frieze

frieze, in architecture, the member of an entablature between the architrave and the cornice or any horizontal band used for decorative purposes. In the first type the Doric frieze alternates the metope and the triglyph; that of the other orders is plain or sculptured. The 5th-century B.C. treasury of the Cnidians at Delphi shows figures in the frieze. Roman and Renaissance examples, a notable one being on the 1st-century B.C. temple of Vesta at Tivoli, display acanthus leaves and other ornamentation.

Any long, narrow, horizontal panel or ornamental band used for decorative purposes around the walls of a room or exterior walls of a building. In Greco-Roman architecture it is a horizontal band, often decorated with relief sculpture, between the architrave and cornice of a building. The most famous decorative frieze is on the outer wall of the Parthenon in Athens, a 525-ft (160-m) representation of the ritual procession of the Panathenaic festival.

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In architecture the frieze is the wide central section part of an entablature and may be plain or – in the Ionic or Corinthian order – decorated with bas-reliefs. In an astylar wall it lies upon the architrave ('main beam') and is capped by the moldings of the cornice.

In interiors, the frieze of a room is the section of wall above the picture rail and under the crown moldings or cornice. By extension, a frieze is a long stretch of painted, sculpted or even calligraphic decoration in such a position, normally above eye-level. Frieze decorations may depict scenes in a sequence of discrete panels. The material of which the frieze is made of may be plasterwork, carved wood or other decorative medium.

In an example of an architectural frieze on the facade of a building, the octagonal Tower of the Winds in the Roman agora at Athens bears relief sculptures of the eight winds on its frieze.

A pulvinated frieze (or pulvino) is convex in section. Such friezes were featues of 17th-century Northern Mannerism, especially in subsidiary friezes, and much employed in interior architecture and in furniture.

The concept of a frieze has been generalized in the mathematical construction of Frieze patterns.