Architectural ornament

Charitable of the Parliament of Vienna, Austria.

An architectural ornament is a motif or composition used to embellish architectural elements or architectural spaces. The varied set of ornaments used by artists to embellish objects or architectural works can be divided into two classes: simple (or elementary) and compound. The former consist of a single motif, already isolated, already repeated and combined with another in series. The seconds are a combination of the elementals.

Simple ornaments are further divided into:

• calligraphywhose motives are writing strokes;
• geometrical, composed of lines of geometry; there are in turn two types:
  • the continuous line, which constitutes the moulding;
  • the interrupted line or geometric ornament simply said;
• Professionalswhich may correspond to beings of the plant kingdom or of the animal kingdom and are called, respectively, the and zodaria.

The following are the most common forms of all these groups.

Calligraphic ornaments

Wazir Khan Mosque in Lahore

This class of ornaments has hardly any application except in the codices and in Arabic architecture and its derivatives. In the codices they are used in very whimsical ways, reaching the point of producing human figures and fantastic animals with mere pen strokes.

In works of Arab and Mudejar architecture these ornaments take the form of inscriptions found on the arrabá or alfiz, which is a semi-square located around the arch of a door or window and in different circles or medallions interspersed in some ornamental composition of arabesques.

Geometric ornaments

In addition to moldings, other purely geometric forms of ornament are very frequently found in artistic works, and the most common are the following:

Greca

• the grease, recumbent folded repeatedly in a straight angle.
• the meander, more folding (symbol of the river of its name in ancient Greece)
• the poles, curves in ‘S’ united, which are also called Greek gusts and waves.
• the rosary, guts and trimmed ballsas its respective name indicates.
• the dentures, are squares hanging under the ledge and whose series is called Blind.
• the Bird Or ties.
• lace, or series of linked rings containing each one a rosette; the lace, ornament of foliage and of different ties.

Arab

• the arabescos, Arab geometrical ornaments and burying curves that imitate leaflet.
• the AlmocárabesArabescos in the form of bonds.
• interlocked, Estrellitas, waves, Bezantes or Pearl, wheels aligned, chess, ziszás or series of lines broken at angle.
• Broken batons or joints in broken lines
• cables or m.Like laces.
• almonds, diamond tips or rombos in series, nail heads or square and pyramidal tips, saw teeth, braided.
• Ticketswith the form that indicates his name.

Voluts in a jonic column

• caireles, garlic arches under a bow.
• volutes and Fly, spiraled ornaments.
• trifolios, quadriolite, quinquefolios or circles in which there are other tangent circulites in number of three, four or five and sometimes present the form of rosettes.
• It's called homemade to the square or polygonal compartments with some flower in its center.
• They are. crafts the same as the previous ones when they are adorning ceilings and vaults.

Fitaria ornaments

To this group of ornaments belong all the motifs taken from the vegetable kingdom, called as a whole of flora or fitaria. Sometimes they appear with their organic forms or more or less natural imitation and other times only with their characteristic features and in a schematic or almost geometric shape, then being called stylized flora. The most frequent reasons in one form or another are known by the following names:

• flowerBig, open flower.
• rosette, open rose flower and forehead.
• artsón, ceiling flower.
• Grumo or Macolla, group of leaves that usually puts on as a tomato.
• pineapple, a auction imitating the fruit of the same name.

Adorne shaped like a flower.

• cornucopia, horn of abundance with leaves and fruits.
• garlands, groups of leaves and linked fruits that appear as earrings of some cornice, ménsula, etc.
• palmettes, palm figures.
• heart raysAquatic leaves with some form of heart.
• translation Or stems.
• serpentine foliageHe's a hero.
• fronds or salty leaves, more or less coveted.

Leaf decorations

Leaf ornamentation may include acanthus, celery, thistle, clover, fleur-de-lis, etc. when they look like these vegetables. The following types of blades occur in architectural and sculptural works:

Acanto leaves in a corinthian capital

• aquatic leaves. The ones that mimic some algae.
• curved leaves. Applied on a circular moulding or surface.
• acanto leaves. Ornato formed of leaves whose upper edges roll slightly in volutes and whose presence characterizes the capitals of the corinthian and composite orders.
• angle sheets. The ones placed in the angle formed by two molfuras or in the one of a ledge, owl, etc. The medium or main nerve of these leaves is applied to the angle of the moulding and the drawing of the leaves is reproduced symmetrically on each side of the leaves.
• cardo leaves. Motive of ornamentation used in certain capitals of the centuryXV.
• cabbage leaves. Motive of ornamentation used in the 15th to 18th centuries. The turrets that decorate the gablets on the edges of the pineapples are formed with leaves of cabbage cut in whose execution the artists of that time showed extraordinary skill of chincel.
• laurel leaves. Motive of ornamentation that imitates the leaves of this tree, usually arranged in trifolio.
• olive leaves. Motive of ornamentation that imitates the leaves of this tree, usually arranged in groups of five.
• parra leaves. The employee to cover the nakedness of statues.
• parsley leaves. Thin and trimmed leaf that enters as the acant in the decoration of the corinthian capital.
• Welsh leaves. The ones outlined, that is, whose cuts are still executed but that gives the profile whose outgoing is well accused.
• lowered leaves. Those whose edges are cut. Also called dividing sheets.

Zodaria

Mascarón

The motifs that are taken from the animal kingdom for simple decoration are usually stylized as has been said of plants, and also chimerical or fantastic. Of these the main ones are distinguished:

• Atlanteans and cariátides, figures of man or woman, respectively holding a cornisamento.
• Little dogs and masks, capricious heads.
• Go ahead., animal figures that are put to throw water from the canals that go on the roof or terrados.
• bugsfantastic animals that end up in foliage.

Bucráneos.

• Faucets and Esfinges, different bichas that are sometimes put on the acroteras or before the doors of the buildings and are winged monsters with lion body, having the first eagle head and the second person.
• ovos or Eggs, figures that have the form of such and that set between darts, constitute the ovary and usually decorate several moulds in the Greek-Roman style.
• Bucráneo, ox skull with garlands, which usually adorn the friezes of the Greek and Roman temples.
• grutescos, fantastic groups of bichas, savannija and foliage.
• venerationpilgrim shells.

Composite ornaments

Crafted

Among the ornaments called compounds, the following are listed as the most significant:

• craftsmanship, very decorated ceilings with crafts
• potteryMudejar crafts that form with wood intertwined.
• alloys, tiles and ribbons or friezes of tiles
• Tiled, tile work in various shapes as mosaics.
• the mosaic, set of pieces that apply to wall coating and pavement formation, etc.