ACANTHUS

THE FOLKLORE OF PLANTS: Acanthus

Lisa Karen Miller

Acanthus mollis served, quite accidentally, as the model for the Corinthian column. Native to the Mediterranean, its name derives from the Greek akantha – thorny leaves. It symbolizes admiration of the arts.

As the story goes, a beautiful young Greek girl fell ill and died. After she was buried, her nurse collected all her trinkets into a basket and set it on her tomb over the roots of an acanthus plant. She covered the basket with a tile, to protect its contents from the weather.

In the spring, the plant’s stalks and leaves burst forth, covering the outside of the basket. When they reached the tile, they curved back on themselves.

Cue Callimachus, the 5^th century BCE Athenian sculptor and architect who set up the basic rules of proportion. He walks by the cemetery, sees the leaves so attractively curved, and is inspired to design a new capital for a column.

Widely known as a perfectionist and his own worst critic, he came to the tomb day after day to sketch the plant from all angles, finally devising a way to incorporate it into his new design.

Eventually, he installed these exciting innovations on several buildings around Corinth, and the Corinthian column was born. The capitals display both delicate features and profuse ornamentation, calling to mind youthful femininity.

Local examples of this type of column can be seen on the courthouse in downtown Bowling Green, and Van Meter Auditorium, Schneider Hall, and the President’s house at WKU.

Mythology tells us that Acantha was yet another maiden pursued by Apollo. One begins to think he was a sort of Edward the Seventh among Olympians – chasing every woman in sight. The nymph rebuffed his advances, scratching his face in the process. Apollo then turned her into the acanthus plant, which looks beautiful from afar but whose spiny leaves will injure any admirer who gets too close.

Spiteful, those Greek gods.

An herbaceous plant with white, blue, or purple flowers, it used to grow wild abundantly in the Mediterranean. Dioscorides included it in his great work, De Materia Medica.

In England, it earned the common name Bear’s Breeches. During the Victorian era, designer James Page composed the “Guide for Drawing the Acanthus and Every Description of Ornamental Foliage,” which described how to design ornaments based on the plant’s form.

Corinthian capitals now grace buildings all around the world. It’s all because of an unnamed little girl who died 2,500 years ago.