Lunette

DEFINITION

A semicircular panel with a painting, it is often over a doorway or window. Often the lines of the painting correspond with the flowing line of the Lunette, such as a Renaissance scene with a Pieta. Source: Ralph Mayer, "A Dictionary of Art Terms and Techniques"; Kimberley Reynolds and Richard Seddon, "Illustrated Dictionary of Art Terms". <br><br>In architecture, a semicircular (fan-shaped) opening (with the flat side down) in a wall or a door. The word comes from the French for half-moon. Also, "lunette" can refer to a semicircular painting set separately within a work&#39;s frame, as in the design of a fan.(pr. loo-NET)Examples of the second sense:Bartolomeo di Giovanni (Italian, Florentine, active by 1488, died 1501), The Trinity, lunette, tempera on wood panel; painted surface 5 1/8 x 10 1/4 inches (13 x 26 cm), Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY. Bartolomeo di Giovanni collaborated with Sandro Botticelli (Alessandro di Mariano Filipepi) (Italian, Florentine, 1444/45-1510) on at least one occasion. This lunette was placed within the same frame as, and over a painting by Botticelli, The Last Communion of Saint Jerome, dating from the early 1490s. See Renaissance.Michelangelo Buonarroti (Italian, 1475-1564), Jacob and Joseph, 1505, fresco, a detail of the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, Vatican.