Palmette

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Antefix in palmette shape

The palmette (French for "little palm tree") is a decorative motif that represents a symmetrical abstraction of a leaf of the fan palm . It has been a popular ornament in architecture and vase painting since ancient times . In addition to the acanthus , it is one of the most common stylized plant motifs.

shape

Different in their stylistics, the palmette is reminiscent of a hand with spread fingers or of the leaf of the fan palm. In the Assyrian imagination, the palmette played the role of the tree of life .

Palmettes were a popular decor in the 19th century. Made of cast iron, they decorate the "Iron House" in the Nymphenburg Palace Park.

distribution

Several antefixes made of clay in palmette shape

The palmette was already in Babylonian art and in the 2nd millennium BC. Commonly used in Minoan art . In ancient Greece the palmette was used since the 8th / 7th centuries. Century BC BC next to the meander used as the most common decorative form. Above all, acroteries and friezes were preferably designed in the shape of palmettes. In Greek architecture, palmettes often appear as acroters or antefixes next to frieze forms on the roof ridge .

Palmettes are later also found in Carolingian art, as well as in Romanesque , Renaissance , classicism and historicism . Until recently they have been received and transformed again and again.

See also

literature

  • Ernst Gombrich : Ornament and Art. Jewelry instinct and sense of order in the psychology of decorative creativity. Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 1982
  • Günter Irmscher: A short art history of European ornament since the early modern period (1400–1900) . Scientific Book Society, Darmstadt 1984

Web links

Commons : Palmette  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files