Hainan Sculpture  

High relief

The so-called high relief means that the space structure and molding characteristics of the relief form with a small degree of compression and a high elevation are more similar to those of the round sculpture, and even some parts are processed completely by the round sculpture. High relief often uses the spatial fluctuation or exaggeration of three-dimensional shapes to form a concentrated sense of spatial depth and strong visual impact, which makes relief art have a special expressive force and charm for image creation. This kind of relief has a strong contrast between light and shade, and its visual effect is prominent. The famous architectural relief "Departure in 1792", also known as "Marseille", on the triumphal arch of Charles de Gaulle Square in Paris, France, is an outstanding representative of high relief. The artist successfully combined the techniques of round sculpture and relief sculpture, fully showing the complicated hierarchical relationship of overlapping and fluctuating characters, giving people a strong visual impact. As Hegel said: "Sometimes reliefs are more impressive than round sculptures, because part of them are hidden, which makes people imagine and gives people a sense of mystery." This is also the advantage of high reliefs in expressing language.

High relief is suitable for representing relatively heavy solemn and stirring themes, and it often has more expressive and artistic appeal in the atmosphere creation and visual impact of major themes than the plain relief.

Bas relief

Compared with the high relief, the low relief has a lower rise, larger compression and stronger sense of planarity. It not only maintains an architectural planarity, but also has a certain sense of volume and fluctuation; More closely to the form of painting. It does not rely mainly on the physical space to create the space effect, but uses more painting techniques or perspective, illusion and other processing methods to create more abstract compression space, which is conducive to strengthening the dependency of relief suitable for the carrier. The ancient Assyrians of Mesopotamia were probably the artists who were best at performing art by this means. In a series of "Assyrian Hunting Pictures", they made good use of the technique of bas reliefs to express the lively artistic image with a sense of rhythm and rhythm, and to show the inner feelings of people and animals with complex dynamics.

Due to the particularity of its expression language, bas reliefs are relatively low in technical difficulty and cost during processing, which is suitable for a wide range of production and application. After all, a considerable number of bas reliefs have the artistic characteristics of painting, and bas reliefs are more suitable for painters to compose and carve. Therefore, bas reliefs play a very important role in the history of reliefs. It can be said that most of the ancient reliefs left today belong to the category of bas reliefs.

In bas reliefs, there is also a special way of expression of bas reliefs. As the name implies, concave carving refers to the sculptural technique of being trapped on the surface within the carved pattern. This method of sculpture is also to carve figures or other images on stones or hard objects, but the general sculpture image is protruding from the surface, while the concave sculpture is trapped in the surface. There are a large number of classic concave reliefs in the ancient Egyptian reliefs and the portrait bricks in the Wei and Jin dynasties of China.