Definitions
from The Century Dictionary.
- In architecture, figures or half figures of men used in place of columns or pilasters, to support an entablature.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun plural (Arch.) Figures or half figures of men, used as columns to support an entablature; -- called also
telamones . Seecaryatides .
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun Plural form of
atlas .
Etymologies
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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Here was revealed, beyond a splashing fountain guarded by recumbent lions, up a hillside, densely covered with dark confiners, a baroque grotto with exuberantly rusticated arches and athletic atlantes.
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Quales statuae (quod ait [2100] ille) quae sacris in aedibus columnis imponuntur, velut oneri cedentes videntur, ac si insudarent, quum revera sensu sint carentes, et nihil saxeam adjuvent firmitatem: atlantes videri volunt, quum sint statuae lapideae, umbratiles revera homunciones, fungi, forsan et bardi, nihil a saxo differentes.
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You can see this in atlantes and dictionaries until the Eighties, but the situation is almost reverse now.
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Again, figures in the form of men supporting mutules or coronae, we term "telamones" -- the reasons why or wherefore they are so called are not found in any story -- but the Greeks name them [Greek: atlantes].
The Ten Books on Architecture Vitruvius Pollio
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The walls of the narrow cella were interrupted by heavy piers supporting atlantes, or applied statues under the ceiling.
A Text-Book of the History of Architecture Seventh Edition, revised 1890
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