The History of Modern Relief

Since the end of the 19th century, under the influence of industrial civilization, profound changes have taken place in the production, life and aesthetics of human society. Different cultural trends are surging, and traditional aesthetic values and concepts are challenged. Under the situation of change, relief art gradually gets rid of the use of narrative and decoration, and tends to develop independently, with increasingly diversified styles and forms. Hainan Sculpture

Rodin and Modern Relief

The French sculptor Rodin, with his outstanding spatial awareness and creative practice, opened the prelude to the transformation of sculpture and became the node of the transformation of western sculpture art from classical to modern. Rodin's masterpiece of genius in the field of relief sculpture is The Gate of Hell, which he devoted his whole life to. He almost subconsciously reflects his own self experience and insight into the characters and society in his works, which makes it have profound humanity and great charm. This work is different from the previous architectural decorative reliefs. In the past, similar reliefs were mostly composed according to the story plot, and the division layout seemed orderly and in line with the logic of the plot development. Although this work only shows one theme, its composition is irregular.

It certainly contains elaborate ideas and layout, but on the whole, everything seems to be overwhelming, and people who have been beaten to hell are carved in every gap of the door. Due to the undulating high relief and low relief on the plane, a complex and unpredictable shadow is formed. The whole gate looks gloomy, full of movement, and sounds like the noise of hell.

When the work was once erected in the public square of Paris as an independent gypsum substitute, it was attacked by the students of the Paris Academy of Fine Arts, so that it was smashed to pieces. Today, when people admire Rodin's works with amazing eyes, it is hard to imagine how the author was snubbed and criticized, but history finally chose Rodin, and the immortal works will become eternal.

In the field of modern relief sculpture, Rodin's student Buder showed a more challenging way of form exploration and practice than Rodin. He absorbed the decorative characteristics of Egyptian, Indian, and especially medieval Gothic sculptures, emphasized the pursuit of architectural sense in modern reliefs, and paid attention to the application of architectural elements to modern reliefs. His modern relief works always deal with the background with plane geometry, and his concise, square and straight modeling techniques and style features form the uniqueness of Buder's sculpture language. Hainan Sculpture

Now the relief display

100 years of development of modern relief

In the nearly one hundred years of the 20th century, modern reliefs have been developing unprecedentedly. With the revolutionary change of the round sculpture becoming more and more independent, modern reliefs have begun to show their unique artistic charm in an independent manner, conveying more independent spiritual connotation. Like painting and sculpture, the art of relief in this period was influenced by many schools of styles. Symbolism, cubism, futurism, surrealism, Dadaism and pop art were all reflected in the field of relief.

On the whole, the relief art in the last hundred years has shown two major trends. One kind continued to advance along Rodin's line, which generally belonged to the category of realism. A group of effective and influential sculptors were active among them, such as Bud, Mayor, Colehuizhi, Manier, Manzu, Augustinikic, and later George Jean Clough.

In different historical periods and social atmosphere, they always adhere to the traditional volume and concrete form of sculpture, and at the same time, according to their own feelings and new ideas, they explore the modern style forms with their own characteristics. The other is to find a new way and run in the opposite direction. This is a huge team that gathers many schools or main lines from modernism to postmodernism. They explore in various forms that tend to be diversified and extreme, and advance vigorously on the road against tradition. A group of sculptors, such as Gauguin, Matisse and Arp, introduced innovative experiments in painting into the field of sculpture at the beginning of the 20th century, promoting a revolutionary step for modern relief to break through the traditional concept of volume. Hainan Sculpture

With the development of the times, the introduction of various new materials, the theme of relief creation is more extensive, and the techniques and materials are increasingly diverse. The collection of various schools, the exploration of various forms and styles, and the coexistence of traditional figurative and anti traditional pluralism are the distinctive features of this era, which also make relief art more colorful.