tures: such as a massive vertical pillar (rectangular, round, or compound in cross-section), a buttress; a section of wall that is used to support an arch, vault, or other kind of roof, or, a supporting structure at the junction of connecting spans of a bridge.
Also see column, fenestration, and socle.
Pietà or pietà
pigment - Finely powdered color material which produces the color of any medium. Made either from natural substances or synthetically, pigment becomes paint, ink, or dye when mixed with oil, water or another fluid (also called vehicle). When pressed into wax it becomes a crayon, pencil or chalk.
An image of making and using pigments:
Jan van der Straet (also known as Stradanus) (Dutch, 1523-1604), Painter's Studio, woodcut. As the master paints a large canvas with a picture of St. George and the Dragon at the center, an apprentice paints a portrait from a model at left, two make drawings and one mixes colors in the foreground, two more grind pigments into oil on the right, and a last one carries a canvas toward the doorway. Windows let in natural light from several angles. There are numerous shelves, drawers and tables for supplies and works-in-progress. See studio.
Also see alizarin, antimony, azurite, binder, brown, cadmiums, chrome yellow, cerulean blue, chroma, cobalt, colorant, color wheel, copper resinate, Egyptian blue, emerald green, encaustic, feather, fluorescent colors, fugitive, green earth, grind, Indian red, Indian yellow, indigo, intarsia, jewelry, lead tin yellow, lemon yellow, madder lake, malachite, Material Safety Data Sheet (MSDS), mortar and pestle, Naples yellow, ochres, orange, orpiment, permanent, Prussian blue, purple, realgar, sepia, siena, smalt, stain, triturate, ultramarine, umber, verdigris, vermilion, viridian, white lead, yellow, and zinc white.
pigment printing - A photographic printing method, in which a halftone picture results from pigments embedded in gelatin. The primary material is a paper called "pigment paper", a paper coated with a mixture of gelatin and pigment. The paper is made light-resistant through a bath in chromcarbonate solution, then it is dried and photoprocessed with a halftone negative. Visit Manfred Rupp's site for Hans Ulrich's more thorough description of this process. He claims that pigment printing is the best photoprocess for color, tone and lightfastness known to date; indeed that it is the only color photopositive process that has its longevity, in contrast to the standard processes which hold their colorfastness and light-resistance no more than twenty years.
pilaster - In architecture, a flat, rectangular column (often fluted) with a capital and base, attached to or set into a wall as an ornamental motif. It may be decorative or used to buttress the wall.
Eight types of pilasters observed in the Blair Plain.
William Thornton (American, 1759-1828), Library Company, 1791, Philadelphia. The façade of this red brick Georgian or Federal style building bears four white pilasters. They rise from the level of the "water table" (even with the top of the entry stairs) to the bottom of the pediment, which crowns the building. Thornton is most reknowned as the original architect of the US Capitol.
The Glossary of Medieval Art and Architecture defines pilaster and provides an illustration.
Also see Corinthian, Doric, order, pier, and respond.
pilotis - In architecture, thin steel or reinforced concrete posts used by architects in the early twentieth century to support concrete roof and floor slabs, avoiding the need for bearing walls.
The singular form is piloti.
Also see column and pier.
pillar - Usually a weight carrying member, such as a column or a pier. Sometimes it is an isolated, freestanding structure used for commemorative purposes.
In Japanese art tradition, a pillar print is a narrow vertical print, known as hasira-e.
Also see menhir, monolith, monument, pilaster, portal, post, respond, and support.