Page:An Elementary History of Art.djvu/65

Greek Architecture. 35 — which is complete without it — is too constant a feature of Grecian buildings to be left unmentioned. We have already described its position. Doric temples are now known to have been painted both externally and internally, and the colouring must have greatly increased the beauty of the general effect. The Ionic Order. The Ionic order (Fig. 19) is of quite a different character to the Doric. Instead of stern simplicity, we have graceful and pleasing, but often conventional, forms. The capital of the column is the distinctive mark of the order, but the column itself varies greatly from the Doric. Instead of rising abruptly from the platform of the building, it has a base consisting of a series of mouldings at the bottom of the shaft. The shaft itself is taller and more slender, the channels or flutes are more numerous, more deeply cut, and have spaces left between them called fillets. A necking is generally introduced in Ionic columns between the shaft and the capital. The latter, the distinguishing mark of the order, has an echinus like the Doric, but instead of a simple flat abacus two volutes (i. e. spiral mouldings) pro- jecting considerably beyond the echinus on either side. The upper part of the Ionic capital is a thin, square, moulded abacus, adorned with leaf patterns. In the other portions of Ionic buildings we notice the same increase of richness and variety of form as in the columns. The frieze, instead of being divided into triglyjohs and metopes, consists of one unbroken series of perpen- dicular slabs, generally adorned with figures in bas-relief D2