Online Encyclopedia

COLUMN (Lat. columna)

Online Encyclopedia
Originally appearing in Volume V06, Page 748 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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COLUMN (
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Lat. columna)
  , in architecture, a vertical support consisting of capital, shaft and
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base, used to carry a
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horizontal beam or an arch . The earliest example in wood (2684 B.C.) was that found at Kahun in
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Egypt by Professor Flinders Petrie, which was fluted and stood on a raised base, and in stone the octagonal shafts of the early temple at
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Deir-el-Bahri (c . 285o) . In the tombs at Beni
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Hasan (2723 B.C.) are columns of two kinds, the octagonal or polygonal shaft, and the reed or
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lotus column, the horizontal section of which is a
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quatrefoil . This became later the favourite type, but it was made circular on plan . In all these examples the column rests on a stone base . (See also CAPITAL and ORDER.) The column was employed in
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Assyria in small structures only, such as pavilions or porticoes . In
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Persia the column, employed to carry
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timber superstructures only, was very lofty, being sometimes 12 diameters high; the shaft was fluted, the number of flutes varying from 30 to 52 . The earliest example of the Greek column is that represented in the temple fresco at
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Cnossus (c . 1600 B.C.), of which portions have been found . The columns were in cypress wood raised on a stone base and tapered downwards.' The same, though to a less degree, is found in the stone semi-detached columns which flank the doorway of the Tomb of
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Agamemnon at
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Mycenae; the shafts of these columns were carved with the chevron design . The earliest Greek columns in stone as isolated features are those of the Temple of Apollo at Syracuse (early 7th century B.C.), the shafts of which were monoliths, but as a
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rule the Greek columns were all built of drums, sometimes as many as ten or twelve .

There was no base to the Doric column, but the shafts were fluted, 20 flutes being the usual number . In the Archaic Temple of

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Diana at Ephesus there were 52 flutes . In the later examples of the Ionic order the shaft had 24 flutes . In the
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Roman temples the shafts were very often monoliths . Columns were occasionally used as supports for figures or other features . The Naxian column at Delphi of the Ionic order carried a sphinx . The Romans employed columns in various ways: the Trajan and the Antonine columns carried figures of the two emperors; the columna rostrata (26o B.C.) in the Forum was decorated with the beaks of
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ships and was a votive column, the miliaria column marked the centre of Rome from which all distances were measured . In the same way the column in the Place Vendome in Paris carries a statue of
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Napoleon I.; the monument of the Fire of
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London, a finial with flames sculptured on it; the duke of York's column (London), a statue of the duke of York . With the exception of the Cretan and Mycenaean, all the shafts of the classic orders tapered from the bottom upwards, and about one-third up the column had an increment,, known as the entasis, to correct an
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optical illusion which makes tapering shafts look
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concave; the proportions of diameter to height varied with the order employed . Thus, broadly speaking, a Roman Doric column will be eight, a Roman Ionic nine, a Corinthian ' The tree-trunk used as a column was inverted to retain the
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sap; hence the shape . • ten diameters in height . Except in rare cases, the columns of the Romanesque and
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Gothic styles were of equal diameter at top and bottom, and had no definite dimensions as regards diameter and height .

They were also grouped together

round piers which are known as clustered piers . When of exceptional
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size, as in Gloucester and Durham cathedrals,
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Waltham Abbey and
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Tewkesbury, they are generally called " pillars," which was apparently the
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medieval
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term for column . The word columna, employed by Vitruvius, was introduced into England by the
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Italian writers of the Revival . In the Renaissance period columns were frequently banded, the bands being concentric with the column as in France, and occasionally richly carved as in Philibert De L'Orme's
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work at the Tuileries . In England Inigo Jones introduced similar features, but with square blocks sometimes rusticated, a custcm lately revived in England, but of which there are few examples either in Italy or Spain . The word " column " is used, by analogy with architecture, for any upright
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body or mass, in chemistry, anatomy, typography, &c . (R . P .

End of Article: COLUMN (Lat. columna)
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