Page:A History of Art in Ancient Egypt Vol 2.djvu/107

Tin-: E(;vi'TiA OKr)KF<s. § 5 The Pier and Column. — The Egyptian Orders. THEIR ORIGIN. After the wall and the covering which the wall supports, we must study in some detail the pier, and the column which is the perfected form of the pier. Thanks to these latter elements of construction the architect is able to cover large spaces without impeding circulation, to exactly apportion the strength and number of his points of support to the weight to be carried and to the other conditions of the problem. By the form of their bases and capitals, by the proportions of their shafts, by the ornament laid upon them in colour or chiselled in their substance, he is enabled to give an artistic richness and variety which are practically infinite. Their arrangements and the proportions of their spacing are also of the greatest importance in the production of effect. In attempting to define a style of architecture and its individual expression, there is no part to which so much attention should be paid as the column. It should be examined, in the first place, as an isolated individual, with a stature and physiognomy proper to itself. Then in its social state, if we may use such a phrase ; in the various groups which go to make porticos, hypostyle halls, and colonnades. We shall begin, therefore, by examining what may be called the Egyptian orders, and afterwards we shall describe the principal combinations in which they were employed by the Theban architects. Our readers must remember the distinction, to which we called attention in the early part of our task, between two systems co- existing at one and the same time in Egypt ; wooden architecture and that in which stone was the chief material used.^ Under the Ancient Empire the only kind of detached support which appears to have been known in stone architecture, was the quadrangular pier, examples of which we find in the Temple of the Sphinx (Fig. 204, vol. i.). It was not so, however, in wooden construction. We find in the bas-reliefs belonging to that early epoch numerous representations of wooden columns, which, though all possessing the same slender proportions, were surmounted bv capitals of ^ See Chanter 11. vol. i.