Relief
Relief is a
There are different degrees of relief depending on the degree of projection of the sculpted form from the field, for which the Italian and French terms are still sometimes used in English. The full range includes high relief (Italian alto-rilievo, French haut-relief),[2] where more than 50% of the depth is shown and there may be undercut areas, mid-relief (Italian mezzo-rilievo), low relief (Italian basso-rilievo, French: bas-relief), and shallow-relief (Italian rilievo schiacciato),[3] where the plane is only very slightly lower than the sculpted elements. There is also sunk relief, which was mainly restricted to Ancient Egypt (see below). However, the distinction between high relief and low relief is the clearest and most important, and these two are generally the only terms used to discuss most work.
The definition of these terms is somewhat variable, and many works combine areas in more than one of them, rarely sliding between them in a single figure; accordingly some writers prefer to avoid all distinctions.
Reliefs are common throughout the world on the walls of buildings and a variety of smaller settings, and a sequence of several panels or sections of relief may represent an extended narrative. Relief is more suitable for depicting complicated subjects with many figures and very active poses, such as battles, than free-standing "sculpture in the round". Most ancient architectural reliefs were originally painted, which helped to define forms in low relief. The subject of reliefs is for convenient reference assumed in this article to be usually figures, but sculpture in relief often depicts decorative geometrical or foliage patterns, as in the
Rock reliefs are those carved into solid rock in the open air (if inside caves, whether natural or human-made, they are more likely to be called "rock-cut"). This type is found in many cultures, in particular those of the Ancient Near East and Buddhist countries. A stele is a single standing stone; many of these carry reliefs.
Types
The distinction between high and low relief is somewhat subjective, and the two are very often combined in a single work. In particular, most later "high reliefs" contain sections in low relief, usually in the background. From the Parthenon Frieze onwards, many single figures in large monumental sculpture have heads in high relief, but their lower legs are in low relief. The slightly projecting figures created in this way work well in reliefs that are seen from below, and reflect that the heads of figures are usually of more interest to both artist and viewer than the legs or feet. As unfinished examples from various periods show, raised reliefs, whether high or low, were normally "blocked out" by marking the outline of the figure and reducing the background areas to the new background level, work no doubt performed by apprentices (see gallery).
Low relief or bas-relief
A low relief is a projecting image with a shallow overall depth, for example used on coins, on which all images are in low relief. In the lowest reliefs the relative depth of the elements shown is completely distorted, and if seen from the side the image makes no sense, but from the front the small variations in depth register as a three-dimensional image. Other versions distort depth much less. The term comes from the Italian basso rilievo via the French bas-relief (French pronunciation: [baʁəljɛf]), both meaning "low relief". The former is now a very old-fashioned term in English, and the latter[clarification needed] is becoming so.
It is a technique which requires less work, and is therefore cheaper to produce, as less of the background needs to be removed in a carving, or less modelling is required. In the
The Ishtar Gate of Babylon, now in Berlin, has low reliefs of large animals formed from moulded bricks, glazed in colour. Plaster, which made the technique far easier, was widely used in Egypt and the Near East from antiquity into Islamic times (latterly for architectural decoration, as at the Alhambra), Rome, and Europe from at least the Renaissance, as well as probably elsewhere. However, it needs very good conditions to survive long in unmaintained buildings – Roman decorative plasterwork is mainly known from Pompeii and other sites buried by ash from Mount Vesuvius. Low relief was relatively rare in Western medieval art, but may be found, for example in wooden figures or scenes on the insides of the folding wings of multi-panel altarpieces.
The revival of low relief, which was seen as a classical style, begins early in the Renaissance; the
Shallow-relief, in Italian rilievo stiacciato or rilievo schicciato ("squashed relief"), is a very shallow relief, which merges into engraving in places, and can be hard to read in photographs. It is often used for the background areas of compositions with the main elements in low-relief, but its use over a whole (usually rather small) piece was effectively invented and perfected by the Italian Renaissance sculptor Donatello.[6]
In later Western art, until a 20th-century revival, low relief was used mostly for smaller works or combined with higher relief to convey a sense of distance, or to give depth to the composition, especially for scenes with many figures and a landscape or architectural background, in the same way that lighter colours are used for the same purpose in painting. Thus figures in the foreground are sculpted in high-relief, those in the background in low-relief. Low relief may use any medium or technique of sculpture, stone carving and metal casting being most common. Large architectural compositions all in low relief saw a revival in the 20th century, being popular on buildings in Art Deco and related styles, which borrowed from the ancient low reliefs now available in museums.[7] Some sculptors, including Eric Gill, have adopted the "squashed" depth of low relief in works that are actually free-standing.
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"Blocked-out" unfinished low relief ofAhkenaten and Nefertiti; unfinished Greek and Persian high-reliefs show the same method of beginning a work.
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Assyrian low relief, Lion Hunt of Ashurbanipal, North Palace, Nineveh
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Atropos cutting the thread of life. Modern Greek low relief
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rilievo stiacciato or shallow relief of the "Assumption of the Virgin" on a tomb, 1420s
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French 20th-century low relief
Mid-relief
Mid-relief, "half-relief" or mezzo-rilievo is somewhat imprecisely defined, and the term is not often used in English, the works usually being described as low relief instead. The typical traditional definition is that only up to half of the subject projects, and no elements are undercut or fully disengaged from the background field. The depth of the elements shown is normally somewhat distorted.
Mid-relief is probably the most common type of relief found in the
.High relief
High relief (or altorilievo, from Italian) is where in general more than half the mass of the sculpted figure projects from the background. Indeed, the most prominent elements of the composition, especially heads and limbs, are often completely undercut, detaching them from the field. The parts of the subject that are seen are normally depicted at their full depth, unlike low relief where the elements seen are "squashed" flatter. High relief thus uses essentially the same style and techniques as free-standing sculpture, and in the case of a single figure gives largely the same view as a person standing directly in front of a free-standing statue would have. All cultures and periods in which large sculptures were created used this technique in monumental sculpture and architecture.
Most of the many grand figure reliefs in Ancient Greek sculpture used a very "high" version of high relief, with elements often fully free of the background, and parts of figures crossing over each other to indicate depth. The metopes of the Parthenon have largely lost their fully rounded elements, except for heads, showing the advantages of relief in terms of durability. High relief has remained the dominant form for reliefs with figures in Western sculpture, also being common in Indian temple sculpture. Smaller Greek sculptures such as private tombs, and smaller decorative areas such as friezes on large buildings, more often used low relief.
In the Buddhist and Hindu art of India and Southeast Asia, high relief can also be found, although it is not as common as low to mid-reliefs. Famous examples of Indian high reliefs can be found at the
The largest high relief sculpture in the world is the Stone Mountain Confederate Memorial in the U.S. state of Georgia, which was cut 42 feet deep into the mountain,[9] and measures 90 feet in height, 190 feet in width,[10] and lies 400 feet above the ground.[11]
Sunk relief
Sunk or sunken relief is largely restricted to the
The technique is most successful with strong sunlight to emphasise the outlines and forms by shadow, as no attempt was made to soften the edge of the sunk area, leaving a face at a right-angle to the surface all around it. Some reliefs, especially funerary monuments with heads or busts from ancient Rome and later Western art, leave a "frame" at the original level around the edge of the relief, or place a head in a hemispherical recess in the block (see Roman example in gallery). Though essentially very similar to Egyptian sunk relief, but with a background space at the lower level around the figure, the term would not normally be used of such works.
It is also used for carving letters (typically om mani padme hum) in the mani stones of Tibetan Buddhism.
Counter-relief
Sunk relief technique is not to be confused with "counter-relief" or intaglio as seen on engraved gem seals—where an image is fully modeled in a "negative" manner. The image goes into the surface, so that when impressed on wax it gives an impression in normal relief. However many engraved gems were carved in cameo or normal relief.
A few very late
Small objects
Small-scale reliefs have been carved in various materials, notably
Various modelling techniques are used, such
These were often round mirror-cases, combs, handles, and other small items, but included a few larger caskets like the Casket with Scenes of Romances (Walters 71264) in Baltimore, Maryland, in the United States. Originally they were very often painted in bright colours. Reliefs can be impressed by stamps onto clay, or the clay pressed into a mould bearing the design, as was usual with the mass-produced terra sigillata of Ancient Roman pottery. Decorative reliefs in plaster or stucco may be much larger; this form of architectural decoration is found in many styles of interiors in the post-Renaissance West, and in Islamic architecture.
Gallery
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Low relief from the Pre-Pottery Neolithic archaeological site of Göbekli Tepe, believed to represent a bull, a fox, and a crane, c. 9,000 BC
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TheNational Museum of Iraq.[13]
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Sunk relief as low relief within a sunk outline, from the Luxor Temple in Egypt, carved in very hard granite
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Low relief within a sunk outline, linear sunk relief in thehieroglyphs, and high relief (right), from Luxor
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Low to mid-relief, 9th century, Borobudur. The temple has 1,460 panels of reliefs narrating Buddhist scriptures.
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ATangeh Savashi in Iran, which might also be described as two stages of low relief This is a rock reliefcarved into a cliff.
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Roman funerary relief with frame at original level, but not sunk relief
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The Romanrepousséwork
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.
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Sassanian emperor Shapur I(on horseback) with Roman emperors submitting to him
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The 12th century Romanesque portal of Christ in Majesty at Moissac Abbey moves between low and high relief in a single figure.
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Harbaville Triptych, Byzantine ivory
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Side view of mid-relief: Madonna and Child, marble of c. 1500/1510 by an unknown north Italian sculptor
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The elaborateChateau de Fontainebleau were hugely influential. Low-relief decorative friezeabove
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Baroque marble high-relief by Francesco Grassia, 1670, Rome
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Robert Gould Shaw Memorial, 1897, Boston, combining free-standing elements with high and low relief
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A relatively modern high relief (depicting shipbuilding) in Bishopsgate, London. Some elements jut out of the frame of the image.
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Bas-relief at Toronto Metropolitan University in Toronto
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High relief of Demetria and Pamphile. Many details are detached entirely.
Reliefs by modern artists
Many modern and contemporary artists such as
In particular low reliefs were often used in the 20th century on the outsides of buildings, where they are relatively easy to incorporate into the architecture as decorative highlights.
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Paul Gauguin, Woman with Mango Fruits, 1889, painted oak, Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, Kopenhagen
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Ludwig Gies, cast iron plaquette, 8 x 9.8 cm, inscribed "1914·VERTRIEBEN·1915" = "Refugees 1914–1915"
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Ernst Barlach, Angel of Hope, 1933, Saint Mary parish church in Güstrow
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Henry Moore, Relief No. 1, 1959, Bronze, at the Israel Museum, Jerusalem
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Ewald Matare, main portal with bronze door, 1958–1960, St Lambertus, Düsseldorf
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Table at the Cliff, Keitum, Sylt, 2019
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Boat in moving sea, bronze relief by Ingo Kühl, 2019
Notable reliefs
Notable examples of monumental reliefs include:
- Ancient Egypt: Most Temple of Karnak
- Assyria: A famous collection is in the British Museum, Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser III
- Naqsh-e Rustam and Naqsh-e Rajab
- Ancient Greece: The Great Altar of Pergamon, Ludovisi Throne
- Mesopotamia: Ishtar Gate of Babylon
- Ancient Rome: Ara Pacis, Trajan's Column, Column of Marcus Aurelius, triumphal arches, Portonaccio sarcophagus
- Medieval Europe: Many cathedrals and other churches, such as Chartres Cathedral and Bourges Cathedral
- India: Mahabalipuram with the Descent of the Ganges, and many South Indian temples, Unakoti group of sculptures (bas-relief) at Kailashahar, Unakoti District, Tripura, India
- South-East Asia: Borobodur in Java, Angkor Watin Cambodia,
- Glyphs, Azteccivilizations
- United States: Mount Rushmore National Memorial
- UK: Base panels of Nelson's Column, Frieze of Parnassus
Smaller-scale reliefs:
- Ivory: Late Antique Consular diptychs, the Byzantine Harbaville Triptych and Veroli Casket, the Anglo-Saxon Franks Casket, Cloisters Cross.
- Silver: Warren Cup, Gundestrup cauldron, Mildenhall Treasure, Berthouville Treasure, Missorium of Theodosius I, Lomellini Ewer and Basin.
- Gold: Berlin Gold Hat, Bimaran casket, Panagyurishte Treasure
- Glass: Portland Vase, Lycurgus Cup
See also
- Rock relief
- Multidimensional art
- Pargetting– English exterior plaster reliefs
- Relief printing – a different concept
- Repoussé and chasing – a metalworking technique
- Dongyang wood carving -A Chinese example
Notes
- ^ "Relief". Merriam-Webster. Archived from the original on 2012-05-31. Retrieved 2012-05-31.
- cave art, and copied even by English writers. Its use is to be deprecated.
- ^ Murray, Peter & Linda, Penguin Dictionary of Art & Artists, London, 1989. p. 348, Relief; bas-relief remained common in English until the mid 20th century.
- ^ For example Avery in Grove Art Online, whose long article on "Relief sculpture" barely mentions or defines them, except for sunk relief.
- ^ Murray, 1989, op.cit.
- ^ Avery, vi
- ^ Avery, vii
- ^ Avery, ii and iii
- Smithsonian Magazine. Archived from the originalon August 22, 2017. Retrieved May 26, 2021.
- ^ "50 things you might not know about Stone Mountain Park". The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. July 10, 2018. Archived from the original on November 11, 2020. Retrieved May 26, 2021.
- ^ McKay, Rich (July 3, 2020). "The world's largest Confederate Monument faces renewed calls for removal". Reuters. Archived from the original on July 3, 2020. Retrieved May 26, 2021.
- ISBN 978-0-8047-2561-3).
- ISBN 0-495-00479-0.
References
- Avery, Charles, in "Relief sculpture". Grove Art Online. Retrieved April 7, 2011.
External links
- Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History, "American Relief Sculpture", Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City.
Reliefs.