Console frieze
A console frieze is a horizontal serial architectural element, which imitates wooden beam ends (also called 'beam heads') in stone. Narrow console friezes are also known as battlements .
The linear patterns resembling a series of indicated beam heads are called tooth cuts.
function
In contrast to their wooden models (e.g. in half-timbered buildings ), console friezes no longer have a load-bearing function; the overlying horizontal cornices or the beams of the roof trusses would be statically stable even without a base in the form of a console frieze. Console friezes therefore only fulfill structuring or decorative tasks.
Occurrence
Console friezes were originally reserved for the exterior ( apse , nave , facade) of a stone - mostly sacred - building; only very much later, and only in rare cases, are they found beneath cornices in the interior of buildings.
history
In the transition from wood to stone architecture, some - formerly functional - elements were retained as building decor: One of the most characteristic examples are console friezes; these already appear on the pediment of the Pantheon in Rome and other Roman provincial buildings (e.g. Jupiter monument in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence ). They can also be found in late antiquity (e.g. portal on the upper floor of Theodoric's tomb in Ravenna). In the Romanesque church architecture of the Middle Ages, console friezes are of major importance for the decorative design of the building , but they also appear below cornices and eaves in the architecture of the Renaissance , Baroque and Rococo . The historicizing architecture of the 19th century, which very often works with bricks - which are becoming increasingly cheaper than house stones - uses console friezes as a decorative element in the facade design.
Console figures
The consoles (sometimes also referred to as corbels) are - especially on the exterior of Romanesque churches - often decorated with figurative, vegetal or abstract motifs, which can be seen as disastrous ( apotropaic ) on the one hand, and also in a certain way as entertaining or amusing on the other. In any case, the figurative motifs belong to the field of folk art and popular belief - a certain thematic similarity connects them with the grimaces and popular scenes of the misericordies in medieval or early modern choir stalls .
Metopes
The spaces between the individual consoles mostly remain undecorated. On church buildings in south-west France and in north Spain, however, they can also be decorated with vegetable or figurative motifs in individual cases (→ San Martín (Artáiz) ).
gallery
Macqueville - frieze console above the north portal of the church
Échebrune - St-Pierre, corbel under cornice, monster
Échebrune - St-Pierre, corbel under cornice, person sitting cross-legged
Échebrune - St-Pierre, corbels under cornice, ox head
