Pediment

Last updated
Types of pediment; "curved" and "broken" examples at the lower right. Illustrations of types of pediments.jpg
Types of pediment; "curved" and "broken" examples at the lower right.

Pediments are a form of gable in classical architecture, usually of a triangular shape. Pediments are placed above the horizontal structure of the cornice (an elaborated lintel), or entablature if supported by columns. [1] In ancient architecture, a wide and low triangular pediment (the side angles 12.5° to 16°) typically formed the top element of the portico of a Greek temple, a style continued in Roman temples. But large pediments were rare on other types of building before Renaissance architecture. [2] For symmetric designs, it provides a center point and is often used to add grandness to entrances.

Contents

Neoclassical pediment of the Madeleine Church, Paris, with sculpture (1826-1834) by Philippe Joseph Henri Lemaire. Madeleine collage.jpg
Neoclassical pediment of the Madeleine Church, Paris, with sculpture (1826–1834) by Philippe Joseph Henri Lemaire.

The cornice continues round the top of the pediment, as well as below it; the rising sides are often called the "raking cornice". [4] The tympanum is the triangular area within the pediment, which is often decorated with a pedimental sculpture which may be freestanding or a relief sculpture. [5] The tympanum may hold an inscription, or in modern times, a clock face.

The main variant shapes are the "segmental", "curved", or "arch" pediment, where the straight line triangle of the cornice is replaced by a curve making a segment of a circle, the broken pediment where the cornice has a gap at the apex, [6] and the open pediment, with a gap in the cornice along the base. Both triangular and segmental pediments can have "broken" and "open" forms. [7]

Pediments are found in ancient Greek architecture as early as 580 BC, in the archaic Temple of Artemis, Corfu, which was probably one of the first. [8] Pediments return in Renaissance architecture and are then much used in later styles such as Baroque, Neoclassical, and Beaux-Arts architecture, which favoured the segmental variant. [9]

Variant forms

Open pediments on windows at the Palazzo Farnese, Rome, by Antonio da Sangallo the Younger, begun 1534 Palazzo Farnese Roma (cropped).JPG
Open pediments on windows at the Palazzo Farnese, Rome, by Antonio da Sangallo the Younger, begun 1534

A variant is the "segmental" or "arch" pediment, where the normal angular slopes of the cornice are replaced by one in the form of a segment of a circle, in the manner of a depressed arch. [10] Both traditional and segmental pediments have "broken" and "open" forms. In the broken pediment the raking cornice is left open at the apex. [11] The open pediment is open along the base, with a gap in the cornice for part or all of the space under the pediment. [12]

All these forms were used in Hellenistic architecture, especially in Alexandria and the Middle East. The so-called "Treasury" or Al-Khazneh, a 1st-century rock-cut tomb in Petra, Jordan, is a famously extreme example, with not merely the pediment, but the whole entablature, very "broken" and retreating into the cliff face. [13] Broken pediments where the gap is extremely wide in this way are often called "half-pediments".

They were adopted in Mannerist architecture, and applied to furniture designed by Thomas Chippendale. Another variant is the swan's neck pediment, a broken pediment with two S-shaped profiles resembling a swan's neck, typically volutes; this is mostly found in furniture rather than buildings. It was popular in American doorways from the 1760's onwards. Very often there is a vase-like ornament in the middle, between the volutes. Non-triangular variations of pediments are often found over doors, windows, niches, and porches.

History

The earliest surviving pedimental sculpture, Temple of Artemis, Corfu, about 580-570 BC, in a reconstructed setting Gorgon at the Archaeological Museum in Corfu.jpg
The earliest surviving pedimental sculpture, Temple of Artemis, Corfu, about 580–570 BC, in a reconstructed setting

Classical

The pediment is found in classical Greek temples, Etruscan, Roman, Renaissance, Baroque, Rococo, Neoclassical, and Beaux-Arts architecture. Greek temples, normally rectangular in plan, generally had a pediment at each end, but Roman temples, and subsequent revivals, often had only one, in both cases across the whole width of the main front or facade. The rear of the typical Roman temple was a blank wall, usually without columns, but often a full pediment above. This effectively divorced the pediment from the columns beneath it in the original temple front ensemble, and thereafter it was no longer considered necessary for a pediment to be above columns.

The most famous example of the Greek scheme is the Parthenon, with two tympanums filled with large groups of sculpted figures. [5] An extreme but very influential example of the Roman style is the Pantheon, Rome, where a portico with pediment fronts a circular temple. [14]

2nd-century Market Gate of Miletus, Pergamon Museum, Berlin Markttor zu Milet-Pergamonmuseum-2018.jpg
2nd-century Market Gate of Miletus, Pergamon Museum, Berlin

In ancient Rome, the Renaissance, and later architectural revivals, small pediments are a non-structural element over windows, doors, and aediculae, [15] protecting windows and openings from rain, as well as being decorative. From the 5th century pediments also might appear on tombs and later non-architectural objects such as sarcophagi. [16]

In the Hellenistic period pediments became used for a wider range of buildings, and treated much more freely, especially outside Greece itself. Broken and open pediments are used in a way that is often described as "baroque". The large 2nd-century Market Gate of Miletus, now reconstructed in the Pergamon Museum in Berlin, has a pediment that retreats in the centre, so appears both broken and open, a feature also seen at the Al-Khazneh (so-called "Treasury") tomb at Petra in modern Jordan. The broken pediments on each of the four sides of the Arch of Septimius Severus at Leptis Magna in Libya are very small elements, raking at an extremely steep angle, but not extending beyond the entablature for the columns below. There are two faces to each pediment, both carved, with one lying parallel to the wall of the monument, and the other at right angles to that.

The Arch of Augustus in Rimini, Italy (27 BC), an early imperial monument, suggests that at this stage provincial Roman architects were not well practiced in the classical vocabulary; the base of the pediment ends close to, but not over, the capitals of the columns. Here the whole temple front is decoration applied to a very solid wall, but the lack of respect for the conventions of Greek trabeated architecture remains rather disconcerting. [17]

Conventional Roman pediments have a slightly steeper pitch than classical Greek ones, perhaps because they ended tiled roofs that received heavier rainfall.

Medieval

In Carolingian and Romanesque architecture pediments tended towards the equilateral triangle, and the enclosing cornice has little emphasis; they are often merely gable ends with some ornament. In Gothic architecture pediments with a much more acute angle at the top were used, especially over doorways and windows, but while the rising sides of the cornice is elaborate, the horizontal bottom element was typically not very distinct. Often there is a pointed arch underneath, and no bottom element at all. "Pediment" is typically not used for these; they are often called a "canopy". From the Renaissance onwards, some pediments no longer fitted the steeply pitched roofs and became freestanding, sometimes sloping in the opposite direction to the roof behind.

Renaissance, Baroque and Rococo

Sant'Agostino, Rome, by multiple architects, 1483, with three pediments, including a squashed one in the middle Sant' Agostino (Rom).jpg
Sant'Agostino, Rome, by multiple architects, 1483, with three pediments, including a squashed one in the middle

When classical-style low triangular pediments returned in Italian Renaissance architecture, they were initially mostly used to top a relatively flat facade, with engaged elements rather than freestanding porticos supported by columns. Leon Battista Alberti used them in this way in his churches: the Tempio Malatestiano (1450s, incomplete), Santa Maria Novella (to 1470), San Sebastiano in Mantua (unfinished by the 1470s), Sant'Andrea, Mantua (begun 1472), and Pienza Cathedral c. 1460), where the design was probably his. Here the cornice comes out and then retreats back, forming the top of pilasters with no capitals, a very unclassical note, which was to become much used.

In most of these Alberti followed classical precedent by having the pediment occupy the whole width of the facade, or at least that part that projects outwards. Santa Maria Novella and Sant'Agostino, Rome (1483, by Giacomo di Pietrasanta, perhaps designed by Alberti) were early examples of what was to become a very common scheme, where the pediment at the top of the facade was much less wide, forming a third zone above a middle zone that transitioned the width from that of the bottom. The giant curving volute or scroll used at the sides of the middle zone at Sant'Agostino was to be a very common feature over the next two centuries. As in Gothic architecture, this often reflected the shapes of the roofs behind, where the nave was higher than the side-aisles. [19]

Sant'Agostino also has a low, squashed down pediment at the top of the full-width section. [20] This theme was developed by Andrea Palladio in the next century. The main facade of his San Giorgio Maggiore in Venice (begun 1566) has "two interpenetrating temple fronts", a wider one being overlaid with a narrower and higher one, respectively following the roof lines of the aisles and nave. [21] Several of Palladio's villas also introduced the pediment to country house architecture, which was to be become extremely common in English Palladian architecture. In cities, Palladio reserved the temple front for churches, but in the Baroque, and especially outside Italy, this distinction was abandoned.

The first use of pediments over windows in the Renaissance was on the Palazzo Bartolini Salimbeni in Florence, completed in 1523 by Baccio d'Agnolo. Vasari says the innovation caused ridicule initially, but later came to be admired and widely adopted. [22] Baccio was accused of turning a palazzo into a church. Three windows on each of three storeys (and the door) alternate regular and segmental pediments; there is no pediment at the top of the facade, just a large cornice, as was usual. [23]

St Peter's Basilica, Rome, by multiple architects, 1506-1626 Basilica di San Pietro in Vaticano September 2015-1a.jpg
St Peter's Basilica, Rome, by multiple architects, 1506-1626

In St Peter's Basilica there is a conventional pediment over the main entrance, but the complicated facade stretches beyond it to both sides and above, and though large in absolute terms it makes a relatively small impression. Many later buildings used a temple front with pediment as a highlight of a much wider building. The St Peter's facade also has many small pedimented windows and aedicular niches, using a mixture of segmental, broken, and open pediments.

Variations using multiple pediments became very popular in Baroque architecture, and the central vertical line of church facades often ascended through several pediments of different sizes and shapes, in Rome five at the Church of the Gesù (Giacomo della Porta 1584) and six at Santi Vincenzo e Anastasio a Trevi (Martino Longhi the Younger, 1646), the top three folding into each other, using the same base line. [24] This facade has been described as "a veritable symphony in repetitious pedimentry, bringing together a superimposed array of broken pediments, open pediments and arched pediments". [25] The Gesù is the home church of the Jesuit order, who favoured this style, which was first seen in many cities around Europe in a new main Jesuit church.

From 1750 to Art Deco

Beaux Arts broken segmental pediment, Grand Central Terminal, New York City, architects Reed and Stem and Warren and Wetmore, sculptor Jules Coutan, 1903. GCT glory of commerce.jpg
Beaux Arts broken segmental pediment, Grand Central Terminal, New York City, architects Reed and Stem and Warren and Wetmore, sculptor Jules Coutan, 1903.

Pediments became extremely common on the main facades of English country houses, and many across northern Europe; these might be placed over a porch with columns, or simply decorations to an essentially flat facade. In England, if there was any sculpture within the tympanum, it was often restricted to a coat of arms.

Neoclassical architecture returned to "purer" classical models mostly using conventional triangular pediments, often over a portico with columns. Large schemes of pedimental sculpture were used where the budget allowed. In 19th-century styles freer treatments returned, and large segmental pediments were especially popular in eclectic styles such as Beaux-Arts architecture, often overwhelmed by sculpture within, above, and to the sides.

Large pediments with columns, often called the "temple front", became widely used for important public buildings such as stock exchanges, reserve banks, law courts, legislatures, and museums, where an impression of solidity, reliability, and respectability was desired.

Postmodern reinterpretations

550 Madison Avenue, New York, by Philip Johnson, 1981-1984 Sony Building by David Shankbone crop.jpg
550 Madison Avenue, New York, by Philip Johnson, 1981-1984

Postmodernism, a movement that questioned Modernism (the status quo after WW2), promoted the inclusion of elements of historic styles in new designs. An early text questioning Modernism was by architect Robert Venturi, Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture (1966), in which he recommended a revival of the 'presence of the past' in architectural design. He tried to include in his own buildings qualities that he described as 'inclusion, inconsistency, compromise, accommodation, adaptation, superadjacency, equivalence, multiple focus, juxtaposition, or good and bad space.' [35]

Venturi encouraged 'quotation', which means reusing elements of the past in new designs. Part manifesto, part architectural scrapbook accumulated over the previous decade, the book represented the vision for a new generation of architects and designers who had grown up with Modernism but who felt increasingly constrained by its perceived rigidities. Multiple Postmodern architects and designers put simplified reinterpretations of the pediment found in Classical decoration at the top of their creations. As with other elements and ornaments taken from styles of the pre-Modern past, they were in most cases highly simplified. Especially when it comes to office architecture, Postmodernism was only skin deep; the underlying structure was usually very similar, if not identical, to that of Modernist buildings. [36]

In 1984 Philip Johnson designed what is now called 550 Madison Avenue in New York City (formerly known as the Sony Tower, Sony Plaza, and AT&T Building), a famous work of Post-Modern architecture, where a broken pediment at the top of a typical skyscraper wittily evokes a Thomas Chippendale-style tallboy at a massive scale. Marco Polo House in London (1989, now demolished) was similar.

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ Summerson, 130
  2. ↑ Summerson, 28
  3. ↑ Luebke, Wilhelm (1 January 1878). History of Sculpture from the Earliest Ages to the Present Time: Tr. by F.E. Bunnètt, Volume 2. Smith. p. 468. Retrieved 11 September 2021.
  4. ↑ Or "slanting cornice" by Lawrence, xxx & xxxi
  5. 1 2 Sturgis, Russell (1896). European Architecture: A Historical Study. The New York Public Library: Macmillan. pp. 3, 558.
  6. ↑ Summerson, 130
  7. ↑ Summerson, 130
  8. ↑ Lawrence, 113-114
  9. ↑ Chisholm (1911).
  10. ↑ Summerson, 130
  11. ↑ Summerson, 130
  12. ↑ Broken and open pediments are often confused by sources unfamiliar with the correct terminology, although some pediments can reasonably be described as both. See John Fleming, Hugh Honour and Nikolaus Pevsner, The Penguin Dictionary of Architecture, 240, 3rd edn, 1980, Penguin, ISBN 0140510133. They recommend using "open-topped" or "broken-apex" and "open-bed" or "broken-bed", but these cannot be said to have caught on.
  13. ↑ Furman
  14. ↑ Summerson, 25, 39
  15. ↑ Kimball, Fiske; Edgell, George Harold (1918). A History of Architecture. Harper & Brothers. pp. 108, 118, 144, 423.
  16. ↑ Lawrence, 190, Plate 95B
  17. ↑ Favro, Diane, entry in the Encyclopedia of the History of Classical Archaeology, p. 65, 2015, ed. Nancy Thomson de Grummond, Taylor & Francis, ISBN 9781134268542, google books
  18. ↑ Eastmond, Anthony (2013). The Glory of Byzantium and early Christendom. Phaidon. p. 45. ISBN   978-0-7148-4810-5.
  19. ↑ Yarwood, 312-314; Summerson, 78-79
  20. ↑ Charles Herbert Moore, Character of Renaissance Architecture, 74, 1905
  21. ↑ Summerson, illus 41
  22. ↑ Riegl, Alois (30 November 2010). The Origins of Baroque Art in Rome. Los Angeles, California: Getty Publications. p. 143. ISBN   978-1-606-06041-4 . Retrieved 13 February 2022.
  23. ↑ Charles Herbert Moore, Character of Renaissance Architecture, 109-110, 1905
  24. ↑ Summerson, 78-79
  25. ↑ Furman
  26. ↑ Hopkins 2014, p. 135.
  27. ↑ "the english gardens". en.chateauversailles.fr. 11 February 2020. Retrieved 8 September 2023.
  28. ↑ Watkin, David (2022). A History of Western Architecture. Laurence King. p. 444. ISBN   978-1-52942-030-2.
  29. ↑ Watkin, David (2022). A History of Western Architecture. Laurence King. p. 445. ISBN   978-1-52942-030-2.
  30. ↑ Robertson, Hutton (2022). The History of Art - From Prehistory to Presentday - A Global View. Thames & Hudson. p. 989. ISBN   978-0-500-02236-8.
  31. ↑ Watkin, David (2022). A History of Western Architecture. Laurence King. p. 483. ISBN   978-1-52942-030-2.
  32. ↑ "Emile Guimet, fondateur du musée". guimet.fr. 14 January 2015.
  33. ↑ Criticos, Mihaela (2009). Art Deco sau Modernismul Bine Temperat - Art Deco or Well-Tempered Modernism (in Romanian and English). SIMETRIA. p. 192. ISBN   978-973-1872-03-2.
  34. ↑ Hopkins 2014, p. 203.
  35. ↑ Watkin, David (2022). A History of Western Architecture. Laurence King. p. 660. ISBN   978-1-52942-030-2.
  36. ↑ Hopkins 2014, p. 200, 203.
  37. ↑ Gura, Judith (2017). Postmodern Design Complete. Thames & Hudson. p. 98. ISBN   978-0-500-51914-1.
  38. ↑ Gura, Judith (2017). Postmodern Design Complete. Thames & Hudson. p. 98. ISBN   978-0-500-51914-1.
  39. ↑ Gura, Judith (2017). Postmodern Design Complete. Thames & Hudson. p. 121. ISBN   978-0-500-51914-1.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Classical order</span> Styles of classical architecture, recognizable by the type of column

An order in architecture is a certain assemblage of parts subject to uniform established proportions, regulated by the office that each part has to perform. Coming down to the present from Ancient Greek and Ancient Roman civilization, the architectural orders are the styles of classical architecture, each distinguished by its proportions and characteristic profiles and details, and most readily recognizable by the type of column employed. The three orders of architecture—the Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian—originated in Greece. To these the Romans added, in practice if not in name, the Tuscan, which they made simpler than Doric, and the Composite, which was more ornamental than the Corinthian. The architectural order of a classical building is akin to the mode or key of classical music; the grammar or rhetoric of a written composition. It is established by certain modules like the intervals of music, and it raises certain expectations in an audience attuned to its language.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Renaissance architecture</span> Type of architecture

Renaissance architecture is the European architecture of the period between the early 15th and early 16th centuries in different regions, demonstrating a conscious revival and development of certain elements of ancient Greek and Roman thought and material culture. Stylistically, Renaissance architecture followed Gothic architecture and was succeeded by Baroque architecture. Developed first in Florence, with Filippo Brunelleschi as one of its innovators, the Renaissance style quickly spread to other Italian cities. The style was carried to other parts of Europe at different dates and with varying degrees of impact.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Corinthian order</span> Order of classical architecture

The Corinthian order is the last developed and most ornate of the three principal classical orders of Ancient Greek architecture and Roman architecture. The other two are the Doric order, which was the earliest, followed by the Ionic order. In Ancient Greek architecture, the Corinthian order follows the Ionic in almost all respects, other than the capitals of the columns, though this changed in Roman architecture.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ancient Greek architecture</span> Era of architecture

Ancient Greek architecture came from the Greeks, or Hellenics, whose culture flourished on the Greek mainland, the Peloponnese, the Aegean Islands, and in colonies in Anatolia and Italy for a period from about 900 BC until the 1st century AD, with the earliest remaining architectural works dating from around 600 BC.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Classical architecture</span> Architectural style, inspired by classical Greco-Roman architectural principles

Classical architecture usually denotes architecture which is more or less consciously derived from the principles of Greek and Roman architecture of classical antiquity, or sometimes more specifically, from the works of the Roman architect Vitruvius. Different styles of classical architecture have arguably existed since the Carolingian Renaissance, and prominently since the Italian Renaissance. Although classical styles of architecture can vary greatly, they can in general all be said to draw on a common "vocabulary" of decorative and constructive elements. In much of the Western world, different classical architectural styles have dominated the history of architecture from the Renaissance until World War II. Classical architecture continues to inform many architects.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Doric order</span> Order of classical architecture

The Doric order was one of the three orders of ancient Greek and later Roman architecture; the other two canonical orders were the Ionic and the Corinthian. The Doric is most easily recognized by the simple circular capitals at the top of the columns. Originating in the western Doric region of Greece, it is the earliest and, in its essence, the simplest of the orders, though still with complex details in the entablature above.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ionic order</span> Order of classical architecture

The Ionic order is one of the three canonic orders of classical architecture, the other two being the Doric and the Corinthian. There are two lesser orders: the Tuscan, and the rich variant of Corinthian called the composite order. Of the three classical canonic orders, the Corinthian order has the narrowest columns, followed by the Ionic order, with the Doric order having the widest columns.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Portico</span> Type of porch

A portico is a porch leading to the entrance of a building, or extended as a colonnade, with a roof structure over a walkway, supported by columns or enclosed by walls. This idea was widely used in ancient Greece and has influenced many cultures, including most Western cultures.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Outline of classical architecture</span> Overview of and topical guide to classical architecture

The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to classical architecture:

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Roman temple</span> Temples of the Roman Republic and Empire

Ancient Roman temples were among the most important buildings in Roman culture, and some of the richest buildings in Roman architecture, though only a few survive in any sort of complete state. Today they remain "the most obvious symbol of Roman architecture". Their construction and maintenance was a major part of ancient Roman religion, and all towns of any importance had at least one main temple, as well as smaller shrines. The main room (cella) housed the cult image of the deity to whom the temple was dedicated, and often a table for supplementary offerings or libations and a small altar for incense. Behind the cella was a room, or rooms, used by temple attendants for storage of equipment and offerings. The ordinary worshiper rarely entered the cella, and most public ceremonies were performed outside of the cella where the sacrificial altar was located, on the portico, with a crowd gathered in the temple precinct.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Polychrome</span> Art terminology and color method

Polychrome is the "practice of decorating architectural elements, sculpture, etc., in a variety of colors." The term is used to refer to certain styles of architecture, pottery, or sculpture in multiple colors.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Composite order</span> Architectural order

The Composite order is a mixed order, combining the volutes of the Ionic order capital with the acanthus leaves of the Corinthian order. In many versions the composite order volutes are larger, however, and there is generally some ornament placed centrally between the volutes. The column of the composite order is typically ten diameters high, though as with all the orders these details may be adjusted by the architect for particular buildings. The Composite order is essentially treated as Corinthian except for the capital, with no consistent differences to that above or below the capital.

This page is a glossary of architecture.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">French architecture</span> Overview of the architecture in France

French architecture consists of architectural styles that either originated in France or elsewhere and were developed within the territories of France.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mascaron (architecture)</span> Ornament depicting a face

In architecture and the decorative arts, a mascaron ornament is a face, usually human, sometimes frightening or chimeric, whose alleged function was originally to frighten away evil spirits so that they would not enter the building. The concept was subsequently adapted to become a purely decorative element. The most recent architectural styles to extensively employ mascarons were Beaux Arts and Art Nouveau. In addition to architecture, mascarons are used in the other applied arts.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Louis XVI style</span> Neoclassical style within architecture and design

Louis XVI style, also called Louis Seize, is a style of architecture, furniture, decoration and art which developed in France during the 19-year reign of Louis XVI (1774–1793), just before the French Revolution. It saw the final phase of the Baroque style as well as the birth of French Neoclassicism. The style was a reaction against the elaborate ornament of the preceding Baroque period. It was inspired in part by the discoveries of Ancient Roman paintings, sculpture and architecture in Herculaneum and Pompeii. Its features included the straight column, the simplicity of the post-and-lintel, the architrave of the Greek temple. It also expressed the Rousseau-inspired values of returning to nature and the view of nature as an idealized and wild but still orderly and inherently worthy model for the arts to follow.

The architecture of Rome over the centuries has greatly developed from Ancient Roman architecture to Italian modern and contemporary architecture. Rome was once the world's main epicentres of Classical architecture, developing new forms such as the arch, the dome and the vault. The Romanesque style in the 11th, 12th and 13th centuries was also widely used in Roman architecture, and later the city became one of the main centres of Renaissance and Baroque architecture. Rome's cityscape is also widely Neoclassical and Fascist in style.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Frontispiece (architecture)</span>

In architecture, the term frontispiece is used to describe the principal face of the building, usually referring to a combination of elements that frame and decorate the main or front entrance of a building. The earliest and most notable variation of frontispieces can be seen in Ancient Greek Architecture which features a large triangular gable, known as a pediment, usually supported by a collection of columns. However, some architectural authors have often used the term "frontispiece" and "pediment" interchangeably in reference to both large frontispieces decorating the main entrances, as well as smaller frontispieces framing windows which is traditionally known as a pediment.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Neoclassicism in France</span> Overview of Neoclassicism in France

Neoclassicism is a movement in architecture, design and the arts which emerged in France in the 1740s and became dominant in France between about 1760 to 1830. It emerged as a reaction to the frivolity and excessive ornament of the baroque and rococo styles. In architecture it featured sobriety, straight lines, and forms, such as the pediment and colonnade, based on Ancient Greek and Roman models. In painting it featured heroism and sacrifice in the time of the ancient Romans and Greeks. It began late in the reign of Louis XV, became dominant under Louis XVI, and continued through the French Revolution, the French Directory, and the reign of Napoleon Bonaparte, and the Bourbon Restoration until 1830, when it was gradually replaced as the dominant style by romanticism and eclecticism.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pedimental sculpture</span> Sculptures designed for architectural pediments

Pedimental sculpture is a form of architectural sculpture designed for installation in the tympanum, the space enclosed by the architectural element called the pediment. Originally a feature of Ancient Greek architecture, pedimental sculpture started as a means to decorate a pediment in its simplest form: a low triangle, like a gable, above an horizontal base or entablature. However, as classical architecture developed from the basis of Ancient Greek and Roman architecture, the varieties of pedimental sculpture also developed. The sculpture can be either freestanding or relief sculpture, in which case it is attached to the back wall of the pediment. Harris in The Illustrated Dictionary of Historic Architecture defines pediment as "In classical architecture, the triangular gable end of the roof above the horizontal cornice, often filled with sculpture." Pediments can also be used to crown doors or windows.

References

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.