Alexander Grabovetskiy, woodcarver, School of Woodcarving · Published 2017
What is the difference between a Corinthian and a Greek acanthus leaf?
Quick answer: A Greek acanthus leaf is a Corinthian one with volutes added. Corinthian divisions run straight and few, while the Greek form curls its lobes into small spirals and keeps a V shaped hollow along the middle of each. Three main movements and five subdivisions carry both.
The volute is the one thing that separates a Greek acanthus from the Corinthian one that came before it. Everything else carries straight over. Three main movements, five subdivisions inside them, and a hollow running the length of every lobe, except that in Greek work those lobes curl.
You have carved a Corinthian leaf and it came out stiff. All the divisions are there, the proportions are right, and the thing still looks like a diagram rather than a plant. That stiffness is not your carving. It is the form, and the Greeks fixed it themselves about twenty five centuries ago.
This lesson is drawing, not carving. No wood gets touched until the paper is right.
What you settle before a tool comes out
- Trace your block onto paper first, so the drawing is the exact size of what you will carve.
- Take the block down about 5/8 of an inch, roughly half its thickness, since this leaf sits deeper than the Corinthian.
- Get the whole leaf outlined before making a single division inside it.
- Each centre line runs to the main flow. No exceptions anywhere on the drawing.
- Five subdivisions per movement, which is what the ancient examples mostly show.
- A V shaped hollow down the inside of each lobe is what keeps it historically Greek.
How did the Corinthian leaf look?
Straight, plain, and old. The Corinthian acanthus is probably the most ancient form there is, and it shows: three divisions running more or less straight up the leaf, very few curves anywhere, nothing doubling back on itself. Simple in the honest sense of the word.
Corinthian belongs to Greek culture too, which confuses people. It is early Greek, and what we are drawing today came a little later from mainland Greece. Same civilisation, later chapter, and the difference between the two chapters is visible from across a room.
What exactly is a volute?
A spiral that turns in on itself, and calling it a curl undersells it. I said curl on camera and corrected myself within a minute, because volute is the right word for what the Greeks put into this leaf. Look at the top of an Ionic column and you are looking at the same shape at architectural scale.
Even here it is not a true volute yet. Greek carvers introduced the movement rather than perfecting it, and the fully wound spiral turns up later, in forms that also grow far more subdivisions than we are drawing today.
How do the two forms compare
| Feature | Corinthian | Greek |
|---|---|---|
| Movement of the lobes | Straight | Curled into volutes, with an S turn where one lobe meets another |
| Inside of a lobe | Concave | Concave both sides, meeting in a V |
| Main divisions | Three of them, running more or less straight up the leaf | Three again |
| Subdivisions | Plain | Five, usually, and the fifth one often has nowhere left to go |
Where does the golden ratio come into it?
Right about here, historically. Rules of composition arrived in Greek art during this period and the golden ratio developed alongside them, which is why a Greek leaf sits on a board differently from a Corinthian one. The golden rule is a swirl. Same shape as the volute, at a different scale.
For finding your main point on paper there is a rough trick. Divide the sheet in three and use those lines, and I will say plainly that this is not a true golden ratio, only a fast mathematical stand in for one. Two points come out of it. The first is where the eye of the design will land and the second anchors the other end of the movement.
Do you draw on the wood or on paper?
Paper, and I do it the old way on purpose. Drawing straight onto the block is perfectly sufficient and plenty of carvers work that way. Setting the block down on a sheet and tracing round it gives you a drawing the exact size of the job, which you can redraw six times without touching the basswood.
Depth changes though. This leaf wants more of it than the Corinthian did, so the block comes down about 5/8 of an inch, near enough halfway through what you started with. That extra room is what the volutes and the V hollows will eat.
What arrived in Greek art around this time?
Rules. Composition stopped being instinct and started being something carvers could state out loud, which is why this period gives us proportion systems, the swirl, and a leaf that sits on its ground rather than floating anywhere on it. The ornament got more disciplined and more alive at the same time, which sounds like a contradiction and is not.
What did not change is the underlying leaf. Same three movements, same five subdivisions, same hollow down each lobe. Everything the Corinthian taught you carries forward untouched, and all you are adding today is the turn at the ends.
Which line does everything answer to?
One line that every other line on the leaf answers to. Draw the main movement first, the sweep the whole ornament follows, and from then on the centre of every lobe has to travel toward it. Nothing on a Greek acanthus is allowed to point off on its own.
You will draw lobes that miss. Mine did, twice, on camera, and the fix was simply to rub them out and redraw until each one repeated the movement of the one before it. Repetition of flow is what turns a group of separate shapes into a single plant.
How do you know a lobe is in the wrong place?
Lay a finger along its centre line and follow it. A line still carrying on toward the main flow means that lobe belongs where it is. If it wanders off toward the edge of the paper, that lobe is arguing with every other shape on the leaf and no amount of good carving afterwards will settle the argument.
Size is the other test. One division always wants to be slightly smaller than its neighbour, and a row of identical lobes reads as a comb, never as a plant. I moved three of mine during this drawing and shrank a fourth, and none of that took longer than the time it takes to sharpen a pencil.
What happens when you run out of room?
Move something. On my leaf the fourth subdivision had nowhere to sit, because the first three had eaten the space, so I shifted one along and squeezed the rest. Historical accuracy was worth the shuffle, and the drawing is where shuffling costs nothing.
Paper forgives. An eraser costs nothing and a spoiled block of wood costs a day and the price of the board. Wood does not, which is the entire reason this lesson exists and why a whole class sits drawing before a single gouge comes out of a roll. Every mistake made here is free.
Why draw the outside borders before dividing?
Seeing the whole shape before you break it up is the point. Outline the leaf first, with no divisions in it at all, and what you get looks like a boat, or like one very large leaf. That silhouette is what a viewer actually reads from six feet away.
The border is also a fence. Every division you make afterwards has to stay inside it, and a lobe that crosses that line has stopped belonging to the leaf. I keep redrawing boundaries throughout this lesson for exactly that reason.
How many subdivisions does a Greek leaf get?
Five, though nobody wrote that down as law. Surviving examples mostly come out at five and I follow it because the eye seems to want it, not because a rule exists. Count one, two, three, four, five across a movement and it looks right, while four looks thin and six looks busy.
Space runs out constantly. On my own drawing the main curl took the whole of division one, leaving four to fit into what remained, and I had to move things twice to make room for number four. The historical form is worth that much shuffling, every single time it happens.
Why is the hollow a V and not a curve?
Two concave faces meeting at an angle instead of a rounded trough. Inside a Greek lobe the surface falls away on both sides exactly as it would on any acanthus, and then the two falls meet in a V instead of blending into a smooth hollow. Small difference on paper. Large one in the light.
Both halves of the lobe still fall away like any other acanthus. Only the meeting differs, happening up the middle rather than at the bottom of a curve, which puts a hard bright line down the middle of every division once the light hits it.
Keeping it is what makes the leaf Greek rather than generic. Round that V off and you have carved something perfectly pleasant that belongs to no particular century, which is fine for a bookshelf and useless if somebody asked you for a Greek acanthus.
Where do the eyes and the pipes go?
Eyes first, pipes after, and everything that makes this ornament worth carving lives in those two things. Place an eye where two lobes meet, the way you would on any acanthus with pipes, then run the pipes down from them. Each pipe must reach the main flow line. That one is not negotiable, on any acanthus of any period.
How low does the first curl sit?
Near the bottom, where the leaf starts its climb. I begin every Greek acanthus with that one movement because it sets the character of everything above it, and until it looks right there is no point drawing anything else. Mine needed reducing once and moving once before I would leave it alone.
From the curl the main flow runs up and the first lobe reaches out to a point somewhere along it. I could have taken that point higher, and where you stop it changes how the whole leaf sits on the board. Nothing about that decision is fixed by history, which is exactly why it is worth ten minutes.
What does a small overlapping curl add?
Depth, in a drawing that has none yet. Lay a small curl across a section it does not belong to and the two shapes immediately read as being at different heights, on flat paper, with a pencil. Too many of them and you have a knot. One, placed where a section looks empty, and the leaf gains a layer.
I overdid it on camera and said so. The first attempt had several of these stacked up, it looked busy rather than deep, and the fix was to rub out all but one. Restraint again, which appears to be the theme of ancient Greek work every time I teach it.
A micro eye can go in wherever a section feels empty, and I added one late in this drawing simply because the space asked for it. The S movement at the tip of each lobe is the other late addition, and it is the thing that stops a row of curls looking mechanical.
Choosing where an eye sits is worth saying out loud, since it looks arbitrary and is not. Somewhere along each junction there is one spot where the two lobes are furthest apart, and an eye placed there opens up rather than pinching. I called one of mine an excellent spot on camera and I meant it, because the three beside it had all been compromises.
Then the whole thing gets divided again, in five, inside the sections that will carry detail. Same number, smaller scale, and the leaf gains another layer without gaining a single new idea.
Which details did I leave out, and why?
Micro pipes and micro eyes inside the small divisions. Later carvers put them in and they look wonderful, and putting them on this leaf would have made it something other than an ancient Greek acanthus. I said so on camera and left them out. Being able to draw a thing is not a reason to draw it.
That restraint is the whole lesson, really. Greek work stayed simple on purpose, and the leaf coming up in the rest of this course is simple only next to the Baroque monsters waiting further along. Carve a few of those and you will come back to this drawing and find it restful.
Clean the drawing up, define the pipes one last time, and you have an ancient Greek design ready for a block of wood. Shall we carve?
How it's done
- Trace the block onto paper. Set it down, draw round it, and the sheet is now exactly the size of the job in front of you.
- Take the thickness down by 5/8. Roughly halfway through the block. Volutes and V hollows need depth the Corinthian never asked for.
- Split the sheet into thirds. Rough stand in for a proper golden ratio, and it hands you two usable points in about ten seconds.
- Start with the low volute. That one spiral sets the character of everything above it, so redraw it until you stop wanting to change anything.
- Run the main flow up from there. One sweep the whole ornament follows. Each line you draw afterwards has to travel toward this one.
- Borders down before any dividing. No divisions yet. What you want on paper is the silhouette, which reads like a boat or one very large leaf.
- Break each movement into five. Ancient examples mostly land there. Expect to shuffle things when the fourth runs out of room.
- Mark a V down each lobe. Both faces fall away and meet along the centre, not in a rounded trough. That angle is the historical detail.
- Place eyes, then pipes. An eye at each parting, a pipe running down from it, and every pipe arriving where the main sweep runs.
Frequently asked questions
What makes an acanthus Greek rather than Corinthian?
Volutes, meaning small spirals turned into the ends of the lobes. Corinthian work runs straight with very few curves, and the Greek form keeps every other feature identical while adding that turn. Both come from Greek culture, one simply arrived later.
Volute, curl or scroll, which is the right word?
A spiral that winds in on itself, familiar from the top of an Ionic column. Calling it a curl undersells the shape. On a leaf of this period the movement is introduced rather than perfected, and fully wound spirals belong to later forms.
How many subdivisions should a Greek acanthus have?
Five to a movement in most of what survives, though nobody ever wrote it down as law. Four looks thin and six looks busy. Expect to move shapes around when the fifth one finds itself with nowhere to sit.
What to carve next