Baluster
A baluster (
The term baluster shaft is used to describe forms such as a candlestick, upright furniture support, and the stem of a brass chandelier.[citation needed]
The term banister (also bannister) refers to a baluster or to the system of balusters and handrail of a stairway.[3] It may be used to include its supporting structures, such as a supporting newel post.[4]
Etymology
According to the
History
The earliest examples of balusters are those shown in the
The application to architecture was a feature of the early
Wittkower distinguished two types, one symmetrical in profile that inverted one bulbous vase-shape over another, separating them with a cushionlike
Materials used
Balusters may be made of
Profiles and style changes
The baluster, being a turned structure, tends to follow design precedents that were set in woodworking and ceramic practices, where the turner's lathe and the potter's wheel are ancient tools. The profile a baluster takes is often diagnostic of a particular style of architecture or furniture, and may offer a rough guide to date of a design, though not of a particular example.
Some complicated
Once it had been taken from the lathe, a turned wood baluster could be split and applied to an architectural surface, or to one in which architectonic themes were more freely treated, as on cabinets made in Italy, Spain and Northern Europe from the sixteenth through the seventeenth centuries.[16] Modern baluster design is also in use for example in designs influenced by the Arts and Crafts movement in a 1905 row of houses in Etchingham Park Road Finchley London England.
Outside Europe, the baluster column appeared as a new motif in
The modern term baluster shaft is applied to the shaft dividing a window in Saxon architecture. In the south transept of the Abbey in St Albans, England, are some of these shafts, supposed to have been taken from the old Saxon church. Norman bases and capitals have been added, together with plain cylindrical Norman shafts.[1]
Balusters are normally separated by at least the same measurement as the size of the square bottom section. Placing balusters too far apart diminishes their aesthetic appeal, and the structural integrity of the balustrade they form. Balustrades normally terminate in heavy newel posts, columns, and building walls for structural support.
Balusters may be formed in several ways. Wood and stone can be shaped on the lathe, wood can be cut from square or rectangular section boards, while concrete, plaster, iron, and plastics are usually formed by molding and casting. Turned patterns or old examples are used for the molds.
Gallery
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A vasiform balustrade crownsCampidoglio(Rome)
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Balusters influenced by the Arts and Crafts movement in a 1905 row of houses in Etchingham Park Road (Finchley, London)
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Ornate upper bronze balustrade, lower vasiform stone balustrade, and bronze central rail supported by decorative bronze metalwork at Brown University's Orwig Music Library
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Balustrade of turned wood balusters of Quema Ancestral House a typical bahay na bato
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Stone balustrade atSchloss Veitshöchheim near Würzburg, Germany
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Balustrade in the form of a serpent,Mueang Chiang Mai, Chiang Mai, Thailand
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Bronze balustrade, formerly of Saint Servatius bridge of 1836, now in Maastricht, Netherlands
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Simple balustrade of turned wood balusters of a style common in North America
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Marble balustrade in San Gaetano, Brescia, Italy
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Stairway Balustrade by Florence Truelson, 1937 (National Gallery of Art), USA
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The balustrade of Cameron's Gallery at Tsarskoye Selo, Russia
See also
Citations
- ^ a b c d public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Baluster". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 3 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 297. One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the
- OED; "AskOxford". Archived from the originalon 2007-09-29. Retrieved 2007-06-26.
- ^ "AskOxford". Archived from the original on 2007-09-29. Retrieved 2007-06-26.
- ^ "banister". Retrieved 28 April 2018 – via The Free Dictionary.
- Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 40 (1977:240-300); Paul Davies and David Hemsoll's detailed history, "Renaissance Balusters and the Antique", in Architectural History26 (1983:1–23, 117–122) p.8 notes uses of the word in fifteenth-century documents and explores its connotations for sixteenth-century designers, pp 12ff.
- ^ "Balaústre: o que é, como usar, onde comprar? Veja + exemplos lindos!". Balaústres (in Brazilian Portuguese). 2021-08-03. Retrieved 2021-11-21.
- ^ Wittkower 1974
- ^ Davies and Hemsoll 1983:2.
- ^ A colonette is a miniature column, used decoratively.
- ^ H. Siebenhüner, in tracing the baluster's career, found its origin in the profile of the round base of Donatello's Judith and Holofernes, c 1460 (Siebenhüner, "Docke", in Reallexikon zur Deutsche Kunstgeschichte vol. 4 1988:102-107)
- Palazzo Ducale, Urbino, where Luciano Lauranawas employed (p. 6 and pl. 3j).
- ^ These earlier appearances were adduced by Davies and Hemsol 1983:7f.
- ^ Davies and Hemsol 1983:1.
- ^ Hong Kong Investor With Eye on the Past Acquires Landmark Bradbury Building, Los Angeles Times
- ^ Twist-turned legs on a backstool feature prominently in a conversation piece of a couple in an elaborately fashionable Dutch interior, painted by Eglon van der Neer (1678): illustration.
- ^ The architectural invention of the applied half-baluster, with a caveat concerning "the fallacy of first recorded appearances", by Filippino Lippi in the painted architecture all'antica of his St. Philip revealing the Demon in the Strozzi Chapel, Santa Maria Novella, Florence, and in Michelangelo's planned use in the Medici Chapel, is explored by Paul Joannides, "Michelangelo, Filippino Lippi and the Half-Baluster", The Burlington Magazine 123 No. 936 (March 1981:152–154).
- ^ "There are no free-standing baluster columns of Shah Jahan's reign in the Fort at Lahore", according to Ebba Koch ("The Baluster Column: A European Motif in Mughal Architecture and Its Meaning", Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 45 (1982:251–262) p. 252) but balustrades are a feature of all three.
- ^ Ebba Koch 1982:251–262.
General and cited references
- Wittkower, Rudolf (1974). "Chapter Three: The Renaissance Caluster and Palladio". Palladio and English Palladianism. Margot Wittkower (foreword). London: Thames and Hudson. OCLC 905449767. (Links are to the 1983 American edition.)