Page:History of Art in Persia.djvu/105

 92 History of Art in Antiquity. side, paiallel to the architrave and at right angles with the axis of the shaft Thece is no junction or intermediary moulding between the tapering- column and the rectangular member at the beginning of the capital, akin to the echinus of the Doric capital. " Hence it is that the support presents harsh con- trasts. which imperfectly satisfy the eye, and are very near offending it'" The architect doubtless perceived, at one time, that this was faulty; that if his capital harmonized with the architrave and could be extended indefinitely along with it, its mode of attach- ment with the shaft was bad; hence he looked about him how * best " to prepare contact of and approach to the forms."' Figs. 32-37 show the way he went to work in order to reach the end he had in view. " He first reduced the height of the shaft, and crowned it with a capital which he divided, in a vertical direction, into two equal parts, but dissimilar in form. The lower member is cylindrical in shape and rests on the shaft, its generating lines being connected with a reversed quarter round, upon which rests the upper member of the capital, which likewise starts as a circular form and terminates in a cavetto. The capital, destitute of amplitude, has but a feeble salience beyond the shaft." ^ The quarter round and the upper part of the cavetto are adorned by a row of oves and beads respec- tively. If, neglecting minor details, we only regard the shape as a whole, it does not seem unlikely that the first notion of it was sugi^^estcd by the crowning tuft of a palm. The lower members of the capital would represent the dead twigs as they droop and fall about the stem of the tree ; the upper members, whose forms look upwards, would stand for the young shoots, which, full of fresh life and vigour, dart forward past the sere foliage with a slight outward curve;* the vertical striie that scar the surface throughout would be reminiscent of the intervals or fillets which, in nature, separate the leaves of the terminal bunch. It is a j)oetical conceit, and likely enough, but if there was imitation it did not originate direct from nature, since the Oriental palm is not found in the uplands of I'^ars. though it grows in the lower valleys towards the seaboard, notably the Persian Gulf and all over ' Ch. Cuipiez, Hist, critiqut its ori^ines ei «k la /tnrmaHon des orirts gnts^ p. 99. Digitized by Google
 * fbid., p. 10 1. ' JbUL * Fuutom, RdaHoHt torn. ii. p. 156.