Window

WINDOW. - An opening through the full thickness of a wall, made for the admission of light. It may consist of one, two or more elements which are called lights (single-light, two-light, three-light, many-light). The two vertical sides of the window are called jambs, shoulders or piers: upon them rests the upper horizontal side, which is called upon to bear the weight of the wall above; it is called the architrave, and is often replaced by an arched element. The jambs rest on the line of the lower horizontal side, which is called the line of the parapet or of the sill. The two faces of the jambs diverging toward the interior are called splays. The window is then completed with the fixtures for closing and opening: the shutters or louvres, the glass casements; the cloth screens similar to the casements, which are fitted externally the better to protect against the cold; the solid shutters, which are fixed internally to the main frame.

The proportion and the form of the window depend on various factors, which range from the construction system adopted to the peculiar character of the building, which demands different solutions from time to time; while the decoration finds its origins in the imagination, sometimes inclined to solutions far removed from functionality.

In the architraved manner, the oldest decoration consists in the prominent position of the architrave, beneath which the jambs are now flush with the wall, now instead projecting, forming with the architrave a single projecting form, which is called the surround. In classical architecture a cornice is superimposed on the arch, often decorated, sometimes supported by brackets. The greatest decorative richness is found in the tabernacle window, in which the light appears at the center of a veritable architectural construction. Considered aesthetically in the composition of the facade, the window has an essential importance and often gives it a singular tone through the arrangement of the voids, represented precisely by the windows, against the solid of the wall. The stylistic character of the various epochs is manifested, therefore, also in the rhythmic or arhythmic distribution of the various openings. Thus while in the Renaissance symmetry was generally respected (an even number of windows is arranged at the sides of the central and dominant window), in the Middle Ages an asymmetrical arrangement is instead favored: the forms and dimensions of the various windows vary, sometimes accompanying the variety of volume of the spaces which they light. From the primitive forms, rectangular and trapezoidal (less common), one passes, in the Gothic period, to other more slender and many-light forms, characterized by the presence of small arches, ornamented with trefoils, and terminating in a cusp.

In the sixteenth century the window attains, on the example of antiquity, an elegant linear simplicity of structure, and the architraved type returns to favor, with proportions composed on the basis of a double square bordered by a surround, by a counter-surround and by a frame.

In this period the aedicule window spreads; and the Serlian three-light window also comes into use, consisting of three intercolumniations, of which the central one is arched. In the Baroque period the decoration of the window acquires movement from the juxtaposition of the linear surround with the counter-surround, for the most part highly decorated. The pediments have various forms, always tending toward effects of a dynamic and picturesque character. It is the period of pediments of the most varied shapes: broken or interrupted, straight or curved, concave or convex, undulating or joined, which gather within their field fanciful decorations of cartouches, shells, figures, etc.

In our own time the window too feels the general tendency toward simplification, which is manifested throughout architecture. Decorations disappear, and are reduced to a minimum. On the smooth facade the window, having lost every plastic value, assumes a volumetric one as a void in contrast to the surrounding solid, and also a chromatic one as a zone of color opposed to the light color of the plaster. - See pl. LXXXVIII.

Pietro Gazzola