Relief
Relief, or relievo rilievo, is a sculptural technique. The term relief is from the Latin verb levo, to raise. To create a sculpture in relief is to give the impression that the sculpted material has been raised above the background plane. What is actually performed when a relief is cut in from a flat surface of stone or wood 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 with little artistic effect if the lowered background is left plain, as is often the case. 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-mache the form can be just added to or raised up from the background, and monumental bronze reliefs are made by casting.
Read more about Relief.
Famous quotes containing the word relief:
“The self-consciousness of Pine Ridge manifests itself at the village’s edge in such signs as “Drive Keerful,” “Don’t Hit Our Young ‘uns,” and “You-all Hurry Back”Mlocutions which nearly all Arkansas hill people use daily but would never dream of putting in print.”
—Administration in the State of Arka, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“Mothers born on relief have their babies on relief. Nothingness, truly, seems to be the condition of these New York people.... They are nomads going from one rooming house to another, looking for a toilet that functions.”
—Elizabeth Hardwick (b. 1916)
“Nowadays, if New York has a heart, it might be the Garden. Almost everyone goes there, for one purpose or another. There are dog shows, and Sonja Henie and mass meetings.”
—In New York City, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)