In the early employment of these curved forms there is no evidence of natural suggestion, but later, leaves and floral details were added conveying the idea of growth. In Egyptian and Assyrian art certain natural types occur, such as the Lotus, Papyrus and the Palm, but these were utterly denaturalised, all realism being eliminated.
These conventions, though incidentally decorative, were invested with symbolic meaning with which their employment was concerned rather than with the imitation of natural form.
[Illustration: No. 232. Greek Anthemion. Relief Treatment.]
The Anthemion alone or in conjunction with the scroll or evolute line, appears in a painted form in the Greek vase decoration. Examination of these will reveal evidence of brush-work, the separate details being the result of direct flexion. In sculptured form it appears in the Antefixe, also as a cresting or finial to the stele heads, the separate radial features being channelled with sunken grooves or with ridges in relief.
[Illustration: No. 233. Greek Scroll from Choragic Monument of Lysikrates, Athens. Carved Stone.]
It is conceivable that the attenuated effect of the mere scrolling line suggested the desirability of the occasional mass and variety that would be obtained by employing leaves.
[Illustration: No. 234. Wrought Iron Scroll. Detail of Hinge, Notre Dame, Paris. Early French Gothic.]
Greek sculptural ornament is comparatively devoid of natural suggestion, the branching scrolls with sheath leaves being æsthetic rather than imitative. The leaves employed bear little resemblance to those of the later Roman period, and consist generally of a succession of radial grooves with undulating or prickly edges, and are obviously adapted from the anthemion detail.
In the scrolls employed on the Choragic monument at Athens the desire was evidently play of line and silhouette.
The flexible and open form, though possible in bent metal or in painted work, is unsuitable to carving in stone. Adequate support being essential, the scrolls had to be united by the leaves, which were necessarily massed in form and decorated by channellings or grooves to give further detail and interest.
A development of the leaf treatment was the division into lobes, each lobe being channelled with a group of radial grooves ending in serrations. The lobes were divided by holes, or, as they are generally termed, eyes, more or less circular in shape, and these were connected with the base of the leaf by pipes or Tines in relief, conforming with the general radial distribution.