I is for Ionic: A-Z of Historic Buildings
No glossary of architecture would be complete without the Ionic ‘order’ or style of architecture. Like the Doric, the Ionic really refers to a repertoire of decorative motifs, all centering around the column. The most important part, the ‘head’ of the column, is the capital. The capital, by the way, is just another way of saying head: caput means ‘head’ in Latin.
The Ionic order is the ‘matronly’ order. It—or perhaps one should say ‘she’—represents a mature and feminine character. Interestingly, Vitruvius describes this as somewhere between Doric (hyper masculine) and Corinthian (hyper feminine). Why was the Ionic order ‘invented’? Because the Athenians wanted a new style to express their devotion to the goddess Diana.
The new Ionic order was to be of greater elegance and loftiness, hence its columns have a height to thickness ratio of 8:1. They gave the capital swirls, to us perhaps akin to a Danish pastry but to Vitruvius “like graceful curly hair hanging on each side”. Finally, they gave the Ionic deep grooves up and down the column, like “the folds of a matronal garment.”
Any good historian reads their sources with a degree of scepticism. Vitruvius is no different. Part of the problem, as explained in the entry D is for Doric, is that Vitruvius is the only long-form voice who talked about architecture for the whole of Antiquity in the west. We have no alternative takes on the subject.
An Archaic Greek ionic capital from Thessaloniki, 6th century BC. (Photo by Jean Housen, CC-BY-SA. Rotation corrected.)
If one looks at real Ionic columns, just as if one looks at Doric ones, one finds that the ratios of the columns may often be completely different to 8:1. Similarly, not all Ionic columns actually have grooves cut into the shafts. If one looks at ‘Archaic’, very early Greek Ionic capitals (that Vitruvius might not have seen) the flowing hair metaphor is not very convincing. These very early ionic capitals have chunky volutes, with a low groove or sometimes a shallow band like those applied to a hot cross bun. Furthermore, the volutes are often far too big for the column shaft, in a way which is frankly ugly.
It is perhaps little surprise that serious scholarship on the origin of the Ionic order ignores Vitruvius in favour of looking at actual examples of the capital that are securely dated. However, truth is not always the point: Vitruvius gives us an insight into the myth behind the order, and one which will have influenced any educated pair of eyes setting sight onto this curious architectural form since him, as long as they have access to his text. Do you find the Ionic order ‘matronly’? If you were not influenced by a text like this, what would you naturally liken the ‘volute’ swirl to?
