Bas-relief, high relief, counter-relief in sculpture. Architectural Dictionary

The word relief comes from the Latin verb relevo, which means “to raise.” Creating a sculpture in the form of a relief on a monument creates the impression that the image is raised above the surface of the stone.

In fact, a stone or wood carver selects certain parts of the plane, leaving the future relief untouched. This work requires considerable skill, a lot of time and excellent use of a cutter. If we consider these as disadvantages, then the advantages of the artistic relief technique include:

• no need to form the backdrop of the sculpture;
• increased strength of the sculpture, especially in comparison with figures carved from stone.

When using materials such as metal, clay, plaster or ceramics, relief can be added or extruded from the plane, and monumental bronze bas-reliefs are produced by casting.

Depending on the height of the relief image, its types are distinguished using Italian or French terminology:

• high relief (Italian alto-rilievo - high relief) - a sculptural image that protrudes above the plane by more than 50%, and often has elements partially separated from the plane;
• bas-relief (Italian basso-rilievo - low relief) - the sculptural image protrudes above the surface of the stone by no more than half
• koylanaglyph (French en creux) - the relief has a deep contour and a convex sculptural image
• counter-relief (Italian cavo-rilievo) - negative relief or in-depth relief

In modern monumental sculpture, the techniques most often used are high relief and bas-relief and their variations. However, this does not mean at all that other types of relief sculpture have no place left in modern art. Let's look at them in more detail.

Bas-relief or low relief

The simplest example of using this technique is ordinary coins. It is quite obvious that the images on them have a minimum relative height, practically indistinguishable when viewed from the side. If you place the coin in your palm and look at it from the front, the three-dimensional effect will be maximum.

The very idea of ​​​​making a bas-relief implies ease of cutting, low manufacturability and low cost of production, which is why it became most widespread in most world cultures, starting with Ancient Egypt, the countries of the Middle East and the civilizations of Central and North America. In addition, bas-reliefs were often painted over with paints of various shades in order to “raise” the image as much as possible. The ancient bas-reliefs have survived to this day mainly in an unpainted form - time does not spare paint much faster than the statue itself. However, chemical analysis allows us to confidently assert that most of the bas-reliefs were painted.

Historians also know more exotic types of bas-reliefs, for example, the Ishtar Gate from ancient Babylon. The animal sculptures on them are created using molded bricks. Egyptian and Roman bas-reliefs were made using plaster, and, as a result, most of these bas-reliefs have practically not survived to this day.

In European culture, the most famous bas-reliefs were made of wood and were used as elements of church altars.

But bas-reliefs are most often found in the technique of making Buddhist monuments in India and Southeast Asia. The temples in the Ajanta and Ellora caves contain colossal images of gods, carved from single pieces of stone. Borodulur Temple in Central Java (Indonesia) contains almost one and a half thousand bas-reliefs telling about the birth of Buddha. On the same island is the Prambanan Temple, with bas-reliefs illustrating the plot of the Hindu poem Ramayana.

High relief

Relief sculptures, in which at least half of the volume is above the plane, first appeared most noticeably in the art of Ancient Greece. These were often almost independent sculptures, separated from the surface of the stone and intersecting with each other to create a complete effect of depth.

High reliefs of Greek and Roman sarcophagi were made by drilling, without chisels. Their compositions were maximally saturated with figures and characters - for example, the Sarcophagus of Ludovisi. The Middle Ages marked the full spread of high relief techniques, especially among the Greeks. During the Renaissance, high reliefs were given a second life. Their use was especially noticeable in funerary art, and later in neoclassical pediments and urban monuments.

In Hindu monumental sculpture, high reliefs coexisted with bas-reliefs, not much inferior to them in popularity. The group of temples at Khajuraho is the most obvious example of the use of high relief techniques by Indian sculptors.

Counter-relief and koylanaglyph

These types of relief have not received global distribution in funerary art. Some civilizations, for example, Ancient Egypt, used in-depth relief quite widely, but outside this state this type of sculpture did not receive significant distribution.

Various types of reliefs are often used in the manufacture of grave monuments and as overlay elements for them, as well as in the creation of ritual and memorial tablets, including for a columbar wall or family columbarium. Less labor-intensive and, accordingly, more affordable, bas-relief is ideally suited for decorating a tombstone or granite slab. This technique is perfectly used both for creating dynamic life-size sculptures and for small, “bust” formats.

You can find a company that produces tombstones in your area in the Making of monuments section of our ritual directory

The section is very easy to use. Just enter the desired word in the field provided, and we will give you a list of its meanings. I would like to note that our site provides data from various sources - encyclopedic, explanatory, word-formation dictionaries. Here you can also see examples of the use of the word you entered.

Meaning of the word high relief

high relief in the crossword dictionary

high relief

Explanatory Dictionary of the Living Great Russian Language, Dal Vladimir

high relief

m. French a sculpture on a plane, on a board, higher, thicker than a bas-relief; sculpture or carving in full flesh, in full flesh, in real flesh, etc. Statue, round sculpture; high relief, thick sculpture.

Explanatory dictionary of the Russian language. D.N. Ushakov

high relief

high relief, m. (French haut-relief, lit. high relief) (art.). Sculptural images, in which figures associated with a flat background protrude significantly from it (cf. bas-relief).

Explanatory dictionary of the Russian language. S.I.Ozhegov, N.Yu.Shvedova.

high relief

A, m. (special). A sculptural image on a plane, in which the figures protrude by more than half of their volume.

adj. high relief, -aya, -oe.

New explanatory dictionary of the Russian language, T. F. Efremova.

high relief

m. A type of relief sculpture in which the convex part of the image protrudes above the background plane by more than half of its volume.

Encyclopedic Dictionary, 1998

high relief

HIGH RELIEF (French haut-relief) is a high relief in which the image protrudes above the background plane by more than half its volume. Monumental and decorative high reliefs were often used in architecture.

High relief

(French haut-rélief, from haut ≈ high and relief ≈ relief, convexity), a type of sculpture, high relief, in which the convex image protrudes strongly above the background plane (by more than half of its volume); sometimes it only touches the background, sometimes it is separated from it in detail. Monumental and decorative stones were often used in architecture.

Wikipedia

High relief

High relief- a type of sculptural convex relief in which the image protrudes above the background plane by more than half the volume of the depicted parts. Some elements may be completely separated from the plane. A common type of decoration of architectural structures; allows you to display multi-figure scenes and landscapes.

High reliefs made of stone, bronze and other materials are often used as decorative elements in architecture or independent artistic compositions. Some details of the image on the high relief are sometimes only in contact with the background, and sometimes completely separated from it. Sometimes the figures in high relief look like round statues placed against the plane of the wall.

A well-known example of high reliefs is the scenes on the Pergamon Altar.

Examples of the use of the word high relief in literature.

Bronze opened high relief the work of State Prize laureate Fuad Abdurakhmanov - the courageous face of a heroic officer.

Once a sculptor complained that he could not get Yuri Gagarin into his studio, and without this it was impossible to complete high relief, which depicts an astronaut.

Off to the side, not far from this high relief, a narrow tetrahedral obelisk made of stainless steel soared into the sky to a hundred-meter height - like the protruding bayonet of a gigantic three-line rifle hidden in the depths of this blood-soaked earth.

I have a small piece of plaster on my shelf. high relief- a woman with an antique face and broken hands, like those of the Venus of Milo.

And on high relief, depicting a group of scientists, one of them was given the features of Korolev.

Shalyga leaves, returns with oxygen, shares her impressions of visiting an Armenian house: a gilded staircase, Japanese equipment, silver goblets and gilded cutlery at the table high reliefs on the walls and the like.

I came closer - on four sides the marble cube stood out high reliefs, depicting my fellow tribesmen destroyed in this place.

Low gray clouds, mixing with thin smoke slowly flowing from a square chimney, quickly moved over the low brick wall of the columbarium with photographic portraits of the deceased, resembling a plaque of honor, towards the old part of the monastery with a dilapidated cathedral, debris high reliefs from the blown-up Cathedral of Christ the Savior, the family crypts of the Lanskys and Golitsyns, and the tombstones over the final resting places of Kheraskov and Chaadaev.

When did one of the mausoleums, which was a block of red granite with very well-made antique high reliefs, they wanted to take it out of here to decorate a neighboring resort, Luka did not allow this to happen, and a rather complex correspondence on this issue between the Kurupr, the local farmer and Luka has so far ended in nothing for the Kuruper.

On the third floor of the outer wall of the kathisma there was a marble high relief an old man in a lying position with an oar in his hand.

When they began to climb along a narrow corridor into the depths of the pyramid, Bergson saw on the walls high reliefs, depicting the same cat people in different poses.

The plastic decoration is complemented by statues on the pediment and a multi-figure high relief above the entrance to the loggia.

Encyclopedia of Brockhaus and Efron

High relief

See Sculpting.

Efremova's Dictionary

High relief

m.
A type of relief sculpture in which the convex part of the image protrudes above
the background plane by more than half its volume.

Geomorphological dictionary-reference book

High relief

HIGH RELIEF

(French haut - relief) - high relief in which the image protrudes above the background plane by more than half of its volume.

encyclopedic Dictionary

High relief

(French haut-relief), high relief in which the image protrudes above the background plane by more than half of its volume. Monumental and decorative high reliefs were often used in architecture.

Ozhegov's Dictionary

GOREL E F, A, m.(specialist.). A sculptural image on a plane, in which the figures protrude by more than half of their volume.

| adj. high relief, oh, oh.

Ushakov's Dictionary

High relief

burner f, high relief, husband. (French haut-relief, letters high relief) ( claim). Sculptural images in which figures associated with a flat background protrude significantly from it ( avg. ).

Architectural Dictionary

High relief

(French haut-relief, from haut - high and relief - relief, bulge)

type of sculpture, high relief, in which the convex image protrudes strongly above the background plane (by more than half of its volume); sometimes it only touches the background, sometimes it is separated from it in detail. Monumental and decorative high reliefs were often used in architecture.

a sculptural decoration protruding from the wall by more than half its volume.

(Architecture: An Illustrated Guide, 2005)

A sculptural work with a background from which the depicted figures protrude by more than half their volume.

(Terms of Russian architectural heritage. Pluzhnikov V.I., 1995)

a sculptural image protruding above the background plane by more than half of its volume. The interiors of St. Isaac's Cathedral are decorated with hundreds of sculptures. Particularly interesting are the huge internal doors of the cathedral, on which sculptures are made in high relief technique (sk. I. P. Vitali), and in particular, one of the scenes is “The Battle of Alexander Nevsky with the Swedes.” Vitali's best works include the high relief "Adoration of the Magi" in the pediment of the southern portico of the cathedral. In the center of the relief, Mary sits on a high throne with the baby Christ in her arms.

(Dictionary of architectural terms. Yusupov E.S., 1994)

In plastic art, any convex sculpture adjacent to a specific background surface is called a relief. The relief combines the features of a flat and three-dimensional statue. Thus, the relief is a space-expanding composition, and, being created on a flat surface, has a high degree of similarity to ordinary sculptures.

Bas-reliefs are used for a number of reasons:

• Relief sculpture can express a wider range of ideas and compositions. For example, creating a large-scale battle scene would require a huge amount of space and materials, while relief will help depict the composition while maintaining scale and resources.
• When creating a bas-relief on a flat surface, there are no problems organizing the balance of the work, unlike statues, where the weight and balance of the figures play an important role.
• The specificity of such sculptures makes them ideal for architectural projects. Reliefs, being placed on walls, portals, ceilings and arches, perform decorative and plot functions.

In addition, there are other types of threads that combine, to one degree or another, well-known technologies and approaches. For example, the “flattened relief”, whose authorship is attributed to Donatello, is only a subtype of bas-relief, with the exception that the composition stands out to a lesser extent above the background surface.

Relief with a wild boar. Gobekli Tepe.

The Italian Renaissance is characterized by a noticeable rise in the implementation of reliefs. They make full use of the means to create a complex perspective, working out the textural contrasts of the surface, visually changing the space. In the period 1530-1570, fantastic reliefs and stucco were created by French mannerists. Baroque relief sculpture continues the ideas of the Renaissance, and also increases the scale of the work. Some relief compositions become almost indistinguishable from marble statues (Bernini is an excellent example of this approach). Among the neoclassical sculptors who created reliefs, it is worth highlighting Antonio Canova and Bertel Thorvaldsen, who created works with classical rigor and purity.

Relief in sculpture updated: April 24, 2017 by: Gleb