DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.68796#0301
CHAP. II
Planes of Relief
281
one direction only, but the Hermes at the end of the Greco-
Roman gallery in the British Museum is a bad one to
choose, because the charm of the figure consists in the
graceful lateral contours combined with the expressive
bend forwards of the head. The relief can give the lateral
contours, but to represent the bend of the head this must
be brought forward out of the plane of the rest of the body
and the feeling of a classical relief is sacrificed.
From this preference on the part of the Greeks for poses
which bring the figures into flat planes, there is developed
a further consequence that must be noticed as another
important convention of sculpture in relief. This conven-
tion consists in keeping all parts as far as possible towards
the foremost plane, or in other words minimising the differ-
ence between the nearer and more remote portions of the
object. The effort of the Greeks to compass this—not of
course so apparent when the whole work is flat—is very
conspicuous in good examples of alto- and mezzo-riliewo.
They avoid rendering one part of the figure or object in full
relief while another is almost sunk into the background.
In the Parthenon and other metopes this may be explained
by the fact that the sculpture was sunk in a sort of box
with the projections of the triglyphs on each side and the
corona above, so that the figures had as it were to come
forward to the edge of their shelf in order to be properly
seen, but the reason is a deeper one. It was the old feel-
ing for breadth, which, simplifying as it does the composi-
tion of the public monument in the round, also aims at
securing clearness in the impression of the relief. The
difference in the aspect of a nearer limb, fully relieved in
all its light-and-shade and modelling, and the corresponding
member almost lost in the background, was too great. The
eye could not take them in as parts of the same whole at
that first glance which is the truest measure of the work of
Planes of Relief
281
one direction only, but the Hermes at the end of the Greco-
Roman gallery in the British Museum is a bad one to
choose, because the charm of the figure consists in the
graceful lateral contours combined with the expressive
bend forwards of the head. The relief can give the lateral
contours, but to represent the bend of the head this must
be brought forward out of the plane of the rest of the body
and the feeling of a classical relief is sacrificed.
From this preference on the part of the Greeks for poses
which bring the figures into flat planes, there is developed
a further consequence that must be noticed as another
important convention of sculpture in relief. This conven-
tion consists in keeping all parts as far as possible towards
the foremost plane, or in other words minimising the differ-
ence between the nearer and more remote portions of the
object. The effort of the Greeks to compass this—not of
course so apparent when the whole work is flat—is very
conspicuous in good examples of alto- and mezzo-riliewo.
They avoid rendering one part of the figure or object in full
relief while another is almost sunk into the background.
In the Parthenon and other metopes this may be explained
by the fact that the sculpture was sunk in a sort of box
with the projections of the triglyphs on each side and the
corona above, so that the figures had as it were to come
forward to the edge of their shelf in order to be properly
seen, but the reason is a deeper one. It was the old feel-
ing for breadth, which, simplifying as it does the composi-
tion of the public monument in the round, also aims at
securing clearness in the impression of the relief. The
difference in the aspect of a nearer limb, fully relieved in
all its light-and-shade and modelling, and the corresponding
member almost lost in the background, was too great. The
eye could not take them in as parts of the same whole at
that first glance which is the truest measure of the work of