Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 05.djvu/240

COLUMN. and best seen in the tombs at Beni-Hassan. is the polygonal derivative of the square pier, with sometimes as many as 10 or 32 sides, which sug- gests the tinting" of the classic column. The material used is invariably stone, and the con- struction is by drums. The Oriental series closes with the Persian column, which is later than the Grcco-Ionie and was formed under combined Egyptian, Assyrian, and Ionian influences. The great columnaV halls of the Persian roj'al pal- aces rivaled the temple halls of Egj'pt, but pro- duced a totally opposite effect, because the columns were slender and tall (60 to 70 feet), lluted like the Greek, instead of painted and c;;rvcd, and widely spaced, instead of crowded. The simple Greek type, evident in shaft and base, was not followed "in the elaborate three-staged capital — animals, volutes, and campaniform bulbs — evidently inspired by Assyro-Babylonian models. The colunms were of stone, but, unlike the Egyptian, the lintels they supported were of wood, "which made the slender proportions and wide spacing possible.

The history of the colunni among the Greeks reaches back to pre-Homeric days, for it ap- pears in the Mycenaean and Achjean royal pal- aces and tombs' in Crete, Mycenje, Tiryns, and elsewhere. Xo classic orders yet exist, and the shafts, strangely enough, are larger at the neck than at the base. In the seventh century B.C. the two great columnar orders. Boric and Ionic, have developed all important features and reign — the one in Sicily, Magna Gra?cia, and niost of the Greek mainland, the other in Asia Minor and some of the islands, passing then to Attica and other semi-Ionic parts of Greece. These orders are characterized by their special entabla- ture (q. v.), as well as "column. The Hellenic appreciation of aesthetic proportions and of ideal types is shown in the early attempt of architects to establish canons for each of these orders. The ' most .startling novelty in the Hellenic use of the colunui was that it was in the main for external, instead of internal, effect. In the development of Greek architecture there was a continually increasing tendency in favor of the Ionic style. The attempt to give a history of these two orders on the basis of an evolution of form has proved imsatisfactory, exce))t in such general facts that Doric columns gradually lose much of their original heaviness. The Doric column had no separate base, but the entire row rose from a common stepped base. The shaft tapered slightly upward, and the straight outline was mitigated by an outward curve or entasis, most pronounced below the centre: it was fluted with from 16 to 20 channels, meeting in sharp edges, or arrises, and was joined to the capital by a giooved necking. The capital itself consists of a circular cushion, or echinus, surmounted by a square plinth, or abacus, on which the entabla- ture rests. The heavy proportions of early Doric gave the columns a height of only four to five diameters and an intercolumniation of hardly more than a single diameter, but the height was gradually increased imtil it reached six to seven diameters and the intercolumniation increased — a change corresponding to a lightening of the entablature. The Doric column usually had a thin coat of stucco, ])ainted a delicate buff. The Ionic column was far more graceful and deco- rative. Its slenderness allowed of far less iftpering and entasis of the shaft, which rested on a base. This base at first varied in type and was especially rich in Asia Slinor before taking the normal Attic form which remained the typi- cal base even in post-classic times. The height of the column was from eight to ten times its diameter; its shaft had 24 deep flutings, sepa- rated bj' narrow fillets. The capital consisted of spiral connected volutes, between which was a cj'ma, or ovolo, with pearl beading, and it was connected with the architrave by a thin, deco- rated plinth. Carving and color contribute to form the decoration. In Greek times the Corin- tliian style hardly rose to the dignity of an order, its only important change from the Ionic being in the different capital. It is interesting to notice that the Greeks merely blocked out their columns before erecting them, and only after the building was fully constructed were the channels, moldings, and ornaments cut. When marble came into use, in the fifth century, the surface was no longer stuccoed.

The Romans abandoned, in the third century B.C., the wooden colunuis with terra-cotta sheath- ing of the Etruscans for the solid columns of the Greeks, but introduced several variations. The principal of these variations were the fre- quent use of uuchanncled and monolithic shafts of the brilliantly colored marbles, like the Nu- midian, porphyry, or serpentine; the general use of the Corinthian, instead of the two simpler capitals, and the development of a real Corin- thian order; the modification of the Doric into the so-called 'Tuscan' style; the invention of the Composite, capital, of high pedestals, of engaged columns, ancl of a rich system of sculptured decoration. The column was now, for the first time, combined with the arch, as well as with llie architrave. Thus the Romans increased the uses, the size, the materials, and the types of columns, though losing much of the refinement' of form and jiroportions of Greek art. At the same time, especially in their civil public build- ings, the Romans substituted heavy piers — often with engaged columns — for the columns them- selves, on account of the use of vaulting, which could not be supported by slender shafts. It was reserved for Early Christian architecture to develop the tise of the coltuun with the arch in interiors, especially in the basilicas (q.v.) and other churelies, and in baptisteries. No new forms were invented in the West, where there ^^•as a gradual decline in the quality of columnar architecture; but in the East the Byzantine and other schools added to the old types of cap- itals many new ones, such as basket and foliated capitals, and commenced the fa.shion of wall col- onnettes, which was so popular in the Roman- esque and Gotliic styles, to the great enrichment of wall surfaces. The plundering and destruc- tion of ancient buildings, for the sake of using their materials in new constructions, helped at the same time to keep alive the knowledge of the old orders, especially in the West. The reign of the column was henceforth sharply contested by the pier, which became the principal construc- tive support in Byzantine art. The use of the two forms — pier and column— was about equally balanced in Italy and Gennany: the pier was more popular in France and England. For a short time the Gothic style adopted the columns for its main supports,' but substituted finally the grouped pier as stronger and more in con- structive and formal harmony with the molded