Page:Ware - The American Vignola, 1920.djvu/43

Rh THE GREEK ORDERS

the different examples of the Greek Doric and Ionic Orders differ considerably among themselves, both in the proportions of the Columns and in the treatment of details, the proportions of the Entablature are tolerably uniform and are, in general, the same for both Orders, the Architrave and Frieze being both about three-quarters of a Diameter in height and the Cornice about half a Diameter, Figs. 115 and 122. The Entablatures, as has been said, are about two Diameters high, however tall or short the Columns may be. Their chief characteristic is the height of the Architrave and the shallowness of the Cornice. The Diminution and the Entasis of the Columns begin at the bottom of the Shaft.

THE GREEK DORIC—PLATE XIV

The Greek Doric has no Base, the Shaft standing upon three large steps, the upper one of which is called the Stylobate, Fig. 115. It has generally twenty channels, Fig. 110, which are generally elliptical in section, but some small Columns have only sixteen, or even, as at Argos, fourteen, Fig. 117. In a number of examples, an Arris instead of a Channel comes on the axis of the Column, as is seen both at Argos, Fig. 117, and at Assos, Fig. 118. Instead of an Astragal, a groove, or Sinkage, separates the Shaft from the Necking of the Capital, and the Channels are carried past it, through the Necking, quite up to the Fillets at the base of the Echinus, Fig. 116. These Fillets vary in number. They are not vertical on the face, but are parallel to the slope of the Echinus, and their upper surfaces also are beveled, Fig. 119. The Echinus itself has an elliptical or hyperbolic profile, the earlier examples being the most convex and the later ones hardly differing from a straight line. The Abacus has no moldings.

The Architrave also is plain, and is crowned by a Tænia, below which is a broad Regula and six short Guttæ. In the earlier examples, the face of the Architrave is set just over and in line with the upper Diameter of the Shaft, but in the later ones it overhangs, coming over the lower Diameter, and the Echinus is made straighter, as has been said, and steeper, as if to support it.