Crossword clues for altarpiece
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Altarpiece \Al"tar*piece`\, n. The painting or piece of sculpture above and behind the altar; reredos.
Wiktionary
n. a work of art suspended above and behind an altar in a church
WordNet
n. a painted or carved screen placed above and behind an altar or communion table [syn: reredos]
Wikipedia
An altarpiece is a piece of art such as a painting, sculpture or relief representing a religious subject made for placing behind the altar of a Christian church. Though most commonly used for a single work of art such as a painting or sculpture, or a set of them, the word can also be used of the whole ensemble behind an altar, otherwise known as a reredos, including what is often an elaborate frame for the central image or images. Altarpieces were one of the most important products of Christian art especially from the late Middle Ages to the era of the Counter-Reformation.
Large number of altarpieces are now removed from their church settings, and often their elaborate sculpted frameworks, and displayed as more simply framed paintings in museums and other places.
Usage examples of "altarpiece".
The carapace of the instrument binnacle, the inclined planes of the dashboard panel, the metal sills of the radio and ashtrays gleamed around me like altarpieces, their geometries reaching towards my body like the stylized embraces of some hyper-cerebral machine.
In looking at a glorious altarpiece, one does not feel unhappy because one cannot carry it off from the church and hang it up at home.
A lovely little thing, delightful altarpiece, and some handsome sculpture.
He was asked to paint altarpieces for the churches, and even at last, when his name became famous, he was invited to work upon the walls of the Ducal Palace, the highest honour which a Venetian painter could hope to win.
He had seen pictures in library books of the altarpieces of the world's most notable cathedrals, but they paled into insignificance before this.
At his death he was to own 47 jeweled gold crowns and 63 complete sets of chapel furnishings including vestments, altarpieces, chalices, liturgical books, and gold crucifixes.
The immense hoard that was seized by the Japanese during the war-- from China, the Southeast Asian countries, the Dutch East Indies, and the Philippines-- consisted of thousands of metric tons of exotic gems and jewelry, silver and gold bullion, and Buddhas and Catholic altarpieces encrusted with priceless gems and cast in solid gold.
The immense hoard that was seized by the Japanese during the war-- from China, the Southeast Asian countries, the Dutch East Indies, and the Philippines-- consisted of thousands of metric tons of exotic gems and jewelry, silver and gold bullion, and Buddhas and Catholic altarpieces encrusted with priceless gems and cast in solid gold.
The tomb sculptures and altarpieces he created are concentrated in the area around his home town of Würzburg, where for many years he served as a councilor.
He wandered through churches, studying frescoes and altarpieces until his neck ached.
Beyond these were several smaller altarpieces and triptyches, an intact puipit in panelled gold, three large equestrian statues, a few strands of sea-weed still entwined in the horses' manes, several pairs of enormous cathedral doors, embossed in gold and silver, and a large tiered marble fountain.
It embraced a black-figured amphora by Amasis, a proto-Corinthian vase in the Aegean style, Koubatcha and Rhodian plates, Athenian pottery, a sixteenth-century Italian holywater stoup of rock crystal, pewter of the Tudor period (several pieces bearing the double-rose hallmark), a bronze plaque by Cellini, a triptych of Limoges enamel, a Spanish retable of an altarpiece by Vallfogona, several Etruscan bronzes, an Indian Greco Buddhist, a statuette of the Goddess Kuan Yin from the Ming Dynasty, a number of very fine Renaissance woodcuts, and several specimens of Byzantine, Carolingian, and early French ivory carvings.