Relief
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Relief is a sculptural method in which the sculpted pieces remain attached to a solid background of the same material. The term relief is from the Latin verb relevare, to raise. To create a sculpture
Side view of Lorenzo Ghiberti's cast gilt-bronze Gates of Paradise at the Florence Baptistery in Florence, Italy, combining high-relief main figures with backgrounds mostly in low relief.
A common mixture of high and low relief, in the Roman Ara Pacis, placed to be seen from below. Low relief background.
A low-relief dating to c. 2000 BC, from the kingdom of Simurrum, modern Iraq
"Blocked-out" unfinished low relief of Ahkenaten and Nefertiti; unfinished Greek and Persian high-reliefs show the same method of beginning a work.
Medieval art
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The medieval art of the Western world covers a vast scope of time and place, with over 1000 years of art in Europe, and at certain periods in Western Asia and Northern Africa. It includes major art mo
Byzantine Church mosaics, Monreale, Sicily, late 12th century
Detail of The Effects of Good Government, a fresco in the City Hall of Siena by Ambrogio Lorenzetti, 1338.
Scenes of courtly love on a lady's ivory mirror-case. Paris, 1300–1330.
The jewelled cover of the Codex Aureus of St. Emmeram, c. 870, a Carolingian Gospel book.