caryatid

a column, used to support an entablature, in the form of a draped female figure

Collins Discovery Encyclopedia, 1st edition © HarperCollins Publishers 2005

Caryatid

A supporting member serving the function of a pier, column, or pilaster, and carved in the form of a draped, human figure; in Greek architecture.

caryatid

A supporting member serving the function of a pier, column, or pilaster and carved or molded in the form of a draped, human, female figure. See canephora.

The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.

Caryatid

(from the Greek karyatides, literally, the priestesses of the Temple of Artemis at Caryae, in Laconia, ancient Greece), in architecture, the sculptural representation of a standing female figure, serving as the support of a beam. Sometimes the figure only gives the impression of fulfilling a supportive function and simply serves as a decoration of the actual support. Caryatids were widely used in ancient Greek and Roman architecture, as well as in European architecture of the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries.

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References in periodicals archive

The Dance of the Caryatides is an explosive, playful production that, using motion, lights and sound, changes the perspective of the historic building.

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Once in Athens he had an "intuition of Egypt": a stifling moment of heat, dust, noise, young men in short sleeves drifting through shabby streets, old ornate buildings, their cornices, caryatides, peeling on hovels below--most of all, the sense of durance, merciless contraction in the gut.

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While the fact that this self-definition occurs a midst Poppet's group, with their dissonant talk of art in "the People's Cause" (40), might raise questions as to its credibility, Ambrose remains oblivious to them, persistently deeming himself "[b]orn after his time" (42) and hearkening wistfully "back to an earlier age [...], when amid a more splendid decor of red plush and gilt caryatides fin-de-siecle young worshippers crowded to the tables of Oscar and Aubrey" (174).

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