvu/286

 •254 GRECIAN ARCHITECTURE. Pakt I. boast of 'nuin i niriiniiiinimn irjuiHuwJumgvuuiiu mijiirTiniTTr s;S-J'y:v>iMAXi^^'::li!^^J',^/lV:WJ^i^^^ little temple of Nike Apteros is brilliantly ornamented in the same style as those of the Doric order. It also hajipened 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 comj^leteness in our eyes which the other cannot Add to this a certain degree of Asiatic elegance and grace, and the whole when put together makes up a sin- gularly j)leasing architec- tural object. But not- withstanding these advan- tages, the Doric order will probably always be ad- mitted to be superior, as belonging to a higlier class of art, and because all its forms and details are bet- ter and more adapted to their purpose than those of the Ionic. The principal charac- teristic 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. Coni])aring this order with that at Persepolis (Woodcut No. 89), the only truly Asiatic i)rototype 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 ])rocess was carried much farther when the order was used in conjunction with the Doric, as in the Propylaea, than when used by ^MM'^t'^'^^W^iWW^ JUUUUU UUUlJi] I 1 ^ 137. Ionic order of Erechtheium at Athens.