The Ionic order is one of the three canonic
orders of
classical architecture, the other two being the
Doric and the
Corinthian. There are two lesser orders: the
Tuscan (a plainer Doric), and the rich variant of Corinthian called the
composite order. Of the three classical canonic orders, the Corinthian order has the narrowest columns, followed by the Ionic order, with the Doric order having the widest columns.
The Ionic capital is characterized by the use of
volutes. The Ionic
columns normally stand on a base which separates the shaft of the column from the
stylobate or platform while the cap is usually enriched with
egg-and-dart.
The ancient architect and architectural historian
Vitruvius associates the Ionic with feminine proportions (the Doric representing the masculine).[1]
Description
Capital
The major features of the Ionic order are the
volutes of its
capital, which have been the subject of much theoretical and practical discourse, based on a brief and obscure passage in
Vitruvius.[2] The only tools required to design these features were a straight-edge, a right angle, string (to establish half-lengths) and a compass. Below the volutes, the Ionic column may have a wide collar or banding separating the capital from the
fluted shaft (as in, for example, the
neoclassical mansion
Castle Coole), or a swag of fruit and flowers may swing from the clefts or "neck" formed by the volutes.
Originally, the volutes lay in a single plane (illustration at right); then it was seen that they could be angled out on the corners. This feature of the Ionic order made it more pliant and satisfactory than the Doric to critical eyes in the 4th century BC: angling the volutes on the corner columns ensured that they "read" equally when seen from either front or side facade. However, some classical artists viewed this as unsatisfactory, feeling that the placement of Ionic columns at building corners required a distortion at the expense of the capital's structural logic; the
Corinthian order would solve this by reading equally well from all angles.[3] The 16th-century Renaissance architect and theorist
Vincenzo Scamozzi designed a version of such a perfectly four-sided Ionic capital that it became standard; when a Greek Ionic order was eventually reintroduced in the later 18th century
Greek Revival, it conveyed an air of archaic freshness and primitive, perhaps even republican, vitality.[4]
Columns and entablature
The Ionic
column is always more slender than the Doric; therefore, it always has a base:[5] Ionic columns are eight and nine column-diameters tall, and even more in the
Antebellum colonnades of late American Greek Revival plantation houses.[citation needed]
Ionic columns are most often
fluted. After a little early experimentation, the number of hollow flutes in the shaft settled at 24. This standardization kept the fluting in a familiar proportion to the diameter of the column at any scale, even when the height of the column was exaggerated. Roman fluting leaves a little of the column surface between each hollow; Greek fluting runs out to a knife edge that was easily scarred.
In some instances, the fluting has been omitted. English architect
Inigo Jones introduced a note of sobriety with plain Ionic columns on his
Banqueting House, Whitehall, London, and when Beaux-Arts architect
John Russell Pope wanted to convey the manly stamina combined with intellect of
Theodore Roosevelt, he left colossal Ionic columns unfluted on the Roosevelt memorial at the
American Museum of Natural History, New York City, for an unusual impression of strength and stature. Wabash Railroad architect R.E. Mohr included eight unfluted Ionic frontal columns on his 1928 design for the railroad's
Delmar Boulevard station in St. Louis.
Left image: Characteristic design of the Ionic
anta capital (essentially flat layout with straight horizontal
moldings). Right image: A Ionic
anta capital, with extensive bands of floral patterns in prolongation of adjoining
friezes at the
Erechtheion (circa 410 BC).
The
entablature resting on the columns has three parts: a plain
architrave divided into two, or more generally three, bands, with a
frieze resting on it that may be richly sculptural, and a
cornice built up with
dentils (like the closely spaced ends of joists), with a corona ("crown") and cyma ("ogee")
molding to support the projecting roof. Pictorial often narrative
bas-relief frieze carving provides a characteristic feature of the Ionic order, in the area where the Doric order is articulated with
triglyphs. Roman and Renaissance practice condensed the height of the entablature by reducing the proportions of the architrave, which made the frieze more prominent.
The Ionic anta capital is the Ionic version of the
anta capital, the crowning portion of an
anta, which is the front edge of a supporting wall in
Greek temple architecture. The anta is generally crowned by a stone block designed to spread the load from superstructure (
entablature) it supports, called an "anta capital" when it is structural, or sometimes "
pilaster capital" if it is only decorative as often during the Roman period.
In order not to protrude unduly from the wall, these anta capitals usually display a rather flat surface, so that the capital has more or less a rectangular-shaped structure overall. The Ionic anta capital, in contrast to the regular column capitals, is highly decorated and generally includes bands of alternating
lotuses and
flame palmettes, and bands of
eggs and darts and
beads and reels patterns, in order to maintain continuity with the decorative frieze lining the top of the walls. This difference with the column capitals disappeared with Roman times when anta or pilaster capitals have designs very similar to those of the column capitals.[6][7] The Ionic anta capitals as can be seen in the Ionic order temple of the
Erechtheion (circa 410 BCE), are characteristically rectangular Ionic anta capitals, with extensive bands of floral patterns in prolongation of adjoining
friezes.
History of use
The Ionic order originated in the mid-6th century BC in
Ionia (broadly equivalent to modern day
İzmir Province), as well as the southwestern coastland and islands of
Asia Minor settled by
Ionians, where
Ionic Greek was spoken. The Ionic order column was being practiced in mainland Greece in the 5th century BC. It was most popular in the
Archaic Period (750–480 BC) in Ionia. The first of the great Ionic temples was the
Temple of Hera on
Samos, built about 570–560 BC by the architect
Rhoikos. It stood for only a decade before it was leveled by an earthquake. A longer-lasting 6th century Ionic temple was the
Temple of Artemis at
Ephesus, one of the
Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. The
Parthenon, although it conforms mainly to the Doric order, also has some Ionic elements. A more purely Ionic mode to be seen on the
Athenian Acropolis is exemplified in the
Erechtheum.
Following the conquests of
Alexander the Great in the east, a few examples of the Ionic order can be found as far as
Pakistan with the
Jandial temple near
Taxila. Several examples of capitals displaying Ionic influences can be seen as far away as
Patna,
India, especially with the
Pataliputra capital, dated to the 3rd century BC, and seemingly derived from the design of the Ionic anta capital,[8][9] or the
Sarnath capital, which has been described as "Perso-Ionic",[10] or "quasi-Ionic".[11][12][13]
Vitruvius, a practicing architect who worked in the time of
Augustus, reports that the Doric column had its initial basis in the proportions of the male body, while Ionic columns took on a "slenderness" inspired by the female body.[14] Though he does not name his source for such a self-conscious and "literary" approach, it must be in traditions passed on from
Hellenistic architects, such as
Hermogenes of Priene, the architect of a famed temple of Artemis at
Magnesia on the Meander in Lydia (now Türkiye).
Renaissance architectural theorists took his hints to interpret the Ionic order as matronly in comparison to the Doric order, though not as wholly feminine as the Corinthian order. The Ionic is a natural order for post-Renaissance libraries and courts of justice, learned and civilized. Because no treatises on classical architecture survive earlier than that of Vitruvius, identification of such "meaning" in architectural elements as it was understood in the 5th and 4th centuries BC remains tenuous, though during the Renaissance it became part of the conventional "speech" of classicism.[15]
From the 17th century onwards, a much admired and copied version of Ionic was that which could be seen in the
Temple of Fortuna Virilis in Rome, first clearly presented in a detailed engraving in
Antoine Desgodetz, Les edifices antiques de Rome (Paris 1682).
Ancient Greek Ionic columns of the
Erechtheion, Greece, with parallel volutes, unknown architect, 421-405 BC[17]
Roman Ionic corner capital from the
Temple of Portunus, Rome, with two sides with volutes, and one for the corner of the facade projecting at a 45° angle, unknown architect, early 4th century BC
Roman Ionic columns of the
Temple of Saturn, Rome, with diagonal volutes, unknown architect, 3rd of 4th century AD[18]
Greek Revival Ionic columns of the Branch Bank of the United States, now in the Charles Engelhard Court of the
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City, inspired by those of the Temple of Artemis Agrotera in Athens, by
Martin E. Thompson, 1824
Greek Revival Ionic columns of the main building of the
Academy of Athens, inspired by those of the Erechtheum in Athens, by
Theophilus Hansen, 1859-1885
Art Deco reinterpretations of the Ionic column and pilaster of an unidentified house in the Quartier Lescure,
Bordeaux, France, unknown architect,
c.1925
Stalinist Ionic columns of the Colonels' Quarter (
Șoseaua Panduri no. 60-62), Bucharest, 1950–1960, by I.Novițchi, C.Ionescu, C.Hacker and A.Șerbescu[29]
Postmodern reinterpretation of the Ionic column as the Capitello seating, designed by
Studio 65 and produced by
Gufram, differentiated-density
polyurethane foam coated with latex rubber, 1972, unknown location[30]
^The Classical Language of Architecture by John Summerson, p.47 "Anta" entry
[1]
^"These flat, splaying members with cavetto sides, have a long history in Greek architecture as anta capitals, and the rolls at upper and lower sides are also seen" John Boardman, "The Origins of Indian Stone Architecture", p.19 : "An interesting flat capital which, though differing from the classic forms, bears a distinct resemblance to the capitals of the pilasters of the Temple of Apollo Didymaeos at Miletos"
[2]
^A Companion to Asian Art and Architecture by Deborah S. Hutton, John Wiley & Sons, 2015, p.438
[3]
^Vitruvius (1914) [ca. 30–15 BC].
The Ten Books on Architecture. Translated by
Morgan, Morris H. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. p. 104. Thus in the invention of the two different kinds of columns, they borrowed manly beauty, naked and unadorned, for the one, and for the other the delicacy, adornment, and proportions characteristic of women.
^Mariana Celac, Octavian Carabela and Marius Marcu-Lapadat (2017). Bucharest Architecture - an annotated guide. Ordinul Arhitecților din România. p. 181.
ISBN978-973-0-23884-6.