THE ORIGINATORS OF THE THREE ORDERS.
Who were the originators of the three great and primary orders of
Grecian architecture is still a question which the discussion of the
legendary and mythical architects, which has been briefly entered into,
has not answered. It may be assumed inferentially that as the earliest
of the Greek temples which have been referred to as the works of the
progeny of the gods were in the Doric style, the pagan deities of
Greece may claim some share of credit for having introduced that noble
design to the world. The Ionic and Corinthian styles, however, are
still to be accounted for, and as there is good ground to assume that
they made their advent into architectural art at much later dates no
celestial origin can be claimed for them.
Vitruvius, in relating his account of the origin of all three orders,
alludes more directly to the birth of the Doric, and tells a story
so picturesque and entertaining of the other two that although
recognizing how well it may be known to the professional architect, it
is difficult to resist the temptation to give it here entire:
“Dorus, the son of Hellen, and the nymph Orseis, reigned over the whole
of Achaia and Peloponnesus, and built at Argos, an ancient city, on a
spot sacred to Juno, a temple which happened to be of this order. After
this many temples similar to it sprung up in the other parts of Achaia,
though the proportions which should be preserved in it were not as yet
settled.
“But afterward when the Athenians, by the advice of the Delphic Oracle
in a general assembly of the different states of Greece, sent over into
Asia thirteen colonies at once, and appointed a governor or leader
to each, reserving the chief command for Ion, the son of Xuthus and
Creusa, whom the Delphic Apollo had acknowledged as son, that person
led them over into Asia, and occupied the borders of Caria, and there
built the great cities of Ephesus, Miletus, Myus (which was long since
destroyed by inundation, and its sacred rites and suffrages transferred
by the Ionians to the inhabitants of Miletus), Priene, Samos, Teos,
Colophon, Chios, Erythræ, Phocæa, Clazomenæ, Lebedos and Melite. The
last, as a punishment for the arrogance of its citizens, was detached
from the other states in a war levied pursuant to the directions of
a general council; and in its place, as a mark of favor toward King
Attalus and Arsinoë, the city of Smyrna was admitted into the number
of Ionian states, which received the appellation of Ionian from their
leader Ion, after the Carians and Lelegæ had been driven out.
“In this country, allotting different spots for sacred purposes, they
began to erect temples, the first of which was dedicated to Apollo
Panionios, and resembled that which they had seen in Achaia, and they
gave it the name of Doric, because they had first seen that species in
the cities of Doria. As they wished to erect this temple with columns,
and had not a knowledge of the proper proportions of them, nor knew the
way in which they ought to be constructed, so as at the same time to be
both fit to carry the superincumbent weight and to produce a beautiful
effect, they measured a man’s foot, and, finding its length the sixth
part of his height, they gave the column a similar proportion—that is,
they made its height, including the capital, six times the thickness
of the shaft, measured at the base. Thus the Doric order obtained its
proportion, its strength, and its beauty from the human figure.
“Under similar notions they afterward built the temple of Diana, but
in that, seeking a new proportion, they used the female figure as
the standard; and for the purpose of producing a more lofty effect
they first made it eight times its thickness in height. Under it they
placed a base, after the manner of a shoe to the foot; they also added
volutes to its capital, like graceful, curling hair, on each side, and
the front they ornamented with cymatia and festoons in the place of
hair. On the shafts they sunk channels, which bear a resemblance to the
folds of a matronal garment. Thus two orders were invented, one of a
masculine character, without ornament, the other bearing a character
which resembled the delicacy, ornament and proportion of a female.
“The successors of these people, improving in taste, and preferring a
more slender proportion, assigned seven diameters to the height of the
Doric column and eight and a half to the Ionic. That species, of which
the Ionians were the inventors, has received the appellation of Ionic.
[Illustration: THE ORIGIN OF THE CORINTHIAN CAPITAL.]
“The third species, which is called Corinthian, resembles in its
character the graceful and elegant appearance of a virgin, in whom,
from her tender age, the limbs are of a more delicate form, and whose
ornaments should be unobtrusive. The invention of the capital of this
order is said to be founded on the following occurrence: A Corinthian
virgin, of a marriageable age, fell a victim to a violent disorder.
After her interment her nurse, collecting in a basket those articles
to which she had shown a partiality when alive, carried them to her
tomb, and placed a tile on the basket for the longer preservation
of its contents. The basket was accidentally placed on the root of
an acanthus plant, which, pressed by the weight, shot forth, toward
spring, its stems and large foliage, and in the course of its growth
reached the angles of the tile, and thus formed volutes at the
extremities. Callimachus, who for his great ingenuity and taste was
called by the Athenians Catetechnos, happening at this time to pass by
the tomb, observed the basket and the delicacy of the foliage which
surrounded it. Pleased with the form and novelty of the combination, he
constructed from the hint thus afforded columns of this species in the
country about Corinth.”
The comments of Sir Henry Wotton in his “Elements of Architecture,”
written in England during the latter part of the sixteenth century,
upon this legendary account of the source of the three orders given
by Vitruvius, are sufficiently attractive and quaint in language and
spelling to warrant their being quoted also:
“The Dorique order is the gravest that hath been received into civil
use, preserving in comparison of those that follow a more _masculine
aspect_ and little trimmer than the Tuscan that went before, save a
sober garnishment now and then of _lions’ heads_ in the _cornice_ and
of _triglyph_ and _metopes_ always in the _frize_.... To discern him
will be a piece rather of good _heraldry_ than of _architecture_, for
he is knowne by his place when he is in company and by the peculiar
ornament of his _frize_, before mentioned, when he is alone.... The
_Ionique order_ doth represent a kind of feminine slenderness; yet,
saith Vitruvius, not like a housewife, but in a decent dressing hath
much of the _matrone_.... Best known by his trimmings for the bodie
of this _columne_ is perpetually _chaneled_, like a thick-pleighted
gowne. The _capitall_, dressed on each side, not much unlike women’s
wires, in a spiral wreathing, which they call the _Ionian voluta_....
The _Corinthian_ is a columne lasciviously decked like a courtezan, and
therefore in much participating (as all inventions do) of the place
where they were first born, Corinth having beene, without controversie,
one of the wantonest towns in the world.”
As for the Composite order, which, as has been already stated, is but a
mixture of the Ionic and Corinthian, it would seem that Sir Henry has
very little patience. He says with a contempt which he makes little
effort to conceal: “The last is the _compounded order_, his _name_
being a briefe of his _nature_: for his pillar is nothing in effect but
a _medlie_, or an _amasse_ of all the preceding _ornaments_, making
a new kinde of stealth, and though the most richly tricked, yet the
poorest in this, that he is a borrower of his beautie.”
There are those who in relentless search for truth at the expense of
sentiment and poetry would spoil the pretty story which Vitruvius tells
of the invention of the Corinthian capital by claiming for Egypt the
distinction of being the mother-country of the order, and ascribing to
that form of the Egyptian capital that bells out toward the abacus, and
which is surrounded by open lotus leaves, as the archetype of the last
of the three Grecian orders. There is, however, more probability to the
story of Callimachus than there is similarity between the Egyptian and
Corinthian capitals, in our opinion.
If we accept Callimachus as the originator of the Corinthian, although
there does not appear any name of an architect to receive the
individual credit for the invention of the Doric order, we may as well
accept the deduction which Vitruvius draws in respect to Hermogenes,
an Ionian architect, who is said to have flourished about 600 B.C.,
and credit him at the same time with being the first to introduce
the feminine proportions and attributes into his art, and with having
perfected, if he did not originate, the queenly Ionic order.
“When Hermogenes was employed to erect the temple of Bacchus at
Teos,” says Vitruvius, “the marble was prepared for one in the Doric
style; but the architect changed his mind, from the idea that other
proportions, afterward called Ionic, were more suitable for the
purpose, almost inducing the inference that Hermogenes was the inventor
of those delicate proportions; he appears unquestionably to have
displayed great skill and ingenuity in all his designs, and to have
entertained the opinion that sacred buildings should not be constructed
with Doric proportions, as they obliged the adoption of false and
incongruous arrangements.”
Another fact which Vitruvius does not touch upon might tend to point
to Hermogenes as the originator of the Ionic order. He was a native of
Alabanda in Caria, and if it is true, as some authorities believe, the
volute was an ornament in early use in Asia Minor, he was doubtless
familiar with it; and, appreciating its graceful possibilities,
introduced it into the matronly Ionic.
Hermogenes is conceded to have been one of the most celebrated
architects of antiquity. In addition to the temple of Bacchus which
he designed for Teos, one of the eastern Ionian cities, and the
birthplace of Anacreon, as well as other noted ancient characters, he
erected in the city of Magnesia, in Lydia, a temple to Diana in the
Doric order. About each of these temples he wrote a book, both of which
were still in existence in the time of Augustus. In one he described
the temple to Diana as a pseudodipteral, or false dipteral temple, a
form which he invented. It is called false or imperfect because of
the economy of the inside row of columns on each of the long sides of
the cell, the outside row being allowed to remain. The effect from a
distance was the same as a double row, while considerable expense was
saved. The temple to Bacchus he described as a monopterus, or a round
temple, having neither walls nor cell, but merely a roof sustained by
columns.
Hermogenes’s great ambition appears to have been a desire to foster
and encourage the use of the Ionic order in preference to the Doric
for temple construction. In this opinion he was later sustained by
Tarchesius, another writer on architecture, who may be dated as
sometime later than 470 B.C., and by Pytheus, whom we shall meet again
as one of the architects of the tomb of Mausolus.
Although Vitruvius mentions the origin of the Corinthian order in close
connection with that of the Doric and Ionic, it must be borne in mind
that Callimachus, whom he credits with the Corinthian, was a much
later artist than Hermogenes. The use of the Corinthian column by the
architect Scopas in the temple of Athene at Tegea in 396 B.C., has led
to the inference that Callimachus must have lived prior to that date,
and the fact that he gave to that style of architecture the appellation
of Corinthian, that he was a native of Corinth. Lübke, in his “Outlines
of the History of Art,” however, does not give to Callimachus the full
and undisputed credit for originating the Corinthian style, claiming
that the order existed before his time, although he does not mention
when or where. Lübke would interpret the story of Callimachus and the
basket as meaning that it was he who gave to the capital its final
perfection. It is somewhat strange also that although Callimachus is
conceded to have been the first to develop this order, if he did not
absolutely invent it, there is no mention of any building having been
designed by him in the Corinthian style.
There seems to be little dispute over the fact that Callimachus was
neither as a sculptor nor an architect to be placed in the van of the
distinguished artists of early Greece. As a sculptor, in which capacity
he is best known by his works, his style was stilted and artificial,
rendered so by the artist’s disposition to be finicky and fastidious in
his execution. Indeed, he is said to have been unwearied in polishing
and perfecting, and to have sacrificed the grand and sublime in the
exercise of too great refinement and purity. Callimachus was never
satisfied with himself, and possibly on that account others were not
satisfied with him, as a certain degree of self-esteem is necessary
to invite public approval. The Greeks gave him a name, based upon his
peculiarities, which Pliny has translated as “_Calumniator Sui_.” His
faculty for invention was evidenced in other respects also, as he is
credited with having originated the art of boring marble, and Pausanius
describes a golden lamp which he invented, and which he dedicated to
Athene, which when filled with oil burned exactly a year without going
out.
It may be said broadly of the Grecian people in their employment of
the three grand orders of architecture that the first two—namely, the
Doric and Ionic—more closely harmonized with the dignity and nobility
of their national character. In fact, Greece arrived at the pinnacle
of her civilization and brought her philosophy of human existence not
only in theory, but in practice, to its highest ideals before the
Corinthian order of architecture appeared to claim a share in her
artistic reputation. The stately solidity of the Doric and the graceful
purity of the Ionic lent the perfection of architectural framework to
the mental strength and loftiness of ideal of the Hellenic people. They
seemed to accord with the philosophy that was originally preached from
under the shadow of their pediments and entablatures. We can almost
see the doubting and mystified Theon stepping from the Doric portico
where Zeno held forth, to compare that philosopher’s stoical dogmas
with the doctrines of Prudence preached in the Ionic-encompassed garden
of Epicurus, by a philosopher ever destined to be misconstrued and
wrongfully interpreted.
“All learning is useful,” taught Epicurus; “all the sciences are
curious; all the arts are beautiful; but more useful, more curious
and more beautiful is the perfect knowledge and perfect government
of ourselves. Though a man should read the heavens, unravel their
laws and their revolutions; though he should dive into the mysteries
of matter, and expound the phenomena of the earth and air; though he
should be conversant with all the writings and sayings and actions of
the dead; though he should hold the pencil of Parrhasius, the chisel
of Polycletus or the lyre of Pindar; though he should be one or all of
these things, yet not know the secret springs of his own mind, the
foundation of his opinions, the motives of his actions; if he hold
not the rein over his passions; if he have not cleared the mist of
all prejudice from his understanding; if he have not rubbed off all
intolerance from his judgments; if he know not to weigh his own actions
and the actions of others in the balance of justice, that man hath not
knowledge, nor, though he be a man of science, a man of learning or
an artist, he is not a sage. He must sit down patient at the feet of
Philosophy. With all his learning he hath yet to learn, and perhaps a
harder task, he hath to _un_learn.”
The Corinthian order, on the other hand, notwithstanding all its
charm, beauty and variety, seemed to lack that steadfastness of
character which bound so firmly the other two orders to the hearts of
the Grecian people, and was never admitted into their fullest trust
and confidence. Indeed, it is generally conceded that the Corinthian
model grew in favor as the architectural art of Greece declined; and
only when Greece, losing her autonomy, began to lose her ambition and
intellectual greatness and independence. It reached its fullest vogue
with the later or Greco-Roman architects, who sacrificed much of purity
in art for lavish and sightly display. With the Greeks the Corinthian
was sparingly employed, and generally called upon for their smaller
and less important buildings; on the other hand, with the Romans,
enriched by additional features and ornamentation of their own, it
became the favorite order, not alone for portico and temple, but for
public and private buildings of every nature.
[Illustration: Three columns]