caryatid

The single square column features crouching figures in the capital who seem to be holding up the arch, a playful evocation of the classical figure of the caryatid or herm.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 21, 2026

Sometimes a caryatid has been compared to the unseen slave who carried society’s burdens.

From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 15, 2023

Although their name was an architectural inside joke — a caryatid is a type of Greek column that is also a statue of the female likeness — their guileful display took on some serious issues.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 31, 2018

You may think that David Cameron's well-heeled colleagues would give him a marble caryatid bought from the Frieze Masters art fair for his birthday.

From The Guardian ● Oct. 12, 2012

“A caryatid wouldn’t be strong enough for Dad.”

From "The Glass Castle" by Jeannette Walls

Sometimes these images were placed on the walls and used as caryatides.

From Religion and Lust or, The Psychical Correlation of Religious Emotion and Sexual Desire by James Weir

Four huge totem poles, or ponderous carvings, supported the heavy beams of the roof in the manner of caryatides.

From Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska by Charles Warren Stoddard

These pulpits are supported by caryatides representing the Evangelists and four doctors of the Church.

From Cathedral Cities of Italy by William Wiehe Collins

For those He loves that underprop With daily virtues Heaven’s top, And bear the falling sky with ease, Unfrowning caryatides.

From The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 14 (of 25) by Robert Louis Stevenson

It is from imperfect views of this, that the meaning and effect of caryatides have been mistaken: instead of being oppressed by weight, they seem, when well employed, to have no weight to support.

From Beauty Illustrated Chiefly by an Analysis and Classificatin of Beauty in Woman by Alexander Walker

A critic of the day hailed the bravura Hunt caryatids as “full of sentiment, showing a refined imagination, a scholar’s grasp of the requirements and an artist’s appreciation of fitness.”

From The Wall Street Journal ● May 8, 2026

In it, she and Cardi B dress in Grecian goddess-inspired dresses, dance in front of classically inspired statuary, wear headdresses that evoke caryatids and transform into Grecian vases.

From Salon ● Sep. 4, 2021

Their eccentric profile, isolated against white, forms a kind of muscular torso, not unlike Matisse’s 1909 “Bather,” striding through water, or one of Modigliani’s caryatids.

From New York Times ● Mar. 19, 2020

He sat in a ostentatious Greek-style hall bedecked with four caryatids, the draped female figures used in columns — a style first seen in Delphi 2 ½ millennia ago.

From Washington Post ● Dec. 12, 2019

Small kids were perched on tabletops because there weren't enough chairs, and the Epiphany sixth graders stood like caryatids leaning against three of the four walls of the room.

From "The View From Saturday" by E.L. Konigsburg