RELIEF. – In the visual arts, relief is distinguished from a freestanding group of statues by being bound to a background plane from which figures, architectural elements, and landscapes emerge. It can be subdivided into high relief (or full relief), medium relief, mezzo-relievo, low relief (bassorilievo), and flattened or schiacciato relief.
High relief does not reduce the number of perspective planes: it represents a single order of planes, while those behind are either superimposed or treated conventionally, as in low relief, with a reduction in perspective. Medium relief, however, already implies a demand for perspective, and areas of the second plane are partially occupied, depending on the viewpoint, by those of the first plane. Low relief and schiacciato relief, to an even greater extent, no longer present figures or volumes in half-round form. There is precise drawing and a very low relief relative to the surface of the background plane. This classification of types, established by Vasari and later reiterated by Baldinucci, corresponds to the practice of every sculptor from antiquity to the present day.
High relief is very common in Roman-Imperial sarcophagi from the 2nd century onward and continued throughout the early Middle Ages in the abundant sculptural decorations of churches, both in architectural members and in ciboria, pulpits, iconostases, and balustrades. Low relief, however, predominated in most cases. In the Byzantine era, the calligraphic decorative taste of Eastern art suited this type of sculpture well, whether in marble or stone or in other materials for the applied arts, such as ivory, alabaster, and precious metals.
In the Romanesque period, low relief triumphed absolutely everywhere, representing one of the most characteristic and distinctive elements of the architecture of that time. One need only recall the sculptures of Wiligelmus and Antelami, the Roman marble-workers, Bonanno Pisano in Pisa and Monreale, and those of countless anonymous carvers.
High relief, on the other hand, prevailed in 14th-century Pisan sculpture, especially with Nicola Pisano, who achieved effects of remarkable vivacity, dynamism, and tension in his pulpits in Pisa and Siena. Giovanni Pisano also maintained equal vigor in high relief, as did Arnolfo di Cambio.
The Renaissance, with its canons of rigidly strict perspective and preference for pictorial solutions, limited the use of high relief; yet Ghiberti, in the figures set within the mixtilinear frames of the south door of the Florentine Baptistery—just as Andrea da Pontedera had done in the first door—still felt the vigor of high relief. Similarly, Donatello in the cantoria of San Lorenzo and della Robbia in his many terracotta friezes.
RELIEF – In the second door, however, Ghiberti preferred schiacciato, which enabled him to achieve great pictorial delicacy in the backgrounds of the ten panels. Jacopo della Quercia was also a careful follower of the rules of low relief, particularly in the stories of the Old Testament carved on the portal of San Petronio in Bologna, as was Donatello in his mature works, including the reliefs of the high altar of the Basilica in Padua. All other sculptors of the Renaissance took their cue from him.
In the 16th century, with the ascendancy of grand architecture, high relief was generally preferred, and freestanding sculptures often assumed the appearance of true high reliefs, conceived as they were in clear architectural function. Low relief was confined to decorations on pilasters, candelabra, architraves, and portals, achieving exquisite results in works by Cellini and Giambologna.
In the Baroque era, both types of relief were employed as ornamentation for scenographic and complex architectures. In Bernini, for example, even freestanding statuary involved solutions linked to the effects of relief, as is particularly evident in the sculptural group of The Ecstasy of Saint Teresa in Santa Maria della Vittoria in Rome. The Neoclassical taste favored certain linear solutions in low relief, almost flattened, as in Canova’s funerary stelae (see, for instance, the monument to Giovanni Volpato in the Santi Apostoli in Rome), where the background was smoothed and reduced to a simple supporting plane from which the figures emerged. High relief was widely used in commemorative sculptures (e.g., the Arc de Triomphe in Paris). In contemporary art, relief is often treated by sculptors, with a general preference for low relief. – See pl. XLVIII.