The Gospel of Hellas - Research Institute for Waldorf Education

Volutes on Ionic Capital
the song of stone
Volutes, metamorphosis, on the
Corinthian Capital
It is clear that the Ionic style, especially the capital, was strongly influenced
by the Orient and we must distinguish between the Asiatic-Ionic and the
Attic-Ionic capitals. Both are the expression of a cosmopolitan, Panhellenic
amalgamation. If we may say that the Doric column grew out of the soil, we
may add, figuratively speaking, that the Ionic column was carried by vessels of
the Aegean between Attica and Asia Minor. It arose out of the Panhellenic
colonization of the Ionians on both sides of that sea as well as in southern
Italy.
The ancestry of the Ionic capital had Egypt and Assyria as its home.
Volutes which lead upward are seen in the composite column of the eighteenth
dynasty, in Al-Amarna. And a capital with a horizontal ribbon of volutes can
be observed on a building of Chorsabad in Assyria. The palmate capital of the
column at Abusir in Egypt shows us the ever-recurrent motif of the lotus and
palmate design, symbolizing the earth-sun forces as above described. Through
the principle of weight-bearing repre-
sented by the volute we take the next
step, toward the Corinthian capital.
The main feature of the Corinthian
capital is the trend toward a
perfect volute. It reveals that which the
volutes of the Ionic capital omitted, the
ornamental palmate motif. Where-
as on the Doric column this motif was
painted, on the Corinthian column it
appeared as a plastic ornament. The