Word: finial
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...land crab in the formal armor that was designed to protect him against sword cuts and even the slow-flying lead balls of a matchlock, he was a sight: the armor consisted of hundreds of lacquered leather platelets, like fish scales, bound together with silk cord. But his mask, finial, badge and troops' standard, all in one, was the helmet, on whose design much fantasy and theatrical cunning were expended. Because they were an inviting target for the other side, not many helmets survive. The best that do, considered as sculpture, are unique in their formal beauty and dramatic power...
...Chicago's Design Toscano, is a beneficiary and an instigator of the trend. In five years his business--"historical reproductions for home and garden"--has grown from a $6,000 stake to $6 million in sales, thanks largely to gargoyle paperweights, gargoyle table bases-even the occasional gargoyle lamp finial. Stopka links the knobby monsters' popularity to the current vogue of cherubim as a design motif, though he makes an interesting distinction: while gargoyle fanciers are largely male, angelic perfection tends to draw women. Men, apparently, feel more at home with the grotesque...
Williams intends to postpone his finial decision until after the NCAA tournament...
...Instead of quoting Gothic or Renaissance detail as an indirect sign of quality, the whole tower changed into a business logo, architecture as advertisement -- the archexample being William Van Alen's Chrysler Building, 1928-31, with friezes of hubcaps and wheels, gargantuan winged chrome radiator ornaments and stainless-steel finial...
...well as people. Once one has been through the show, the props of his still lifes, which were also the normal appurtenances of his home life, become like familiar faces: the patriarchal mass of his copper water urn, perched on its squat tripod; the white teapot with its rakish finial; the painted china that signaled his growing prosperity, and so on down to the last stoneware daubière, all signifying a world in which the eye could work without alienation or even strain...