Editing Term (architecture) (section)

{{Short description|Pillar with human head and bust}}
[[File:Terminal Figure - Sphinx with crescent in her hair.jpeg|thumb|Terminal Figure: Sphinx with crescent in her hair, [[Jean Mignon]], 1540s]]
[[Image:Orna139-Hermen.png|thumb|250px|Terminal figures (4, 6 and 9, to be strict) copied from French and Antwerp 16th-century [[Mannerism|Mannerist]] pattern books.]]
In [[Classical architecture]] and in art a '''term''' or '''terminal figure''' ({{plural form}}: '''terms''' or '''termini''') is a human head and bust that continues down as a square tapering pillar-like form. It is usually distinguished from a [[herma|herm]], which has a head and shoulders only,<ref>Lucie-Smith, 213</ref> but the two words may be used rather loosely and interchangeably.

The god [[Terminus (god)|Terminus]] was the Etruscan and Roman deity of boundaries, and classical sources say that boundary markers often took the form of a half-figure of the god on a pillar, though ancient survivals in this form are extremely rare.  

In the architecture and the painted architectural decoration of the European [[Renaissance architecture|Renaissance]] and the succeeding [[Classicism|Classical styles]], term figures are quite common. Often they represent minor deities associated with fields and vineyards and the edges of woodland, [[Pan (mythology)|Pan]] and [[faun]]s and [[Bacchante]]s especially, and they may be draped with garlands of fruit and flowers.

Term figures were a particularly characteristic feature of the 16th-century style in furniture and carved interior decoration that is called [[Antwerp Mannerism]]. [[Ornament print]]s, such as a set of 20 [[School of Fontainebleau]] etchings from the 1540s usually given to [[Jean Mignon]], disseminated the style through Germany and England.  In these very fanciful [[Mannerist]] creations, many of the forms dip in and out of architectural and anatomical shapes.