Columna
（
κίων, στύλος). A column, employed in architecture to
support the entablature and roof of an edifice. It is composed of three principal parts: the
capital (
capitulum), the shaft (
scapus), and the
base (
spira). The column was, moreover, constructed in three principal
styles or orders, each possessing characteristic forms and proportions of its own, distinctive
of the order, but by unprofessional persons most readily distinguished by the difference in
the capitals.
1.
Dorĭca, the Doric; the oldest, most substantial, and
heaviest of all, which has no base, and a very simple capital. (See
Capitulum.)
2.
Ionĭca, the Ionic; the next in lightness, which is
furnished with a base and has its capital decorated with volutes. (See
Capitulum.)
3.
Corinthia, the Corinthian; the lightest of all, which has a base
and a plinth below it, and a deep capital ornamented with foliage. (See
Capitulum.) To these are often added:
4.
Tuscanĭca, the Tuscan; only known from the account of
Vitruvius, and which nearly resembled the Roman Doric; and
5.
Composĭta, the Composite; a mixed order, formed by
combining the volutes of the Ionic with the foliage of the Corinthian.
Figs. 1 and 2 give instances of the Doric style from the temple at Paestum and the
Parthenon at Athens. The Doric column consists (A) of the shaft, which increases in diameter
almost invisibly up to about one-quarter of its height, and diminishes slightly after that
point. It has no base, but rests immediately on the stylobate. It is surrounded with
semicircular flutings, meeting each other at a sharp angle. These were chiselled with a
cedarwood tool after the separate drums had been put together. (B) The capital. This consists
of three parts—（
a) the
hypotrachelion,
or neck of the column, a continuation of the shaft, but separated by
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Doric Order.
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an indentation from the other drums. It is wider at the top than at the bottom, and is
generally ornamented with several parallel and horizontal rings. (
b) The
echinus, a circular moulding or cushion, which widens greatly towards
the top. (
c) The
abax or
abacus, a square slab supporting the architrave or epistylion. The height of the shaft
is usually 5 1/2 times, the distance between the columns 1 1/2 times, the diameter of the
base of the column. The architrave is a quadrangular beam of stone, reaching from pillar to
pillar. On this again rests the frieze (
zophoros), so called from the
metopes which are adorned with sculptures in relief. These metopes are square spaces between
the triglyphs; the triglyphs are surfaces cut into three concave grooves, two whole grooves
in the centre, and two half grooves at the sides. One is placed over each pillar, and one
between each pair of pillars. The entablature is completed by a projecting cornice, a slab
crowned with a simple heading-course, the lower surface of which is ornamented with sloping
corbels (
στάγονες,
mutuli).
An instance is given in Fig. 3 from the temple on the Ilissus at Athens. These are loftier
than the
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Ionic Order; Corinthian Order.
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Doric, their height being 8 1/2-9 1/2 times the diameter of the lower part. The
enlargement of the lower part is also less than in the Doric columns, the distance between
each column greater (2 diameters), the flutings (generally 24 in number) deeper, and
separated by small flat surfaces. The Ionic column has a base, consisting of a square slab
(
πλίνθος), and several cushion-like
supports separated by grooves. The capital, again, is more artistically developed. The neck,
instead of flutings, has five leaves worked in relief. The echinus is very small and
ornamented with an egg pattern. Over it, instead of the
abacus, is a
four-cornered cushion ending before and behind in spiral volutes, supporting a narrow square
slab, which is also adorned with an egg pattern. The architrave is divided into three bands,
projecting one above the other, and upon it rises, in an uninterrupted surface, the frieze,
adorned with reliefs continuously along its whole length. Finally, the cornice is composed of
different parts.
The Corinthian column is shown in Fig. 4, from the monument of
Lysicrates at Athens. The base and shaft are identical with the Ionic, but the capital takes
the form of an open calix formed of acanthus leaves. Above this is another set of leaves,
from between which grow stalks with small leaves, rounded into the form of volutes. On this
rests a small abacus widening towards the top, and on this, again, the entablature, which is
borrowed from the Ionic order. On the human figures employed instead of columns to support
the entablature, see
Atlas; Canephori;
Caryae.
The Romans adopted the Greek styles of column, but not always in their pure form. They were
fondest of the Corinthian, which they laboured to enrich with new and often excessive
ornamentation. For instance, they crowned the Corinthian capital with the Ionic, thus forming
what is called the Roman or composite capital. The style known as Tuscan is a degenerate form of the Doric. The Tuscan column has a smooth shaft, in
height 7 diameters of the lower part, and tapering up to three-quarters of its lower
dimensions. Its base consists of two parts—a circular plinth and a cushion of equal
height. The capital is formed of three parts of equal height.
In other styles, too, the Romans sometimes adopted the smooth instead of the fluted shaft,
as, for instance, in the
Pantheon (q.v.).
This most beautiful of all architectural supports originated from the simplest beginnings.
A few strong poles, or the straight trunks of trees, stuck into the ground, in order to
support a cross-piece for a thatch of boughs or straw to rest upon, formed the first shaft
(
scapus) of a column. When a tile or slab of wood was placed under the
bottom of the trunk to form a foundation and prevent the shaft from sinking too deeply into
the ground, the first notion of a base (
spira) was attained; and a
similar one, placed on its top, to afford a broader surface for the cross-beam or architrave
to rest upon, furnished the first capital. Thus these simple elements, elaborated by the
genius and industry of succeeding ages, produced the several distinctive properties of the
architectural orders.
One point, however, is to be constantly borne in mind—that the column of ancient
architecture always implies a real, and not a fictitious, support; for neither the Greeks nor
the Romans, until the arts had declined, ever made use of columns as the moderns do, in their
buildings, as a superfluous ornament, or mere accessory to the edifice, but as a main and
essentially constituent portion of the fabric, which would immediately fall to pieces if they
were removed; and that the abusive application of coupled, clustered, incastrated, imbedded
columns, etc., was never admitted in Greek architecture; for the chief beauty of the
column consists in its isolation, by means of which it presents an endless variety of views
and changes of scene, with every movement of the spectator, whether seen in rank or in file.
See Mauch,
Die Architekt. Ordn. der Griech., Römer, und Neueren
Meister (5th ed. Berlin, 1862); Reber,
Geschichte der Baukunst
im Alterthum (Leipzig, 1866); Fergusson,
Hist. of
Architecture, vol. i.
(2d ed. Boston, 1883); Lübke,
Hist. of Art, 2 vols.
(Eng. trans., N. Y. 1877).
