Adeline's art dictionary : containing a complete index of all terms used in art, architecture, heraldry, and archaeology / translated from the French and enlarged.

Adeline, Jules, 1845-1909.

Date:: 1891

Credit: Adeline's art dictionary : containing a complete index of all terms used in art, architecture, heraldry, and archaeology / translated from the French and enlarged. Source: Wellcome Collection.

19/440 (page 7)

$Roman women. She refused to marry the son of the prefect of Rome, de- clared herself a Christian, and was put to death. In art she bears the palm of martyrdom and sometimes the book. She is also represented as crowned with olive and with a lamb by her side. Agnus Dei. [Lamb of God.] Agora. (Arch.) A public place where the Greeks held their assemblies and dispensed justice. It was an enclosure richly decorated with porticoes, statues, and altars. Agrafe. (Arch.) In the art of con- struction an agrafe is a piece of iron or copper, the pur- pose of which is to hold together or consolidate. In de- corative architecture the agrafe is the keystone of an arch, the voluted orna- ment of which, as it were, clasps to- gether the mould- ings of the arch. By an extension of meaning the term is applied to any decorative projec- tion which breaks a moulding. Aiglets. (Cost.) Tags of metal attach- ed to the laces, and used to draw together slashed sleeves, to fasten portions of dress, or to ornament caps. They were often made of gold and other precious metals and were cut into a variety of forms. Aileron. (Arch.' A French term ap ^ plied to the inverted a\i consoles, placed at each side of a dormer window to take off from the hardness of the right angle formed by the roof and the vertical uprights of the dormer window. The facades of some churches of the 17th and 18th centuries afford us examples of ailerons of considerable size, which serve to con- nect a ground floor with a first floor of much smaller dimen- sions. Ailette. (Cost.) A kind of epaulette, generally made of leather, and displaying the badge of the wearer. It was worn in the 13th and 14th centuries. Air. (Paint.) We say that a picture lacks air when the figures are painted with hardness, and do not appear to be seen through the medium of the atmos- phere, or when they seem stuck on to the canvas and so fail to give us the illusion of reality. We say that a portrait lacks air when the face is badly placed on the canvas, and when insufficient space is left in the upper part of the picture, be- tween the head and the frame, so that the model seems stiff and cramped in pose. Aisle. (Arch.) A division of or addi- tion to a building. In church architec- ture the aisle is the lateral division which flanks the nave or choir. In Greek temples the lateral colonnade was termed an aisle (irrepbv). In French the term also means the returning ends of a building, which we call wings (q.v.). Alabaster. A name given to a kind of white half-transparent stone some- times veined, which is capable of receiv- ing a high polish, and is so soft that it can be scratched with the nail. —, Calcareous. A variety of carbonate$