Eastern Empire.—Byzantine art, with its love of intri cately carved, flat surfaces, naturally modified the classic prece dents, and tended to substitute flat, inclined faces for all the classic mouldings, replacing richness of curved surface by rich ness of carved ornament.
Early Romanesque World.—This brought a new feeling into moulding design. Unable, through crudity of technique, to achieve either the refinement of classic profile or the intricacy of Byzantine carving, its mouldings are of the simplest, consist ing usually of the roll moulding, or bowtell on the edges of arches, etc., and occasional cavettos and cyma reversas on string courses (horizontal mouldings), cornices and the abaci, or top members, of column capitals. With the developing technique of the later Romanesque period, more complexity of mouldings followed. In many 12th century buildings there is a close approximation of the Roman decorative mouldings, especially in Tuscany, south Italy and Provence In Lombardy the development was toward delicacy of scale and a rich use of such simple ornaments as spiral flutings. Norman builders, both in France and England, decorated their mouldings by breaking them into zigzags, covering them with chevrons, projecting pyramids and birds' heads.
The Late 12th and 13th Centuries.—Gothic mouldings on the continent of Europe still remained simple in profile, and were usually confined to roll mouldings and occasional deep hollows. In cornices and abaci, however, much greater variety was common; cornices were often of cyma profile, or consisted of a cavetto and a torus ; decoration with rows of crockets was frequent Toward the end of the 13th century, the use of the keel moulding for arches, vault ribs, etc., became almost universal, and during the i4th century all mouldings became more and more delicate and attenuated, a development which reached its climax in the complex arch, rib and pier mouldings of 15th and i6th century flamboyant work. These flamboyant mouldings were of the greatest variety, usually with alternations of sharply project ing members, and deeply shadowed hollows ; inclined fillets were common and the mouldings of arches and piers, arches and cor nices, and gables and cornices were carved as interpenetrating or crossing each other.
English Gothic.—This was entirely different. In the 13th cen tury, Early English and Decorated styles arch mouldings were enormously complex, formed of successions of alternately pro jecting and receding rounded members, sometimes with inclined fillets separating them, sometimes without fillets, so that the section formed a continuous, much waved line. Cornices were, however, simple, and hollow members were frequently decorated with ball-flowers or pyramid-flowers. Toward the end of the Decorated period (q.v.) mouldings became simpler, and their hollows more shallow, and in the Perpendicular period (q.v.), a general flatness of effect was common. A characteristic feature of Perpendicular mouldings is the pairing of two cyma curves, and the separation of two such pairs by a wide and shallow hol low. A great richness of carved decoration occasionally took the place of earlier richness of profile and hollow members were carved with realistic vine patterns, or rhythmical repetitions of the Tudor rose, or of square projecting blocks, carved with heraldic insignia or rosettes. During the late Gothic period, both on the
continent of Europe and in England, the development of wood panelling created new moulding forms of small scale as decora tions around panels (see PANEL). The most common form was a small cyma reversa, sometimes with a bead or astragal at the edge of its concave part, which was turned toward the panel. Renaissance Mouldings.—These were based on classic precedent. The greatest differences were in the early transitional Renaissance style, in which rope mouldings, scale decoration and, occasionally, naturalistic leafage, were common. In the late Renaissance and Baroque the imaginative freedom of the' period led to an almost similar freedom from classic correctness. No general forms of importance crystallized from this variety. The much contorted contours of Spanish Baroque, and the character istic, projecting oval mouldings of the styles of Louis XIV. and XV. (see Lours STYLES) are typical of late Renaissance freedom. Mohammedan.—In the Mohammedan countries, mouldings were always subsidiary to surface decoration both in modelling and colour. Projecting corners were often softened by roll mould ings, treated like colonnettes, and moulded cornices occasionally occurred, in Egypt, the Moorish countries and Turkey. In many cases the cornices were supported by stalactite (q.v.) ornament. Generally speaking, Mohammedan mouldings throughout were of delicate scale and small projection.
India.—Here, on the other hand, design was of the great est complexity and variety. In much earlier work, in the north, Greek influence may be seen, but in all the styles through out the peninsula an inordinate love of complex and repeated shadow lines led to tremendously complex and crowded combina tions of mouldings, frequently covering large vertical surfaces. These mouldings were of all possible profiles; cymas, toruses, fillets, bands and ovolos. The ovolo and the torus were often decorated with fish scale or leaf forms, whose effect approximates that of the egg and dart. A somewhat similar richness of mould ing invention can be found in the great Cambodian ruins of Angkor Wat.
Far East.—Chinese and Japanese mouldings are simple, and usually restricted to the masonry bases of wooden buildings, wooden doors, stelae (upright memorial structures), and the like. The usual panel mould is a torus of slight projection, but the bases are frequently deeply cut and powerful in design. A note worthy characteristic is that the base of a building or stele may be carved as though it had legs, like a piece of furniture.
Modern.—Modernistic design is chary in its use of mould ings, which some of its exponents consider unnecessary, and therefore to be avoided. Simplified approximations of classic forms are found, especially in Scandinavian and American mod ernist work. Where mouldings are found they are used with the utmost freedom from precedent, as in the typical flat, horizontal cymas that formed a band around the "Austrian Building" by Josef Hoffman, at the Paris Exposition des Arts Decoratifs (5925). (See ORDER and the various historical articles on archi tecture.) See also Viollet-le-Duc, Dictionnaire Raisonne, art. "Moulure" (1854-75). (T. F H.)