DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.9177#0065
Ill
THE GREEK TEMPLE
45
was no definite reason against their adornment with reliefs.
When the wooden pillar gave way to stone, the reliefs of its
bronze covering might well be copied. This may have been the
turn taken by events at Ephesus, a turn imitated only in one or
two other great temples, and definitely set aside by the progress
of architecture. In the same way, the use of the human form
as a pillar of a porch, which is familiar to us from the Erechtheum,
we now know to have been borrowed from early Ionian art,
since it occurs in the case of the Cnidian and Siphnian treasuries
at Delphi. This must also be classed as an aberration, as must
the doubled line of frieze on the entablature of the archaic
temple at Assos in the Troad. The interesting point is that
the vitality of architecture made it set aside these mistaken de-
partures and come back to the better line of development.
All the parts of the temple may be considered in another
light, that of origin and derivation, rather than in that of reason
and idea. In regard to origins, the most striking fact is the
double derivation of the temple, and the marked difference in
type between the Doric and the Ionic varieties. Both show a
great influence of wooden construction; but while the Doric
belongs to Greece proper and seems to continue the line of
Mycenaean structure, the Ionic was developed on the coast of
Asia Minor. The Corinthian style was but a variety of the
Ionic, late in use, but going back to a not late type, perhaps
originating, as M. Choisy thinks, in columns adorned at the top
with metal decoration. Vitruvius speaks of the Doric style,
with its massive simplicity, as essentially male, and of the slim-
mer and more highly decorated Ionic as in character female.
M. Choisy has acutely traced many of the peculiarities of Ionic
architecture to the smallness of the wooden beams used in its
early efforts, whereas the Dorians, dwelling in a better wooded
country, used from the first more massive beams. Another
characteristic difference between the styles is that the Dorian
architect was content with painted bands of decoration; the
THE GREEK TEMPLE
45
was no definite reason against their adornment with reliefs.
When the wooden pillar gave way to stone, the reliefs of its
bronze covering might well be copied. This may have been the
turn taken by events at Ephesus, a turn imitated only in one or
two other great temples, and definitely set aside by the progress
of architecture. In the same way, the use of the human form
as a pillar of a porch, which is familiar to us from the Erechtheum,
we now know to have been borrowed from early Ionian art,
since it occurs in the case of the Cnidian and Siphnian treasuries
at Delphi. This must also be classed as an aberration, as must
the doubled line of frieze on the entablature of the archaic
temple at Assos in the Troad. The interesting point is that
the vitality of architecture made it set aside these mistaken de-
partures and come back to the better line of development.
All the parts of the temple may be considered in another
light, that of origin and derivation, rather than in that of reason
and idea. In regard to origins, the most striking fact is the
double derivation of the temple, and the marked difference in
type between the Doric and the Ionic varieties. Both show a
great influence of wooden construction; but while the Doric
belongs to Greece proper and seems to continue the line of
Mycenaean structure, the Ionic was developed on the coast of
Asia Minor. The Corinthian style was but a variety of the
Ionic, late in use, but going back to a not late type, perhaps
originating, as M. Choisy thinks, in columns adorned at the top
with metal decoration. Vitruvius speaks of the Doric style,
with its massive simplicity, as essentially male, and of the slim-
mer and more highly decorated Ionic as in character female.
M. Choisy has acutely traced many of the peculiarities of Ionic
architecture to the smallness of the wooden beams used in its
early efforts, whereas the Dorians, dwelling in a better wooded
country, used from the first more massive beams. Another
characteristic difference between the styles is that the Dorian
architect was content with painted bands of decoration; the