SCULPTURED CURLS

Evening Star, Issue 23503, 17 February 1940, Page 15

SCULPTURED CURLS

With the return of sculptural curls to fashion, it is interesting to recall that they first came into vogue m the fifth century, n.c., and were the means of inspiring the sculptors of the lonio column, whose spirals’ or volutes are familiar to many. These spirals are really replicas in stone of some bygone beauty’s actual sculptural curls. The inspiration did not come immediately to the sculptor. The lonic column is a descendant of an Oriental column whoso capital was composed of lily petals curled over. When th« Greeks borrowed the idea they strove to get a more graceful and artistio effect by curling the petals over more than the Egyptians had done, hut they still could not get the effect of soft grace they wanted. The story goes that one day when Phidias, the _ great sculptor, was at work, he noticed-a'tall, slender Athe-. nian beauty passing by. She was wearing a long pleated white tunic which had a fluted look, and her golden hair was curled in the sculptured manner. The idea came to him that a Greek woman’s curies would be more graceful for a capital than the Egyptian lily petals, and he changed the petals to curls fluting the column till its spirit was that of the lovely, slender, graceful Athenian. _ But it is the spirals that give the lonic column its character. When the Oriental original and the_ finished lonic columns are compared point is added to this story. The lonic column, for all its beauty, must be acknowledged as the first monument ever erected to a style of hairdressing. It is one that is never likely to suffer extinction.