Page:History of Architecture in All Countries Vol 1.djvu/287

 Bk. III. Ch II. IONIC ORDER. 255 itself, as in tlje 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 Eastei-n 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 com- bined Avitli the Doric, nor apj^lied with much propriety as an external order, which was the essential use of all the Grecian forms of pillars. When used between antte or squai-e piers, as seems usually to have been the case in Assyria, the two-fronted form of the Ionic capital was appropriate and elegant ; but when it was employed, as in the Erech- theium, as an angle column, it presented a difficulty which even Grecian skill and ingenuity could not quite conquer. When the Persians wanted the capital to face four ways they turned the side outwards, as at Persepolis .(Woodcut No. 89), and put the volutes in the angles — which was at best but an awkward mode of getting over the difficulty. . The instance in which these difficulties have been most successfully met is in the internal order at Bassje. There the three sides are equal, and are equally seen — the fourth is attached to the wall — and the junction of the faces is formed with an elegance that has never been suqiassed. It has not the richness of the order of the Erechtheium, but it excels it in ele- gance. Its widely spreading base still retains traces of the wooden origin of the order, and carries us back towards the times when a slioe was necessary to sup- port wooden posts on the floor of an Assyrian hall. Notwithstandino; the amount of carving which the Ionic order displays, there can be little doubt of its having been also ornamented with color to a considerable extent, but probably in a different manner from the Doric. My own impression is, that the carved parts were gilt, or picked out with gold, relieved by colored grounds, varied according to the situation in which they were found. The existing remains prove that colors were used in juxtaposition, to relieve and heighten the architectural effect of the carved ornaments of this order. 138. Ionic order in Temple of Apollo at Hassse. 139, Section of half of the Ionic Capital at Bassse, taken through the volute.