Palmette

The palmette (French: " Palm trees ") is a decorative motif, which is a symmetrical abstraction of a leaf of fan palm. Since ancient times, it is a popular ornament in architecture and vase painting. In addition to the acanthus it is one of the most common stylized plant motifs.

Form

Different in their stylistics reminds the palmette on a hand with fingers spread or to the Journal of the fan palm. In the Assyrian palmette the idea has held the role of the tree of life.

Dissemination

The palmette was already in use in the Babylonian art and in the 2nd millennium BC in the Minoan art. In ancient Greece, the palmette has been since 8 / 7 Century BC used as the most common form ornamental addition to the meander. Especially acroteria and friezes were decorated with palmettes preferred form. In Greek architecture palmette frieze forms often occur in addition vollplastisch on the ridge as acroterium or as Antefix.

Later we find palmettes in the Carolingian art as well as in the Romanesque, in the Renaissance, Classicism and Historicism in. They were until the recent time into rezipiert again and again and again transformed.