Adams, Adeline: The spirit of American sculpture (New York: Nat. Sculpture Soc., 1923)

I5°
THE SPIRIT OF
bas-reliefs have said them poetically.
My excuse is that my words may drive
some unbeliever to look at the works.
For, as the Metropolitan Museum’s
curator of prints lately said in an ad-
dress, “Art in this country doesn’t
need to be talked about; it needs to be
seen.”
Ill
Someone promptly asks what are the
rules of relief. But are rules of much
use here? Rules of relief are seldom
mentioned by the sculptor; never until
after they have been patently trans-
gressed. He has of course his stand-
ards ; he allows to his reliefs some of
the privileges of painting, such as per-
spective and distance, but he does not
presume too far with these borrow-
ings, lest his work lose its sculptural
style. A relief is largely a matter of
innate artistic feeling, as well as of
trained taste. And quite as much as a
VII
THE ART OF RELIEF