Pedimental sculptures are sculptures within the frame of a pediment on the exterior of a building, some examples of which can be found in the United States. Pedimental sculpture pose special challenges to sculptors: the triangular composition limits the choices for figures or ornament at the ends, and the sculpture must be designed to be viewed both from below and from a distance.
Historian Walter Copland Perry wrote that it was proof of the power of Greek art that the classical sculptors not only overcame the rigid restrictions of the pediment's shape, but turned them to their advantage.[1] Compositionally, the restrictions imposed by both the physical triangular shape of a pediment, and the traditional themes that are usually employed for the subject matter, are, according to Professor Gardner of Oxford University, “as exactly regulated as that of a sonnet or a Spenserian stanza: the artist has liberty only in certain directions and must not violate the laws of rhythm.”[2]
In all examples, classical and modern, the central area below the apex is inevitably the tallest, most spacious, the natural focus, and will contain the main figures and the focus of action. Secondary figures decrease in size and importance on both sides, as they approach the far angles at the base. The well-known classical examples all observe "unity of action", although the Greek historian Pausanias describes a sculpture by Praxiteles in which Hercules appears several times in different sizes.[1]
As with the ancient Greeks, and the Roman architects and sculptors who followed them, American artists had two different structural approaches creating pedimental sculpture. They are either freestanding statues that stand on the bed (the ledge or cornice that creates the bottom of the pediment), or they can be relief sculpture, attached to the back wall of the pediment.[3][4] As an additional physical restriction in the pediment format, a deeper recess will throw the triangular field into deeper shadow, which means the figures should be executed in deeper relief or fully in the round.[1]
United States
Pedimental sculptures in the United States were rare prior to the 1880s, most surviving examples in cities along the east coast. The earliest seems to be Whitehall (1765), outside Annapolis, Maryland, attributed to English architect Joseph Horatio Anderson and English-born carver William Buckland, typical of early dependence on European talent.[5]
By 1959 the original sandstone sculpture group was badly deteriorated. Under the supervision of Paul Manship, sculptor Carl Schmitz repaired the statues, G. Giannetti made a plaster model from them, and Bruno Mankowski carved new statues. These were unveiled in 1960.[32]
Similar pediments above "KANKAKEE COUNTY COURTHOUSE" on north and south sides of courthouse include an escutcheon (coat of arms) representing the county.[66]
Calhoun Street pediment: Spirit of Civilization Main Street pediment: Spirit of Government Berry Street pediment: Spirit of the Law Court Street pediment: Spirit of the Arts
The 1795-99 building's pediment originally featured the Royal Arms of Spain, by sculptor Cristobal Le Prévost.[79][80] This was replaced in 1822 by an American eagle flanked by cannons, by Cardelli.[81]
Named for Henry Dunster, Harvard's first president. One end pavilion pediment features the coat of arms of the Dunster family, and the other the coat of arms of Dunster's alma mater, Magdalene College, Cambridge.
"Sculpted in 1900, with an enthroned personification of the state at the center, surrounded by figures representing Poetry, Industry, and Science, huntsmen, farmers, white people, black people, and Native American, they are Mississippi's version of the pediment of the Parthenon in Athens, Greece."[96]
Two pediments, north and west, contain symbols of the county, appearing to be set loosely in place. Items symbolize "farming in the county, the immigrant experience, and county government."[103]
The building's pediment was blank for the 1901 Pan-American Exposition.[114] Amateis created the pedimental sculptures and 9 relief panels, 1929-30.[115]
The Adoration of the Shrine of Truth – pedimental relief sculpture of the Ark of the Covenant, flanked by angels, cherubs, a knight and a shepherd – figures in white & gold set against a blue background
MMA Library exterior, 1920. The 44-foot-long pediment was removed prior to the church's demolition in 1919, and installed on the exterior of the Metropolitan Museum of Art Library.[133] It was destroyed during a museum expansion in 1960.
four pediments, with the main (western) facade featuring two figures on either side of a crest, trailing garlands, another version of the NYC municipal seal[134]
3 pediments: Man and Nature Join Together in the Waters of the Springs[144] Athena Introduces Asklepios to the Saratoga Springs[145] The Infidelity of Asklepios[146]
two female figures with props (fasces, scales, crown, owl, a pile of books) flank a rectangular panel reading "Hall of Civil Rights", with eagle perched above[152]
The museum's exterior features 8 pediments. Only this sculpture group has been completed. The one-third-size plaster models for sculptor John Gregory's never-completed Pursuit of Wisdom Pediment (1926) are in PMA's collection.[166]
Meudon MonumentThe Meudon Monument features the ruins of an 18th-century façade from the Château d'Issy (burned 1871). Rodin's grave is marked by a copy of his most famous sculpture, The Thinker.[167]
The building was modeled after Christopher Wren's 1689–1702 addition to Hampton Court Palace, which shows a similar heraldic image but with no pediment.
South Carolina
Building
Location
Image
Sculpture
Sculptor
Architect
Installed
Medium
Notes
Charleston City Hall (formerly Charleston Branch, Bank of the United States)
Manigault designed the building as the Charleston Branch, Bank of the United States, 1804. Reichardt altered it into the City Hall, 1839. The seal's Latin motto translates, '"The Body Politic, She Guards Her Buildings, Customs and Laws." The building is the "second-oldest city hall in continuous use in America."[171]
Nashville's nickname is "The Athens of the South," and a replica of the Parthenon was built to be the main attraction at the 1897 Tennessee Centennial Exposition. Constructed of artificial stone over wood, it was expected to be temporary building. A permanent replica, constructed of concrete over a steel armature, was begun in the 1920s and completed in 1931.[175]
West pediment: The Battle between Athena and Poseidon[176]
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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.
↑ Price, Matlack, "The Problem of the Pediment," The Architectural Forum, July 1925, Volume XLIII, Number 1, pp. 1.
↑ Webb, Pamela A., Hellenistic Architectural Sculpture: Figural Motifs in Western Anatolia and the Aegean Islands, The University of Wisconsin Press, Madison, Wisconsin, 1996 pp.23-25
↑ Rogers, L.R., Relief Sculpture: The Appreciation of the Arts 8, Oxford University Press, London, 1974 p. 1
↑ Taft, Lorado, History of American Sculpture, The MacMillan Company, New York, 1903, revised with new matter, 1925, p. 5
1 2 3 Architect of the Capitol Under the Direction of the Joint Committee on the Library, Compilation of Works of Art and Other Objects in the United States Capitol, United States Government Printing Office, Washington 1965 p. 378
1 2 Architect of the Capitol Under the Direction of the Joint Committee on the Library, Compilation of Works of Art and Other Objects in the United States Capitol, United States Government Printing Office, Washington 1965 p. 380
↑ "First Unitarian Church". National Historic Landmark summary listing. National Park Service. Archived from the original on 2009-03-08. Retrieved 2016-11-07.
↑ "City Hall". Jersey City Landmarks. Retrieved 1 February 2018.
↑ Jacobson & Co., were paid $550 for a "tympanium" from construction budget; see "$1200 Deficit Puts Trustees in a Dilemma". Central New Jersey Home News, New Brunswick, New Jersey. 13 December 1904. Retrieved 7 September 2021.
↑ "American Stone Carving and Sculpture," Stone; An Illustrated Magazine, vol. 35, no. 12 (December 1914), pp. 641-43.
↑ Helen Weston Henderson, A Loiterer in New York: Discoveries Made by a Rambler through Obvious Yet Unsought Highways and Byways (Doran, 1917), p. 323.
↑ Baigell, Matthew (May 1969). "James Hoban and the First Bank of the United States". Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians. 28 (2): 135–136. doi:10.2307/988511. JSTOR988511.
↑ Poston, Jonathan H., The Buildings of Charleston: A Guide to the City's Architecture, University of South Carolina Press, Columbia, South Carolina 1997 pp. 166-167.
↑ Rajer, Anton, Christine Style, Public Sculpture in Wisconsin: An Atlas of Outdoor Monuments, Memorials, and Masterpieces in the Badger State, SOS! Save Outdoor Sculpture, Wisconsin, The University of Wisconsin Press, Madison WI, 1999 p. 24
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