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Relief
Relief is a sculptural technique where the
sculpted elements remain attached to a solid
background of the same material. The term relief
is from the Latin verb relevo, to raise. To create a
sculpture in relief is to give the impression that
the sculpted material has been raised above the
background plane.[1 ] What is actually performed
when a relief is cut in from a flat surface of stone
(relief sculpture) or wood (relief carving) is a
lowering of the field, leaving the unsculpted parts
seemingly raised. The technique involves
considerable chiselling away of the background,
which is a time-consuming exercise. 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, especially in stone. In other materials
such as metal, clay, plaster stucco, ceramics or
papier-mâché the form can be just added to or
raised up from the background, and monumental
bronze reliefs are made by casting.

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 (alto-rilievo, haut-relief),[2]
where more than 50% of the depth is shown and Side view of Lorenzo Ghiberti's cast gilt-bronze Gates of
Paradise at the Florence Baptistery in Florence, Italy,
there may be undercut areas, mid-relief (mezzo-
combining high-relief main figures with backgrounds
rilievo), low relief (basso-rilievo, or French:
mostly in low relief
bas-relief (French pronunciation: [baʁlijɛf]), and
shallow-relief or 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, sometimes 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

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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 A face of the high-relief Frieze of Parnassus round the
figures, but sculpture in relief often depicts base of the Albert Memorial in London. Most of the
decorative geometrical or foliage patterns, as in heads and many feet are completely undercut, but the
the arabesques of Islamic art, and may be of any torsos are "engaged" with the surface behind
subject.

Rock reliefs are those carved into solid rock in the

open air (if inside caves, whether natural or man-
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.

Contents
Types
Low relief or bas-relief A common mixture of high and low relief, in the Roman
Ara Pacis, placed to be seen from below. Low relief
Mid-relief ornament at bottom
High relief
Sunk relief
Counter-relief
Small objects
Gallery
Notable reliefs
See also
References
External links

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

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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 is becoming so.
Low-relief on Roman
It is a technique which requires less work, and is therefore cheaper to
sestertius, 238 AD
produce, as less of the background needs to be removed in a carving, or
less modelling is required. In the art of Ancient Egypt, Assyrian palace
reliefs, and other ancient Near Eastern and Asian cultures, a consistent
very low relief was commonly used for the whole composition. These images would usually be painted
after carving, which helped define the forms; today the paint has worn off in the great majority of
surviving examples, but minute, invisible remains of paint can usually be discovered through chemical
means.

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 Tempio Malatestiano in
Rimini, a pioneering classicist building, designed by Leon Battista
Alberti around 1450, uses low reliefs by Agostino di Duccio inside
and on the external walls. Since the Renaissance plaster has been A low-relief dating to circa 2000 BC,
very widely used for indoor ornamental work such as cornices from the kingdom of Simurrum,
and ceilings, but in the 16th century it was used for large figures modern Iraq
(many also using high relief) at the Chateau of Fontainebleau,
which were imitated more crudely elsewhere, for example in the
Elizabethan Hardwick Hall.

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 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

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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.

"Blocked-out" unfinished low Persian low or bas-relief in

relief of Ahkenaten and Nefertiti;
unfinished Greek and Persian
high-reliefs show the same
method of beginning a work.
Persepolis – a symbol of
Zoroastrian Nowruz – at the
spring equinox the power of the
bull (personifying Earth) and lion
(personifying the Sun) are equal.

Assyrian low relief, Lion Hunt of Atropos cutting the thread of life.
Ashurbanipal, North Palace, Ancient Greek low relief
Nineveh

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Donatello, Madonna and Child in French 20th-century low relief

rilievo stiacciato or shallow 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 Hindu and Buddhist art of India and Southeast Asia. The low Low relief, Banteay Srei, Cambodia;
to mid-reliefs of 2nd-century BCE to 6th-century CE Ajanta Ravana shaking Mount Kailasa, the
Caves and 5th to 10th-century Ellora Caves in India are rock Abode of Siva
reliefs. Most of these reliefs are used to narrate sacred scriptures,
such as the 1,460 panels of the 9th-century Borobudur temple in
Central Java, Indonesia, narrating the Jataka tales or lives of the Buddha. Other examples are low
reliefs narrating the Ramayana Hindu epic in Prambanan temple, also in Java, in Cambodia, the
temples of Angkor, with scenes including the Samudra manthan or "Churning the Ocean of Milk" at
the 12th-century Angkor Wat, and reliefs of apsaras. At Bayon temple in Angkor Thom there are
scenes of daily life in the Khmer Empire.

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,
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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.

Hellenistic and Roman

sarcophagus reliefs were cut
with a drill rather than
chisels, enabling and
encouraging compositions
extremely crowded with
High relief metope from the figures, like the Ludovisi
Classical Greek Parthenon Marbles. Battle sarcophagus (250–
Some front limbs are actually 260 CE). These are also seen
detached from the background High-relief deities at Khajuraho, India
in the enormous strips of
completely, while the centaur's left
reliefs that wound around
rear leg is in low relief.
Roman triumphal columns.
The sarcophagi in particular exerted a huge influence on later
Western sculpture. The European Middle Ages tended to use high
relief for all purposes in stone, though like Ancient Roman sculpture, their reliefs were typically not as
high as in Ancient Greece.[8] Very high relief re-emerged in the Renaissance, and was especially used
in wall-mounted funerary art and later on Neoclassical pediments and public monuments.

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
Khajuraho temples, with voluptuous, twisting figures that often illustrate the erotic Kamasutra
positions. In the 9th-century Prambanan temple, Central Java, high reliefs of Lokapala devatas, the
guardians of deities of the directions, are found.

Sunk relief
Sunk or sunken relief is largely restricted to the art of Ancient
Egypt where it is very common, becoming after the Amarna
period of Ahkenaten the dominant type used, as opposed to low
relief. It had been used earlier, but mainly for large reliefs on
external walls, and for hieroglyphs and cartouches. The image is
made by cutting the relief sculpture itself into a flat surface. In a
simpler form the images are usually mostly linear in nature, like
hieroglyphs, but in most cases the figure itself is in low relief, but
set within a sunken area shaped round the image, so that the
A sunk-relief depiction of Pharaoh
relief never rises beyond the original flat surface. In some cases
Akhenaten with his wife Nefertiti and
the figures and other elements are in a very low relief that does
daughters. The main background has
not rise to the original surface, but others are modeled more fully,
not been removed, merely that in the
with some areas rising to the original surface. This method
immediate vicinity of the sculpted
minimizes the work removing the background, while allowing form. Note how strong shadows are
normal relief modelling. needed to define the image.

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
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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 Hellenistic monumental carvings in Egypt use full "negative" modelling as though on a
gem seal, perhaps as sculptors trained in the Greek tradition attempted to use traditional Egyptian
conventions.[9]

Small objects
Small-scale reliefs have been carved in various materials, notably
ivory, wood, and wax. Reliefs are often found in decorative arts
such as ceramics and metalwork; these are less often described as
"reliefs" than as "in relief". Small bronze reliefs are often in the
form of "plaques" or plaquettes, which may be set in furniture or
framed, or just kept as they are, a popular form for European
collectors, especially in the Renaissance.

Various modelling techniques are used, such repoussé ("pushed-

back") in metalwork, where a thin metal plate is shaped from
behind using various metal or wood punches, producing a relief
image. Casting has also been widely used in bronze and other
metals. Casting and repoussé are often used in concert in to speed
French Gothic diptych, 25 cm (9.8 in)
high, with crowded scenes from the
up production and add greater detail to the final relief. In stone,
Life of Christ, c. 1350–1365
as well as engraved gems, larger hardstone carvings in semi-
precious stones have been highly prestigious since ancient times
in many Eurasian cultures. Reliefs in wax were produced at least
from the Renaissance.

Carved ivory reliefs have been used since ancient times, and because the material, though expensive,
cannot usually be reused, they have a relatively high survival rate, and for example consular diptychs
represent a large proportion of the survivals of portable secular art from Late Antiquity. In the Gothic
period the carving of ivory reliefs became a considerable luxury industry in Paris and other centres.
As well as small diptychs and triptychs with densely packed religious scenes, usually from the New
Testament, secular objects, usually in a lower relief, were also produced.

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.

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Gallery

Low relief from the Pre-Pottery The Warka Vase of Sumer, a

Neolithic archaeological site of very early survival works of
Göbekli Tepe, believed to narrative relief, c. 3200–3000
represent a bull, a fox, and a BC. Alabaster. National Museum
crane, c. 9,000 BC of Iraq.[10]

Sunk relief as low relief within a low relief within a sunk outline,
sunk outline, from the Luxor linear sunk relief in the
Temple in Egypt, carved in very hieroglyphs, and high relief
hard granite (right), from Luxor

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Low to mid-relief, 9th century, A Persian mid-relief (mezzo-

Borobudur. The temple has
1,460 panels of reliefs narrating
Buddhist scriptures.
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 The Roman Warren Cup, silver
at original level, but not sunk repoussé work
relief

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Yaxchilan Lintel 24, a Mayan Rock relief at Naqsh-e Rustam;

carving depicting a blood the Persian Sassanian emperor
sacrifice Shapur I (on horseback) with
Roman emperors submitting to
him

The 12th century Romanesque Harbaville Triptych, Byzantine

portal of Christ in Majesty at ivory
Moissac Abbey moves between
low and high relief in a single
figure.

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Side view of mid-relief: The elaborate stucco (plaster)

Madonna and Child, marble of reliefs decorating the Chateau
c. 1500/1510 by an unknown de Fontainebleau were hugely
north Italian sculptor influential. Low-relief decorative
frieze above

Baroque marble high-relief by Robert Gould Shaw Memorial,

Francesco Grassia, 1670, Rome 1897, Boston, combining free-
standing elements with high and
low relief

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A relatively modern high relief Elizabeth Wyn Wood's Bas-relief

(depicting shipbuilding) in at Ryerson University in Toronto
Bishopsgate, London. Note that
some elements jut out of the
frame of the image.

Colossal Hindu rock reliefs at

Unakoti, Tripura, India

Notable reliefs
Notable examples of monumental reliefs include:

Ancient Egypt: Most Egyptian temples, e.g. the Temple of Karnak

Assyria: A famous collection is in the British Museum, Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser III
Ancient Persia: Persepolis, and rock-face reliefs at Naqsh-e Rustam and Naqsh-e Rajab
Ancient Greece: The Parthenon Marbles, Bassae Frieze, 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: Sanchi, base of the Lion Capital of Asoka, the rock-cut Elephanta Caves and Ellora Caves,
Khajuraho temples, Mahabalipuram with the Descent of the Ganges, and many South Indian

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temples, Unakoti group of sculptures (bas-relief) at Kailashahar, Unakoti District, Tripura, India
South-East Asia: Borobodur in Java, Angkor Wat in Cambodia,
Glyphs, Mayan stelae and other reliefs of the Maya and Aztec civilizations
United States: Stone Mountain, Robert Gould Shaw Memorial, Boston, Mount Rushmore National
Memorial
UK: Base panels of Nelson's Column, Frieze of Parnassus

Smaller-scale reliefs:

Ivory: Nimrud ivories from much of the Near East, 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

References
Notes

1. "Relief" (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/relief). Merriam-Webster. Archived (https://web.

archive.org/web/20120531162703/http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/relief) from the
original on 2012-05-31. Retrieved 2012-05-31.
2. In modern English, just "high relief"; alto-rilievo was used in the 18th century and a little beyond, while
haut-relief has surprisingly found a niche, restricted to archaeological writing, in recent decades after
it was used in under-translated French texts about prehistoric cave art, and copied even by English
writers. Its use is to be deprecated.
3. Murray, Peter & Linda, Penguin Dictionary of Art & Artists, London, 1989. p. 348, Relief; bas-relief
remained common in English until the mid 20th century.
4. For example Avery in Grove Art Online, whose long article on "Relief sculpture" barely mentions or
defines them, except for sunk relief.
5. Murray, 1989, op.cit.
6. Avery, vi
7. Avery, vii
8. Avery, ii and iii
9. Barasch, Moshe, Visual Syncretism: A Case Study, pp. 39–43 in Budick, Stanford & Iser, Wolfgang,
eds., The Translatability of cultures: figurations of the space between, Stanford University Press,
1996, ISBN 0-8047-2561-6 (ISBN 978-0-8047-2561-3).
10. Kleiner, Fred S.; Mamiya, Christin J. (2006). Gardner's Art Through the Ages: The Western
Perspective – Volume 1 (https://archive.org/details/gardnersartthrou00fred) (12th ed.). Belmont,
California, USA: Thomson Wadsworth. pp. 20–21 (https://archive.org/details/gardnersartthrou00fred/
page/20). ISBN 0-495-00479-0.
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Works cited

Avery, Charles, in Grove Art Online, "Relief sculpture". Retrieved April 7, 2011.

External links
Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History, "American Relief Sculpture" (http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/a
mrs/hd_amrs.htm), Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City.

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