The treatment and relief of figures and heads upon the plane surfaces of metals and coins, the composition controlled by the circular form, have always been a fine test of both modelling and decorative skill and taste. Breadth is given by a flatness in the treatment of successive planes of low relief, which rise to their highest projection from the ground, in the case of a head in profile, about its centre. The delicate perception of the relation of the planes of surface is important, as well as the decorative effect to be obtained by arrangement of the light and shade masses and the contrast of textures, such as hair and the folds of drapery, to the smooth contours of faces and figures, and the rectangular forms of lettering.
In gems we see the use made of the concave ground, which gives an effective relief to the figure design in convex upon it. Bolder projection of prominent parts are here necessary in contrast to the retiring planes, the work being on so small a scale, and also in view of its seal-like character; for, of course, it is the method of producing form by incision, and modelling by cutting and hollowing out, that gives the peculiar character to gems and seals; and it is in forming human figures that the building up of the form by a series of ovals, spoken of in a previous chapter, becomes really of practical value: the method of hollowing the stone or metal in cutting the gem or making a die and the character of the tool leading naturally in that direction.
Desiderio di Settignano
Perhaps the most delicate and beautiful kind of sculptured or modelled relief is to be found in the work of the Florentine school of the fifteenth century, more especially that of Donatello and Desiderio di Settignano, who seem indeed to have caught the feeling and spirit of the best Greek period, with fresh inspiration and suggestion from nature and the life around them, as well as an added charm of grace and sweetness.
It is difficult to imagine that marble carving in low relief can be carried to greater perfection than it is in the well-known small relief by Desiderio di Settignano of the "Madonna and Child," now in the Italian Court of the South Kensington Museum. The delicate yet firmly chiselled faces and hands, the smooth surfaces of the flesh, and the folds of drapery, emerging from, or sinking into, the varied planes of the ground, for refinement of feeling and treatment seem almost akin to the art of the painter in the tenderness of their expression.
CHAPTER VIII
Of the Expression of Relief in Line-drawing—Graphic Aim and Ornamental Aim—Superficial Appearance and Constructive Reality—Accidents and Essentials—Representation and Suggestion of Natural Form in Design—The Outward Vision and the Inner Vision.
I have already said that when we add lines or tints of shadow, local colour or surface, to an outline drawing, we are seeking to express form in a more complete way than can be done in outline alone. These added lines or tints give what we call relief. That is their purpose and function, whether by that added relief we wish to produce an ornamental effect or simply to approach nearer to the full relief of nature, for of course the degrees of relief are many.