Amortissement
A crowning or terminating ornament placed at the top of an architectural or sculptural composition.
French Terms
Arrangement
The deliberate ordering of forms, masses, and figures within a composition to achieve unity and expressive coherence.
Art Nouveau
The 1890s–1910s movement of organic, flowing sculptural ornament derived from natural forms; anti-classical in program but rooted in Gothic and medieval carving traditions.
Atelier
The sculptor’s workshop and studio; in the academic tradition, a private teaching workshop within the French Beaux-Arts system.
Bust
The head-and-chest portrait format running from Roman verism through reliquary busts to Houdon's psychological realism.
Bust en Hermes
A portrait bust set on a tapering herm shaft instead of shoulders — fusing the French bust with the ancient Greek boundary-marker form.
Buste à l’Antique
A French portrait-bust mode citing antique dress, drapery, and socle conventions to heroize the sitter — as in Houdon's bare-headed Voltaire.
Cartesian Grid
A coordinate system based on perpendicular axes used to locate points numerically in space.
Cartouche
The cartouche — literally a "roll of paper" rendered permanent in stone — is the carved frame that holds a facade's inscriptions, arms, and epitaphs.
Cassolette
The cassolette — a pierced ornamental incense-vase — is Neoclassical French sculpture's carved emblem of offering and mourning.