tracery

Archit a pattern of interlacing ribs, esp as used in the upper part of a Gothic window, etc.

Collins Discovery Encyclopedia, 1st edition © HarperCollins Publishers 2005

Tracery

The curvilinear ornamental branch-like shapes of stone or wood, creating an openwork pattern of mullions; so treated as to be ornamental; found within the upper part of a Gothic window or opening of similar character.

bar tracery

A pattern formed by inter-locking branching mullions within the arch of Gothic window tracery.

blind tracery

Any tracery that is not pierced through.

branch tracery

A form of Gothic tracery in Germany in the late 15th and early 16th century made to imitate rustic work with boughs and knots.

fan tracery

A tracery on the soffit of a vault whose ribs radiate like the ribs of a fan.

geometric tracery

Gothic tracery characterized by a pattern of geometric shapes, as circles and foils.

intersecting tracery

Any tracery formed by the upward curving, forking and continuation of the mullions, springing from alternate mullions or from every third mullion and intersecting each other.

panel tracery

Gothic style window tracery in sections within a large opening.

perpendicular tracery

Tracery of the Perpendicular style with repeated perpendicular mullions, crossed at intervals by horizontal transoms, producing repeated vertical rectangles which often rise to the full curve of the arch.

plate tracery

Tracery whose openings are pierced through thin slabs of stone.

reticulated tracery

Gothic tracery consisting mainly of a net-like arrangement of repeated geometrical figures.

tracery

tracery

The curvilinear openwork shapes of stone or wood creating a pattern within the upper part of a Gothic window, or an opening of similar character, in the form of mullions which are usually so treated as to be ornamental. By extension, similar patterns applied to walls or panels. See bar tracery, branch tracery, fan tracery, etc.

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References in periodicals archive

The inner timber tracery is carried by the steel structure and will flex with the steel stems.

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Windows were traditionally of translucent alabaster, but during the second Turkish occupation, (7) deeply coloured stained glass began to be used in the decorative plaster window tracery.

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Visual images evoke sound-memories, so Blake conjures up Holst's Saturn, more of Foulds' tired microtones disturb the otherwise gossamer tracery of his Brunet piece, John Martin summons a Siegfried Idyll out of Vaughan Williams, and Boutigny seems to equate with the shepherd's melancholy piping in Tristan and Isolde before an ending as brutal as Berlioz' March to the Scaffold.

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Two massive graphite wall drawings--which required fifteen assistants and are the artist's largest to date--filled two walls with looping tracery. In Wall Drawing #1166 Light to Dark (Scribbles) and Wall Drawing #1167 Dark to Light (Scribbles) (both 2005), blackness was alternately absorptive and reflective.

Sol LeWitt: Metropolitan Museum of Art/Madison Square Park/PaceWildenstein

The programme, completed by Mozart's so-called Jupiter Symphony and Tchaikovsky's rarely heard but substantial G Major Suite, was pretty enough in pointing up precision and the delicate tracery of blended orchestral groupings.

Review: A touch of brass; Review ALISON BALSOM Philharmonic

Beautifully balanced hands, resourcefully pedalled, drew the delicate tracery of soundworld in Ravel's dreamlike Sonatine and the dynamic refinement of Poulenc, and tellingly coloured accounts of Debussy's second book of Preludes underlined the assimilated influence of Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition.

Music reviews: Magical focus without respite; Pascal Roge Symphony Hall

Never mind the crown of thorns; for me that gargantuan tracery called up Briar Rose's thicket.

Giuseppe Penone: Drawing Center, New York

This created a marvellous collage of delicate tracery,most readily reminiscent of the magic found in Shostakovitch's two better-known piano concertos.

Review: A very low ebb tide; LORIN HOLLANDER Philharmonic

Looking in the opposite direction, from the rear with the translucent glass corridor in the foreground, you see through the delicate tracery of the Victorian shop front to the animation of the street.

Cogito Erco sum