Atlas
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Male figure used as a column to support an entablature, balcony, or other projection, originating in Classical architecture. Such figures are posed as if supporting great weights, like Atlas bearing the world. The related telamon of Roman architecture, the male counterpart of the caryatid, is also a weight-bearing figure but does not usually appear in an atlas pose.
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Atlas
atlantis (pl. atlantes, atlantides)
Well-developed, Sculptured, male figure, rather than a column, used as a support for an entablature, or other architectural element, e.g. balcony. In form, the figure seems to sustain a great burden, and the arms and shoulders are used to hold up the superstructure, unlike a canephora, caryatid, or telamon, which supports the entablature on its head. Some sources state that atlantes (or gigantes) were Greek equivalents of Roman telamones, and that they were also called Persians, but male standing figures dressed in oriental fashion, telamones (often with Egyptianizing attributes), canephorae, and caryatides are always straight and unbowed, and are wholly unlike atlantes, which often occur in Baroque architecture, especially in Central Europe. The Greek temple of Zeus Olympius, Agraces (or Agrigentum), had atlantes standing on screen-walls between the engaged Doric columns to help to support the entablature with heads and arms (c.480 BC).
Bibliography
- J. Curl (2001)
- Dinsmoor (1950)
The full bibliography for this book is available to download as a pdf file.
Download the bibliography for A Dictionary of Architecture and Landscape Architecture (PDF: 1.2MB)
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Atlas (architecture)
In the classical European architectural tradition an atlas (also known as an atlant, or atlante [1] or atlantid; plural atlantes)[2] is a support sculpted in the form of a man, which may take the place of a column, a pier or a pilaster. The Roman term for such a sculptural support is telamon (plural telamones or telamons).[2]
The caryatid is the female precursor of this architectural form in Greece, a woman standing—without effort—in the place of each column or pillar. Caryatids are found at the treasuries at Delphi and the Erechtheion on the Acropolis at Athens for Athene. They usually are in an Ionic context and represented a ritual association with the goddesses worshiped within.[3]
Atlantes express extreme effort in their function, heads bent forward to support the weight of the structure above them across their shoulders, forearms often lifted to provide additional support, providing an architectural motif.
The term is the Latin plural of the name Atlas – the Titan who was forced to hold the sky on his shoulders for eternity. The alternative term, telamones, also is derived from a later mythological hero, Telamon, one of the Argonauts, who was the father of Ajax.
Atlantes and caryatids were noted by the Roman late Republican architect Vitruvius, whose description of the structures,[4] rather than surviving examples, transmitted the idea of atlantes to the Renaissance architectural vocabulary.
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Origin
Not only did the Caryatids precede them, but similar architectural figures already had been made in ancient Egypt out of monoliths. Atlantes originated in Magna Graecia, in southern Italy and Sicily after it was colonized by Greek settlers. The earliest surviving atlantes are fallen ones from the Early Classical Greek temple of Zeus, the Olympeion, in Agrigento, Sicily.[5] Atlantes, however, have played a more significant role in Mannerist and baroque architecture.
During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, many buildings were built with glorious atlantes that look much like the Greek ones. Their selection from the two proposed designs—the other design using Caryatids—for the entrance of the Hermitage Museum that was built for Tsar Nicholas I of Russia made atlantes become even more fashionable. The portico of this building has ten enormous atlantes, approximately three times life-size, carved from Serdobol granite, which were designed by Johann Halbig and executed by the sculptor, Alexander Terebenev.
Examples
- Basilica di Santa Croce, Lecce, Italy
- Casa degli Omenoni, Milan, Italy
- Church of St. Georg, Hamburg, Germany
- Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia
- House in Kanałowa Str. 17, Poznań, Poland
- Palazzo Davia Bargellini, Bologna, Italy
- Pavilion Vendôme, Aix-en-Provence, France
- Sanssouci, Potsdam, Germany
- Valle dei Templi, Agrigento, Italy
- Zwinger, Germany
Gallery
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Angelic atlantids on the Cathedral of St. Peter of Alcantara, Petrópolis, Brazil]]
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Public building in Petrópolis, Brazil
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Atlantes by Karl Bitter, removed from George B. Post's St. Paul Building, NYC when it was demolished and moved to Holiday Park in Indianapolis, Indiana c. 1958
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Wayne Co. Ct House, Wooster, OH, USA, c. 1879
)_-_now_in_Indianapolis_IN_USA.jpeg)
See also
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Atlantes |
References
- ^ Hersey, George, The Lost Meaning of Classical Architecture, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 1998 p. 129
- ^ a b Aru-Az', Michael Delahunt, ArtLex Art Dictionary, 1996-2008.
- ^ Harris, Cyril M., ed., Illustrated Dictionary of Historic Architecture, Dover Publications, New York, 1983.
- ^ Vitruvius, De Architectura, 6.7.6.
- ^ Dorothy King, "Doric Figured Supports: Vitruvius’ Caryatids and Atlantes: 5.2 Atlantes and Telamones"
Bibliography
- King, Dorothy (1998). "Figured supports: Vitruvius’ Caryatids and Atlantes". Quaderni Ticinesi XXVII.Dr King's "Doric Figured Supports: Vitruvius’ Caryatids and Atlantes"
See also
Notes
- ^ Hersey, George, The Lost Meaning of Classical Architecture, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 1998 p. 129
- ^ a b Aru-Az', Michael Delahunt, ArtLex Art Dictionary, 1996-2008.
- ^ Harris, Cyril M., ed., Illustrated Dictionary of Historic Architecture, Dover Publications, New York, 1983.
- ^ Vitruvius, De Architectura, 6.7.6.
- ^ Dorothy King, "Doric Figured Supports: Vitruvius’ Caryatids and Atlantes: 5.2 Atlantes and Telamones"
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