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plaster casting

(Encyclopedia)plaster casting, as a sculpture process, is of three kinds. One employs a waste mold, another a piece mold (both plaster of paris), and the third a gelatin mold; all reproduce the original clay or wax...

Piccirilli

(Encyclopedia)Piccirilli pēˌchērēlˈlē [key], family of Italian-American marble cutters and sculptors. In 1888, the father and six sons, all sculptors, migrated from Italy and established a highly successful w...

reredos

(Encyclopedia)reredos rērˈdŏs [key], ornamented wall or screen that rises behind the high altar of a church, forming a background for it. It may be placed against the apse wall at the extreme end or directly beh...

Orvieto

(Encyclopedia)Orvieto ōrvyĕˈtō [key], city (1991 pop. 21,419), in Umbria, central Italy, on the Poglia River. Situated at the top of a rocky hill, it is a tourist and pilgrimage center. Orvieto is probably loca...

candelabrum

(Encyclopedia)candelabrum kănˌdəläˈbrəm [key], primarily a support for candles, designed in the form of a turned baluster or a tapered column, also a branched candlestick or a lampstand. Though most used and ...

Venus, in Roman religion and mythology

(Encyclopedia)Venus, in Roman religion and mythology, goddess of vegetation. Later, she became identified (3d cent. b.c.) with the Greek Aphrodite. In imperial times she was worshiped as Venus Genetrix, mother of A...

carbonate

(Encyclopedia)carbonate kärˈbənātˌ, –nət [key], chemical compound containing the carbonate radical or ion, CO3−2. Most familiar carbonates are salts that are formed by reacting an inorganic base (e.g., a ...

Bernini, Giovanni Lorenzo

(Encyclopedia)Bernini, Giovanni Lorenzo or Gianlorenzo jōvänˈnē lōrĕnˈtsō, jänlōrĕnˈtsō bĕrnēˈnē [key], 1598–1680, Italian sculptor and architect, b. Naples. He was the dominant figure of the Ita...

Albee, Edward

(Encyclopedia)Albee, Edward ălˈbē [key], 1928–2016, American playwright, one of the leading dramatists of his generation, b. Washington, D.C., as Edward Harvey. His most characteristic work constitutes an absu...

Wenders, Wim

(Encyclopedia)Wenders, Wim, 1945–, German filmmaker, b. Düsseldorf. During the late 1960s he attended film school and worked as a film critic in Munich. Wenders first attracted attention with The Goalie's Anxiet...