Thou shalt not escape "columny"

Ornament: A Social History Since 1450, Snodin and Howard. The discovery of the Corinthian, engraving from Roland Freart de Chambray, A Parallel of Ancient Architecture with the Modern, from the 1723 edition of John Evelyn's 1664 translation of Freart's book, pub. Paris 1650, from a V& A book.

I am indebted to Little Augury for sending me this delightful engraving showing the discovery, (or creation) of the Corinthian capital. According to the architectural historian Vitruvius, the column was created by the sculptor Callimachus, probably an Athenian, who drew acanthus leaves growing around a votive basket.

At the same time, this rather pretty water colour  by Louis Comfort Tiffany (American 1848-1933),  14" x 10", 'Roman Temple Ruins' is for sale at auction with an estimate of USD7,000-10,000.

I have bastardised the line from Hamlet:

If thou dost marry, I’ll give thee this plague for thy dowry.

Be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as snow, thou shalt not

escape calumny. Get thee to a nunnery, go.

 

to invent my columny*.

*although this would suggest otherwise.

Columns

The Tuscan, Doric, Ionic and Corinthian, plus the Composite, (immediately above) are neatly and consisely laid out in this architectural drawing.

In Thailand there is a Thai neo-classical column, which is used in a number of the Grand Palace buildings, and the Grand Hyatt hotel (top), as depicted in the photographs; next door to the Grand Hyatt is a shopping mall on the left (third picture), which uses Ionic columns in its design, so there's an interesting contrast of the two, for any aficionado of this architectural design element. It's interesting to note that the Thai neo-classical has unopened lotus flowers, which is an entirely appropriate twist.