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Much of the symbolism of Freemasonry is drawn from the art of architecture. While the improvements of Greek and Roman architecture are recognized in Freemasonry, the three ancient orders, the Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian are alone symbolized. No symbolism attaches to the Tuscan and Composite.
As in much contemporary architecture, the woodwork is conspicuous for the free use of the orders. For example, one immediately notes the mutulary Doric cornice and frieze along the sides, and the pulvinated Ionic entablature across the chancel gable above the Palladian window.
The British Museum is a noble institution, both in its object and its general appearance. Its front measures three hundred and seventy feet in length, the central portion being decorated with a grand line of lofty columns in the Ionic style. These columns are five feet in diameter and forty-five feet in height.
The chief are the OVOLO, which formed the curved part of the Doric capital, and the crowning moulding of the Doric cornice; the CYMA; the BIRD'S BEAK, employed in the capitals of the antæ; the FILLETS under the Doric capital; the hollows and TORUS mouldings of the Ionic and Corinthian bases.
In the center of a fine garden stands the royal palace, known as the Oscarlot, a large quadrangular building, devoid of beauty, though built in the Ionic style of architecture.
It may be that the impulse to represent gods and men in wood or stone was awakened in Greece by the example of older communities. It may be that one or two types of figures were suggested by foreign models. It may be that a hint was taken from Egypt for the form of the Doric column and that the Ionic capital derives from an Assyrian prototype.
As we look over the list of the girls who went in and out under the Ionic porch of the new academy, we see they were by inheritance and nature well worthy the broad and generous course of study marked out for them by Dr Jackson, Samuel Farrar and the others.
They followed him, and he pointed to a framework of carved wood that connected the four posts. "What is this on the frieze running above the capitals of the little Ionic pillars?" "The papal crown and keys," said Mary. "Good! Now regard the other side." "A coat of arms a golden bull on a red ground why, father, that was what puzzled you at Florence!" "Surely it was.
To afford an advantageous view from either point, the tower, which is circular, is nearly detached from the body of the church, and is surrounded by columns of the modern Ionic order, supporting an entablature, crowned by a balustrade, which is continued along the sides of the church.
This simplicity and harmony are more apparent in the Doric than in any of the other orders, but pertain to all the Grecian temples of which we have knowledge. The Ionic and Corinthian, or the voluted and foliated orders, do not possess that severe harmony which pervades the Doric; but the more beautiful compositions are so consummate that they will ever be taken as models of study.
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