CORINTHIAN ORDER The Greeks invented, besides those already mentioned, another Order—the Corinthian. In the early examples of this Order which remain, we see evidences of the same processes of experimentation as tended to the development of the Doric Order, although it remained for the later Romans to give this type its most definite character. These Orders may be considered as successive steps in enriching and refining the effect of the column and entablature, along with their accompanying mouldings.
The Corinthian Order is distinguished from the other Orders by its principal characteristic, the capital, which is formed of two rows of acanthus leaves placed against a round vase or bracket, and which, with the abacus supported on the angles by volutes, is radically differ ent from anything we have before seen.
Origin of the Corinthian Order. As the importation from other countries of the ideas on which the two first Greek Orders, especially the Doric, were founded, has been fairly proved, it seems less un reasonable to believe that the idea of the Corinthian capital was also taken from Egypt, although the Greeks attribute its invention to an artist of their own country, Callimachus, an architect, painter, and sculptor, who exercised his art about the year 437 B. C. , Vitruvius tells a legend or story of the invention of the Corinthian capital. A young girl of Corinth having died, her nurse placed in the tomb a bracket on which were set objects most dear to her mis tress, and for protection from the rain she also placed a large tile over the bracket. A wild acan thus, whose roots were under neath the offering, spread its leaves around the outline until the tile curved their tops over and outward. Callimachus, . finding the forms produced by this hap pening most decorative, applied them to his creation of a new Order of architecture.
This capital was more probably developed from the lotus bell shaped Egyptian form, the principal difference between the two being in their height and proportions. In both we have a simple bell-shaped form ornamented by local varieties of leafage, the one taken from the lotus plant, and the other from the more spiny acanthus.
In the Temple of the Winds, the capital shows a combination of what is known as the "water leaf" with Greek acanthus leaves cover ing the lower portion of the capital and superposed upon their face. This water leaf suggests to a considerable extent the form of lotus used by the Egyptians in the capitals of some of their columns. The derivation of the spinals or volutes, used as they are on the angles of this capital, is not so obvious.
It has also been suggested that this form of capital came from the custom of ornamenting, on gala occasions, the capitals of the Ionic column with flowers and foliage, which we know were often festooned and draped between and around these columns. It is more probable, however, that this capital may have been suggested by the decorated Greek Ionic form; the decoration with leafage of the bell shaped portion being merely an exaggeration of the decorated necking employed in some examples of the use of the Ionic Order. The leaves in the capital are frequently drawn in the conventional outline manner shown in Plate XLVII, merely for ease in rendering; but they should actually be treated after the spiny fashion of the acanthus leaf, shown in Fig. 69.
Fundamental Rule to be Ob served in Making the Corinthian Capital. It is most important, in order to obtain the best effect with the Corinthian capital, that the leafage and growth of the leaves, and the form of the bell, should follow sharply and con tinue the outline of the column shaft up to the point where they are allowed to curve off under the volutes and abacus of the capital. This curve in itself should be carefully arranged so that its out line will suggest the firm support that is essential in order to obtain the best effect. If the leaves project beyond the line of the shaft at the bottom of the capital, the outline is bulging, unnatural, and most unpleasant to the eye.