In Pompeii No. 41, I showed the pediment above the kitchen door thusly, asking my readers whether its interior should be left plain or ornamented. The unanimous response was that the
tympanum (properly identified by Jim of
The Road to Parnassus) should be ornamented, and so by popular demand, that's the project for this week.
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| click to enlarge |
My first tympanum drafting was "A," but the more I looked at it, the more those leaf scrolls reminded me of a Victorian furniture design. So I redesigned the tympanum as "B," which has a more graceful and authentically Greek feel to it. (The Pompeians were looking to ancient Greece for inspiration.) Incidentally, all parts of the mural have been worked out in tracings like the examples above.
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| www.buffaloah.com |
The architectural decoration above is called an
akroter, and is found at the apex of gables on classical buildings, especially Greek temples. Within the typical akroter is an element called the palmette, which I'm incorporating into my own design.
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| Ercolano-Green by Richard Ginori | www.klatmagazine.com |
This handsome plate also features palmettes.
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| click to enlarge |
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The finished tympanum — a look one doesn't often see above a kitchen door. Thanks to my readers for encouraging me to add it!
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