Relief
Relief is a sculptural method in which the sculpted pieces remain attached to a solid background of the same material. The term relief is from the Latin verb relevare, to raise (lit. to lift back). To create a sculpture in relief is to give the impression that the sculpted material has been raised above the background plane.[1] When a relief is carved into a flat surface of stone (relief sculpture) or wood (relief carving), the field is actually lowered, leaving the unsculpted areas seeming higher. The approach requires a lot of chiselling away of the background, which takes a long time. On the other hand, a relief saves forming the rear of a subject, and is less fragile and more securely fixed than a sculpture in the round, especially one of a standing figure where the ankles are a potential weak point, particularly in stone. In other materials such as metal, clay, plaster stucco, ceramics or papier-mâché the form can be simply added to or raised up from the background. Monumental bronze reliefs are made by casting.
This article is about the sculptural method. For emotion, see Relief (emotion). For other uses, see Relief (disambiguation).
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.[4] The opposite of relief sculpture is counter-relief, intaglio, or cavo-rilievo,[5] where the form is cut into the field or background rather than rising from it; this is very rare in monumental sculpture. Hyphens may or may not be used in all these terms, though they are rarely seen in "sunk relief" and are usual in "bas-relief" and "counter-relief". Works in the technique are described as "in relief", and, especially in monumental sculpture, the work itself is "a relief".
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 arabesques of Islamic art, and may be of any subject.
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.
Persian low or bas-relief in Persepolis – a symbol of Zoroastrian Nowruz – at the spring equinox the power of the bull (personifying Earth) and lion (personifying the Sun) are equal.
French 20th-century low relief
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
The Warka Vase of Sumer, a very early survival works of narrative relief, c. 3200–3000 BC. Alabaster. National Museum of Iraq.[13]
![The Warka Vase of Sumer, a very early survival works of narrative relief, c. 3200–3000 BC. Alabaster. National Museum of Iraq.[13]](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/67/Warka_vase_%28background_retouched%29.jpg/85px-Warka_vase_%28background_retouched%29.jpg)
Sunk relief as low relief within a sunk outline, from the Luxor Temple in Egypt, carved in very hard granite
Low relief within a sunk outline, linear sunk relief in the hieroglyphs, and high relief (right), from Luxor
Low to mid-relief, 9th century, Borobudur. The temple has 1,460 panels of reliefs narrating Buddhist scriptures.
A Persian mid-relief (mezzo-rilievo) from the Qajar era, at Tangeh Savashi in Iran, which might also be described as two stages of low relief This is a rock relief carved into a cliff.
Roman funerary relief with frame at original level, but not sunk relief
Rock relief at Naqsh-e Rustam; the Persian Sassanian emperor Shapur I (on horseback) with Roman emperors submitting to him
The 12th century Romanesque portal of Christ in Majesty at Moissac Abbey moves between low and high relief in a single figure.
Side view of mid-relief: Madonna and Child, marble of c. 1500/1510 by an unknown north Italian sculptor
The elaborate stucco (plaster) reliefs decorating the Chateau de Fontainebleau were hugely influential. Low-relief decorative frieze above
Robert Gould Shaw Memorial, 1897, Boston, combining free-standing elements with high and low relief
A relatively modern high relief (depicting shipbuilding) in Bishopsgate, London. Some elements jut out of the frame of the image.
Ludwig Gies, cast iron plaquette, 8 x 9.8 cm, inscribed "1914·VERTRIEBEN·1915" = "Refugees 1914–1915"
Many modern and contemporary artists such as Paul Gauguin, Ernst Barlach, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Pablo Picasso, Eric Gill, Jacob Epstein, Henry Moore, Claudia Cobizev, up to Ewald Matare have created reliefs.
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.
Notable examples of monumental reliefs include:
Smaller-scale reliefs: