WINDOW, an opens ce reserved, as in a wall, for the admission daylight into the in terior. (See also Doswell W I N DOW ) . The window generally is in a vertical wall. The opening may be filled with glazed sash or case ment arranged to open and shut, as in the mod ern houses; or with glazed sash of wood, iron, or lead fixed firmly to the solid frame of the window, or with only a single panel here and there made to open, as in the case of churches both ancient and modern; or the space may have a slab of semi-transparent stone let into it through which much light may enter, as in some Oriental and ancient European buildings; or a slab of marble with holes cut in it may be in serted, or in place of this a continuous grating. as of bronze, both of which were frequent in classical Roman buildings; or, finally. the space may be left without permanent fill ing of any sort, shutters being used to close it when needed, as in many parts of Europe in the Middle Ages, and as common now in the tropics. Still a further modification of the last-named scheme is found in those tropical houses which have all the openings filled with jalousies, namely, shutters with slats (louver shutters). some of which may even be fixed fast, while others open on hinges. As the climate becomes too warm for the necessity of dosing the windows at any time in the year. these devices tend to replace solid shutters and casements.
Architecturally the window is of the greatest importance to certain styles, and in others does not count at all. Thus in Grecian architecture there are no windows; and in Greco-Roman architecture the window has never been a con trolling member because the great windows the public halls are commonly the lunettes under the vaulting, simply pierced and filled with gratings of built up solid with masonry. window of the ancient Roman dwelling, also, so far as we know it, was of less consequence because there were no open ings of any great size in the outer walls, and the rooms opening inward upon the court or garden were more or less without walls on that side, a large doorway and a square window above the bed-place needing nothing but a cur tain or the like to screen them. Even in Byzan tine and Syrian art the window, though begin ning to be emphasized by a stone trimming or casing, is not that which the style depends upon But in the mediarval styles of northern and western Europe the window is the chief feature after the roofs with their fixed slope and their height above the walls. The earliest Roman
esque had windows, small indeed, but with jambs richly molded in the thickness of the henvy walls; and the later style takes on some of the variety and brilliancy of the Gothic work The Gothic window in a church is the opening up of the whole wall space between buttress and buttress and below the vault: and this space tends to he filled with elaborate tracery Even apart from the tracery. the moldings of the jamb- often with colonnettes produced 1w tilting a round molding with capital and haw. arid with sculpture added to the sill-course mar be very decorative. In dwelling-houses rare, hut the window, tf large, was with a pointed arch and the head filled with a slab of stone pierced with a decorative opening and supported by colonnettes, or in some other way architecturally treated_ The very numerous windows with square beads, that is, with lintels instead of arches, are made ornamental by moldings, sometimes very rich and elaborate, and be the free use of colon penes to carry the lintels. In the neo-classic style a curiously regulated and ordered system of arranging the windows became customary in the early days of the Renaissance, and was completely developed in the 16th century in Italy, and 50 years later in the north. Under the name of fenestration this ordering of the windows has become a most important part of designing, especially in the street fronts of city buildings. The window-casings may even be ornamental in themselves, though with an ornamentation not strictly belonging to them, but borrowed, as it were, from other parts of the structure: thus, small pediments are used to crown the window openings, and even col umns arc used one on either side of the window opening. to support these pediments. But the main thing is still the arrangement of the win dows in the wall and the proportioning of these openings and the solid wall between them.