Relief

myminifactory

Who is depicted on this relief? We don't have any information that could identify these individuals, but we can deduce that they are two Romans with their clothes and postures. Technical specifications about the statue: Relief is a sculptural technique where the sculpted elements remain attached to a solid background of the same material. The term "relief" comes from the Latin verb relevo, which means "to raise." To create a sculpture in relief is to give the impression that the sculpted material has been raised above the background plane. When creating a relief sculpture out of stone or wood, you are actually lowering the field by chiseling away the background, leaving the unsculpted parts seemingly raised. This technique involves considerable chiseling and is a time-consuming process. 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. There are different degrees of relief depending on the degree of projection of the sculpted form from the field. The full range includes high relief, where more than 50% of the depth is shown and there may be undercut areas, mid-relief, low-relief, and shallow-relief or rilievo schiacciato, where the plane is only very slightly lower than the sculpted elements. 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 opposite of relief sculpture is counter-relief, intaglio, or cavo-rilievo, where the form is cut into the field or background rather than rising from it; this is very rare in monumental sculpture. Works in the technique are described as "in relief," and, especially in monumental sculpture, the work itself is "a relief."