Page:History of Art in Persia.djvu/73

 58 History of Art in Antiquity. Audngs allotted to the shafts at Istakhr is thirty-two, whilst about the Persepolitan palaces forty, forty-eight, and even fifty-two are found.* The rules observed in Persia for the spacing of the supports testify to no less disregard of foreign examplesi no less spirit of independence. The Egyptian arrangement is emphatically what "the Greeks called " pycnostyle." In the central nave of the hypostyle hall at Karnac, the in- tercolumnation above the pedestal is a trifle less than two diameters^ and in the lateral naves scarcely more than one diameter. In Greece the intercolumnation of the oldest Doric examples,* with Corinth at one end and the Athenian Propylza at the other, varies from iS diameter to if diameter;' later on, when the spacing called araostyle obtained, it never exceeds ? ; diameters.* In Persia, on the other hand, intervals of 3i diameters are only encountered in one of the palaces of the Takht i-Jamshid ; ' in all the other parts of this same block, and the pile on the platform generally, the intercolumnation is from four to six diameters. Six was the number of diameters allotted at Istakhr and Pasargadae, whilst in the building locally known as the Palace of Cyrus it is a trifle over seven diameters.' To the above remarks, made for the sake of bringing to light the originah'ty both of column and entablature, the following, which is not without importance, may be added. Persian archi- tecture offers characteristics that we have met nowhere as yet in the architecture of the Eastern nations we have studied in this history of ancient art ; it has a ynodule, that is to say a unity of I proportion which determines the mutual relations of forms, and so , ^ Poccb No* I, forty channeUings ; palace Na 3, forty-eight ; porch Na a, with tuuGomi, fiftf-twa LXXVII. P.isargadre the distance from j)illar to pillar is either a trifle over 7 diameters, or a little more than 5 diameters ; at I»takhr, 6 and 6^ ; at Persepolis, palace No. 8, 6^ ; porch Na i, 4} ; palace No. 13, 4^; tombs on platlorm, 4^; tombs at Naksh- i-RuKtem, Noc i and 4 of Coste, 4I; Nos. a and 3, 4; palace No. 3, 3^ and 5 diameteiBi Oigiiizea by LiOOgle
 * Temple at Corinth (A. Bloubt, ExpitU Sdeiiiifique de Mwk^ torn. iii. Plate
 * Stuart, Athenian Antiquities^ torn. ii. Plate XLIII.
 * Portico at Delos (Bbouir, be, dt, Plate V.).
 * In palace No. 3.
 * The following arc the several intcrcolumnations which have been observed : — .At