Rinceau

In architecture and the decorative arts, a rinceau (plural rinceaux; from the French, derived from old French rain ‘branch with foliages’) is a decorative form consisting of a continuous wavy stemlike motif from which smaller leafy stems or groups of leaves branch out at more or less regular intervals.

The use of rinceaux is frequent in the friezes of Roman buildings, where it is generally found in a frieze, the middle element of an entablature, just below the cornice. It is also decorated in the jamb ornaments and capitals of Romanesque structures and in friezes and panels of buildings in the various Renaissance styles, where tiny animals or human heads also appear.

The rinceau experienced a return to the simpler Classic style in the 17th century, and in the subsequent century it was applied more freely, without a strict repetition of identical forms.

Description
These are patterns composed of foliage and vegetable stems with successive windings more or less rhythmic and orderly, often deployed in the form of friezes but can also cover larger areas. The most classic plants represented since antiquity are acanthus and vines, and to a lesser extent ivy. They sometimes include roses and can include all kinds of flowering plants. The foliage are above all imaginary and composite patterns that can be inspired by a very large variety of plants without respecting their natural form. They frequently contain flowers, vases, birds and other animals, masks and various human figures. When they are associated with characters or animals, they are called “populated rinceaux”. They are used for graphic decoration, painting and / or architecture. They can be painted (eg illuminated), carved, forged (ironwork), woven or embroidered (textile arts), made of mosaics, printed materials, etc.

History
The foliage appears in ancient architecture in the decorations of roofs (sima) in ancient Greece, especially in the Hellenistic period. From the Hellenistic period they diversified into mosaics, frescoes and carved friezes, and spread throughout the Mediterranean Basin, and in the East to India after the conquests of Alexander the Great. Like the whole of the Greek artistic inheritance, they are transmitted to Ancient Rome where they will be one of the most diffused and classic decorative reasons of the imperial time. They will likewise be used extensively in the settings of paleochristian architecture.

The foliage persist throughout the Middle Ages by diversifying. They are very abundant in Byzantine art, in the continuity of early Christian art, whether in mosaics, ivories or architectural marble reliefs. From the beginning of the Middle Ages, they are found throughout Western Europe, on carved reliefs, coffins, stone crosses, decorative stucco, goldsmith, etc. They are particularly used in manuscripts, often associated with interlacing, and they will remain one of the major decorative motifs of medieval illumination for more than a millennium, despite the evolutions of the style (pre-Romanesque, Romanesque, Gothic). They are often in the initials or around, but can also form the background pattern of thumbnails or frame them in full page. In Romanesque architecture they sometimes adorn the carved capitals. The ironwork hinges of the Notre-Dame de Paris cathedral doors are a remarkable example of Gothic foliage. They are also sometimes seen in stained glass windows. In the Orient, under the influence of Byzantine art, they also become one of the basic reasons for the decoration of Islamic art, alongside geometric motifs, favored by the prohibition of human figuration in Islam, and they will know a particular development in the Persian art.

In Europe, they find more ancient forms in the Renaissance. Then they diversify again during the Baroque era of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, where they will be used in abundance in all forms of art, including cabinet making and the textile arts.

Heraldry
In the heraldic domain, foliage “is also a blazon, branches laden with leaves”.

Source From Wikipedia