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86-515: The Bassae Frieze is the high relief marble sculpture in 23 panels, 31 m long by 0.63 m high, made to decorate the interior of the cella of the Temple of Apollo Epikourios at Bassae . It was discovered in 1811 by Carl Haller and Charles Cockerell , and excavated the following year by an expedition of the Society of Travellers led by Haller and Otto von Stackelberg . This team cleared

172-463: A "frame" at the original level around the edge of the relief, or place a head in a hemispherical recess in the block (see Roman example in gallery). Though essentially very similar to Egyptian sunk relief, but with a background space at the lower level around the figure, the term would not normally be used of such works. It is also used for carving letters (typically om mani padme hum ) in the mani stones of Tibetan Buddhism . Sunk relief technique

258-490: A base but carried by the priestess, BM 524:3. No base is actually seen, and the poses of the two women preclude there being one behind them. The left leg of the woman who gestures with extended arms, BM 524:4, reaches backward below the statue, where the base would be. The woman who holds the statue, BM 524:3, wraps her peplos around part of its back. As the centaur pulls the garment off her proper left shoulder, it passes behind her neck but does not appear between her nude torso and

344-402: A club. Into the top of the fist is fitted a metal club, requiring a stronger anchor than did the bronze swords attached to fists elsewhere. The hole for the club is therefore twice as wide and deep as those used for swords. This club identifies the hero as Theseus. The two victims of the centaur flank a small statue of Artemis. The axis of the statue is slightly off vertical, for it is not fixed to

430-510: A combatant, and the peplos therefore must indicate that she is one of the three Amazonian queens who take part in the battle. As a queen and the first casualty she must be Melanippe , and the Greek who kills her must be Telamon . Telamon, BM 533:2, stands adjacent to his victim but now has turned his spear to another. The next victim of Telamon's spear will be the Amazon BM 531:2, who helps up

516-521: A consistent very low relief was commonly used for the whole composition. These images would usually be painted after carving, which helped define the forms; today the paint has worn off in the great majority of surviving examples, but minute, invisible remains of paint can usually be discovered through chemical means. The Ishtar Gate of Babylon , now in Berlin, has low reliefs of large animals formed from moulded bricks, glazed in colour. Plaster, which made

602-546: A design for a Mausoleum, in 1806 a design for a National Museum and in 1807 a Public Library or National Gallery. During 1810-11 he travelled extensively through southern Europe and the Mediterranean studying classical architecture and accompanied C. R. Cockerell and the German archaeologists Haller and Linckh during their excavation of the temples at Aegina and Bassae . In 1816 John Jr. returned to Liverpool and joined

688-676: A drill rather than chisels , enabling and encouraging compositions extremely crowded with figures, like the Ludovisi Battle sarcophagus (250–260 CE). These are also seen in the enormous strips of reliefs that wound around Roman triumphal columns . The sarcophagi in particular exerted a huge influence on later Western sculpture. The European Middle Ages tended to use high relief for all purposes in stone, though like Ancient Roman sculpture , their reliefs were typically not as high as in Ancient Greece. Very high relief re-emerged in

774-647: A few larger caskets like the Casket with Scenes of Romances (Walters 71264) in Baltimore , Maryland , in the United States. Originally they were very often painted in bright colours. Reliefs can be impressed by stamps onto clay, or the clay pressed into a mould bearing the design, as was usual with the mass-produced terra sigillata of Ancient Roman pottery . Decorative reliefs in plaster or stucco may be much larger; this form of architectural decoration

860-495: A gem seal, perhaps as sculptors trained in the Greek tradition attempted to use traditional Egyptian conventions. Small-scale reliefs have been carved in various materials, notably ivory , wood, and wax. Reliefs are often found in decorative arts such as ceramics and metalwork ; these are less often described as "reliefs" than as "in relief". Small bronze reliefs are often in the form of "plaques" or plaquettes , which may be set in furniture or framed, or just kept as they are,

946-640: A large proportion of the survivals of portable secular art from Late Antiquity . In the Gothic period the carving of ivory reliefs became a considerable luxury industry in Paris and other centres. As well as small diptychs and triptychs with densely packed religious scenes, usually from the New Testament , secular objects, usually in a lower relief, were also produced. These were often round mirror-cases, combs, handles, and other small items, but included

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1032-408: A pair of duels. On the following slab, BM 533, appears the first casualty, BM 533:1, an Amazon probably holding the handle of an axe in her right hand as she collapses. Her helmet lies on the ground to her right side. The dress of the dying Amazon here, an overgirt peplos and mantle, distinguishes her from the other Amazon warriors who wear the more typical chitoniskos. The axe and helmet identify her as

1118-492: A popular form for European collectors, especially in the Renaissance. Various modelling techniques are used, such repoussé ("pushed-back") in metalwork, where a thin metal plate is shaped from behind using various metal or wood punches, producing a relief image. Casting has also been widely used in bronze and other metals. Casting and repoussé are often used in concert in to speed up production and add greater detail to

1204-527: A revival in the 20th century, being popular on buildings in Art Deco and related styles, which borrowed from the ancient low reliefs now available in museums. Some sculptors, including Eric Gill , have adopted the "squashed" depth of low relief in works that are actually free-standing. Mid-relief, "half-relief" or mezzo-rilievo is somewhat imprecisely defined, and the term is not often used in English,

1290-470: A shallow overall depth, for example used on coins, on which all images are in low relief. In the lowest reliefs the relative depth of the elements shown is completely distorted, and if seen from the side the image makes no sense, but from the front the small variations in depth register as a three-dimensional image. Other versions distort depth much less. The term comes from the Italian basso rilievo via

1376-466: A small rock while retreating before a centaur. Elsewhere warriors hurry to the aid of comrades: 530:2, 52814. None of the Greeks achieves an unqualified victory. Rather than pitched duels, the mêlée breaks into multiple figure groups (BM 530:2, 3, 4, 5; BM 528:1, 2, 3; BM 527:1, 2, 3, 4) in which the distinction between victor and vanquished is often clouded. Appropriately for this kind of disorganized fight,

1462-501: A unit focusing on the figure of Herakles, BM 541:3. The hero takes a prominent place, on the long axis of the temple and over the Corinthian capital, while at either end of the trio of slabs are balancing pairs of a Greek and an Amazon helping away wounded comrades, BM 542:1 and 2, and BM 540:5 and 4. Hippolyte, like the two other queens, is distinguished by dress. She wears a mantle wrapped about her waist, visually drawing attention to

1548-400: A wounded comrade. Although the other Amazon along this part of the frieze not already pitted against a foe is standing directly left of Telamon (BM 533:3), she cannot be his target, for she stands on a different ground line from Telamon and must be understood to be in a deeper spatial plane. As Telamon aims his spear at a distant enemy, so she aims her arrow past Telamon, probably at the Greek on

1634-479: Is a very shallow relief, which merges into engraving in places, and can be hard to read in photographs. It is often used for the background areas of compositions with the main elements in low-relief, but its use over a whole (usually rather small) piece was effectively invented and perfected by the Italian Renaissance sculptor Donatello . In later Western art, until a 20th-century revival, low relief

1720-446: Is for convenient reference assumed in this article to be usually figures, but sculpture in relief often depicts decorative geometrical or foliage patterns, as in the arabesques of Islamic art , and may be of any subject. Rock reliefs are those carved into solid rock in the open air (if inside caves, whether natural or human-made, they are more likely to be called "rock-cut"). This type is found in many cultures, in particular those of

1806-525: Is found in many styles of interiors in the post-Renaissance West, and in Islamic architecture . Many modern and contemporary artists such as Paul Gauguin , Ernst Barlach , Ernst Ludwig Kirchner , Pablo Picasso , Eric Gill , Jacob Epstein , Henry Moore , Claudia Cobizev , up to Ewald Matare have created reliefs. In particular low reliefs were often used in the 20th century on the outsides of buildings, where they are relatively easy to incorporate into

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1892-556: Is known of its authorship: despite an ascription of the metopes to Paionios (since refuted), the frieze cannot be associated with any sculptor, workshop or school. Instead Cooper identifies the artists of the frieze on morellian evidence as a group of three anonymous masters. The frieze was bought at auction by the British Museum in 1815 where it is now on permanent display in a specially constructed room in Gallery 16. While

1978-475: Is not to be confused with "counter-relief" or intaglio as seen on engraved gem seals – where an image is fully modeled in a "negative" manner. The image goes into the surface, so that when impressed on wax it gives an impression in normal relief. However many engraved gems were carved in cameo or normal relief. A few very late Hellenistic monumental carvings in Egypt use full "negative" modelling as though on

2064-670: Is open to the public. The wealthy landowner Thomas Legh was one of the excavators of the temple and a plaster cast copy of the frieze is displayed in the Bright Gallery of Lyme Hall , Cheshire, one of his stately homes. High relief There are different degrees of relief depending on the degree of projection of the sculpted form from the field, for which the Italian and French terms are still sometimes used in English. The full range includes high relief (Italian alto-rilievo , French haut-relief ), where more than 50% of

2150-479: Is set upon by a gang of centaurs, precipitating a brawl, much as had happened at the wedding feast. The first slab of the Centauromachy, BM 526, focuses on a pair of Greeks clad in mantles and fighting barehanded. Although they face in opposite directions, their poses are nearly identical, differing only in that one, BM 526:2, folds his lower left leg under the thigh as he kneels on the back of his adversary. On

2236-421: Is the clearest and most important, and these two are generally the only terms used to discuss most work. The definition of these terms is somewhat variable, and many works combine areas in more than one of them, rarely sliding between them in a single figure; accordingly some writers prefer to avoid all distinctions. The opposite of relief sculpture is counter-relief , intaglio , or cavo-rilievo , where

2322-744: The Ancient Near East and Buddhist countries. A stele is a single standing stone; many of these carry reliefs. The distinction between high and low relief is somewhat subjective, and the two are very often combined in a single work. In particular, most later "high reliefs" contain sections in low relief, usually in the background. From the Parthenon Frieze onwards, many single figures in large monumental sculpture have heads in high relief, but their lower legs are in low relief. The slightly projecting figures created in this way work well in reliefs that are seen from below, and reflect that

2408-731: The Greek Revival style and he mainly worked on public buildings and Anglican churches. John Foster Sr. married Ann Dutton on 18 September 1781 in St George's Church, Liverpool. John Foster Jr. is the second of eight sons born to the couple in 1786 in Liverpool. Foster studied under Jeffry Wyatt in Lower Brook Street, London, whose uncle James Wyatt had worked with John Sr. on Liverpool Town Hall . John Jr. displayed three designs at Royal Academy of Arts , in 1805

2494-480: The Khmer Empire . High relief (or altorilievo , from Italian ) is where in general more than half the mass of the sculpted figure projects from the background. Indeed, the most prominent elements of the composition, especially heads and limbs, are often completely undercut, detaching them from the field. The parts of the subject that are seen are normally depicted at their full depth, unlike low relief where

2580-1044: The 1,460 panels of the 9th-century Borobudur temple in Central Java , Indonesia , narrating the Jataka tales or lives of the Buddha . Other examples are low reliefs narrating the Ramayana Hindu epic in Prambanan temple, also in Java, in Cambodia , the temples of Angkor , with scenes including the Samudra manthan or "Churning the Ocean of Milk" at the 12th-century Angkor Wat , and reliefs of apsaras . At Bayon temple in Angkor Thom there are scenes of daily life in

2666-515: The 23 slabs of the Ionic frieze 11 depict Greeks fighting centaurs and 12 represent Greeks fighting Amazons. Cooper and Madigan make a further distinction of the Trojan and Heraklean Amazonomachies following on from their determination of the blocks' arrangement. Yet contrary to customary practice these three scenes are not on separate sides of the building, but run continuously around the entablature with

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2752-728: The British Museum possesses most of the sculpture, eight fragments believed to belong to the frieze are in the National Museum, Athens . Copies of this frieze decorate the walls of the Ashmolean Museum and London's Travellers Club . As has been remarked the temple's existence had been known to scholars from the record in Pausanias but its location was uncertain until the accidental discovery in November 1765 by

2838-705: The Church of St. Andrew's in Rodney Street , converted in the early 21st century to student accommodation. The second Royal Infirmary and the public baths have both been demolished, as has the enormous, domed Custom House , which suffered extensive fire damage during the Second World War. He is often attributed as the architect for numbers 2–10 Gambier Terrace , Liverpool. He was living in Hamilton Square , Birkenhead when he died in 1846 and

2924-543: The French bas-relief ( French pronunciation: [baʁəljɛf] ), both meaning "low relief". The former is now a very old-fashioned term in English, and the latter term is becoming so. Low relief is a technique which requires less work, and is therefore cheaper to produce, as less of the background needs to be removed in a carving, or less modelling is required. In the art of Ancient Egypt , Assyrian palace reliefs , and other ancient Near Eastern and Asian cultures,

3010-425: The French architect J. Bocher of the site, but unfortunately he was unable to survey the place due to his murder on his second visit. Though the temple was visited several times in the intervening years, it wasn't until the expedition of 1812 that excavations began. Of the informal group of antiquaries who undertook the enterprise it fell to Haller to record the 1812 dig in his field notebook, the two copies of which are

3096-525: The Renaissance, and was especially used in wall-mounted funerary art and later on Neoclassical pediments and public monuments. In the Buddhist and Hindu art of India and Southeast Asia, high relief can also be found, although it is not as common as low to mid-reliefs. Famous examples of Indian high reliefs can be found at the Khajuraho temples, with voluptuous, twisting figures that often illustrate

3182-568: The action and commenting on it. The tide of battle, distinctly on the Amazons' side along the south, has now turned against them. Here, BM 535:3, the last of the Amazons is depicted clasping to an altar as she is prised away by a Greek, BM 535:4. The Centauromachy covers seven slabs along the east and four slabs of the north side of the entablature, making it the longest of the three subjects (BM 526, BM 524, BM 525, BM 530, BM 528, BM 527, BM 529; BM 522, BM 523, BM 521, and BM 520). The rocky landscape,

3268-517: The air and close to the ceiling. The reconstruction puts the frieze at an easily viewable height. The table below shows the various proposals for how the frieze may have been originally designed to be displayed. There have been a number of ideas as to how the frieze should be arranged. The arrangement made by the British Museum follows that proposed by Peter Corbett, but others by the American scholar W.B. Dinsmoor and that proposed by Haller are amongst

3354-404: The architectural void of the doorway below. This centrifugal design brings to a halt the right-to-left movement of the spectator around the cella at the point where the frieze ends and he leaves the temple. On the first pair of slabs at the north, Artemis has arrived in her chariot drawn by stags, with her brother Apollo, who has already alighted and draws his bow, BM 523. The rightward movement of

3440-514: The architecture as decorative highlights. Notable examples of monumental reliefs include: Smaller-scale reliefs: John Foster (architect, born 1786) John Foster, Junior (1786 – 21 August 1846) was an English architect born and based in Liverpool . In succession to his father , he was Surveyor to the Corporation of Liverpool (1824–1835). His buildings were generally in

3526-437: The battle. These elements more commonly belong to a different scene in the Centauromachy narrative – the brawl at the wedding feast of Peirithoos. Also, the two infants carried by women, BM 525:11 and BM 522:15, are unknown in either of the two most popular versions of the battle. Further the direct intervention by the gods Apollo and Artemis, on BM 523, may also be a novel element unique to the frieze. This departure at Bassai from

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3612-459: The belt of the Amazon queen Hippolyte. This Amazonomachy extends for eight blocks from the middle of the west side, around the southwest and southeast corners, to as far as the first slab of the east side. These are BM 536, BM 533. BM 534, BM 531, BM 542, BM 541, BM 540, and BM 535. On the first slab, BM 536, the battle is evenly balanced, one Amazon and one Greek having the better of the fighting in

3698-465: The burial of Kaineus, centaurs fighting with tree limbs or rocks, and men with armour and weapons are all elements of a pitched battle between Lapiths and centaurs. However, four Greeks are dressed only in mantles, fight bare handed and are noticeably placed at the principal structural points: on the first slab, BM 526:2 and 3, at the corner, BM 529:4, and on the last slab, BM 520:2. Several women, too, including Hippodameia, BM 520:4, are scattered throughout

3784-417: The centaur attack employs weapons and tactics alien to the hoplites' traditional mode of combat. One centaur (BM 525:2) swings a tree branch; others (BM 53(1) and 5) use huge stones; still another (BM 527:2) kicks and bites. Emblematic of this portion of the Centauromachy is the death of Kaineus, BM 530, where the hero, invulnerable to conventional weapons, is disposed of by being buried alive. The last slab of

3870-412: The center of the slab, while a single Greek and a single Amazon flank them. The final slab in the series, BM 539, represents the moment when a truce has been called between the Greeks and Amazons in order to clear the battlefield of equipment, the wounded and the dead. The next section of the frieze represents the battle between the Greeks, led by Herakles, against the Amazons in a bid by the hero to seize

3956-513: The conflicting theories shown below. In some cases the authors disagree not only about the order but also about which pictures were displayed on which wall. In this case the block positions are labelled E, W, S, and N to indicate the wall. John Henning 's masterpieces were the one-twentieth scale models he created of the Parthenon Frieze and Bassae Frieze, which took him twelve years to complete. John and his son, also John, used this work to install recreations of both friezes on other buildings. Of

4042-601: The contrasting movements in each pair away from the central axis. The frieze can be seen in the British Museum's Gallery 16, near the Elgin Marbles . The room is not always open, but researchers can request it be made available. Cockerell also decorated the walls of the Ashmolean Museum 's Great Staircase and that of the Travellers Club with plaster casts of the same frieze. The Ashmolean Museum in Oxford

4128-442: The depth is shown and there may be undercut areas, mid-relief (Italian mezzo-rilievo ), low relief (Italian basso-rilievo , French: bas-relief ), and shallow-relief (Italian rilievo schiacciato ), where the plane is only very slightly lower than the sculpted elements. There is also sunk relief , which was mainly restricted to Ancient Egypt ( see below ). However, the distinction between high relief and low relief

4214-560: The disputed belt. The final slab of the Heraklean Amazonomachy, BM 535, is separated physically from the preceding three, being the single Amazonomachy slab on the east side. lt also is separated temporally from the others in that it depicts a moment late in the conflict when the outcome is no longer in doubt. Thus it follows the pattern of the last scene of the Trojan Amazonomachy, marking the conclusion of

4300-409: The divine pair continue in the woman, the lint centaur, and the hoplite on the slab at the comer, BM 522. ApoIlo's target is the centaur immediately before him, BM 522:4, who has grabbed hold of a woman carrying an infant, BM 522:3. Only she among the women in the Centauromachy is in the clutches of a centaur, yet undefended by a mortal. The movement in the two left-hand slabs on the north is largely to

4386-444: The east side, BM 529 (Fig. 12, Pl. 45), restores a sense of ordered warfare, and the fortunes of the Greeks improve. One each of the armed (BM 529:2) and unarmed Greeks (529:4) is victorious over a centaur. The north portion of the frieze (Fig. 13), like that of the south that faces it, depicts the most important part of the action and is segregated from the rest of its subject by its compositional unity. The compositional patterns on both

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4472-411: The elements seen are "squashed" flatter. High relief thus uses essentially the same style and techniques as free-standing sculpture, and in the case of a single figure gives largely the same view as a person standing directly in front of a free-standing statue would have. All cultures and periods in which large sculptures were created used this technique in monumental sculpture and architecture. Most of

4558-522: The erotic Kamasutra positions. In the 9th-century Prambanan temple, Central Java , high reliefs of Lokapala devatas , the guardians of deities of the directions, are found. The largest high relief sculpture in the world is the Stone Mountain Confederate Memorial in the U.S. state of Georgia , which was cut 42 feet deep into the mountain, and measures 90 feet in height, 190 feet in width, and lies 400 feet above

4644-584: The external walls. Since the Renaissance plaster has been very widely used for indoor ornamental work such as cornices and ceilings, but in the 16th century it was used for large figures (many also using high relief) at the Chateau of Fontainebleau , which were imitated more crudely elsewhere, for example in the Elizabethan Hardwick Hall . Shallow-relief, in Italian rilievo stiacciato or rilievo schicciato ("squashed relief"),

4730-491: The family building firm. He succeeded his father, John Foster, Sr. , as senior surveyor to the Corporation of Liverpool in 1824, and held that post until the Municipal Reform Act of 1834. His own designs included The Oratory , St. John's Market , Liverpool Necropolis (converted into a park in 1914), St James Cemetery , alterations and additions to Knowsley Hall , the grandstand at Aintree Racecourse and

4816-524: The final relief. In stone, as well as engraved gems, larger hardstone carvings in semi-precious stones have been highly prestigious since ancient times in many Eurasian cultures. Reliefs in wax were produced at least from the Renaissance . Carved ivory reliefs have been used since ancient times, and because the material, though expensive, cannot usually be reused, they have a relatively high survival rate, and for example consular diptychs represent

4902-427: The form is cut into the field or background rather than rising from it; this is very rare in monumental sculpture . Hyphens may or may not be used in all these terms, though they are rarely seen in "sunk relief" and are usual in " bas-relief " and "counter-relief". Works in the technique are described as "in relief", and, especially in monumental sculpture , the work itself is "a relief". Reliefs are common throughout

4988-399: The fourth slab, BM 539, depicts a truce at the end of the battle. In the first pair of combatants, on slab BM 538, an Amazon has gained the upper hand over her opponent, but with the second pair the situation is dramatically reversed. Here a bearded Greek, wearing a chiton, a cuirass, a helmet, and a baldric and carrying a shield, seizes an Amazon by the hair while trampling her underfoot. He is

5074-415: The ground and they were already mixed in with other building rubble. So the stones are arranged in one logical way, but it is not clear if the frieze was actually either intended or designed to be as it now appears. The room where the frieze is displayed was specially constructed to be the same size as the main room in the Temple of Apollo. However, in the original placing they would have been seven metres in

5160-467: The ground. Sunk or sunken relief is largely restricted to the art of Ancient Egypt where it is very common, becoming after the Amarna period of Ahkenaten the dominant type used, as opposed to low relief. It had been used earlier, but mainly for large reliefs on external walls, and for hieroglyphs and cartouches . The image is made by cutting the relief sculpture itself into a flat surface to enhance

5246-414: The heads of figures are usually of more interest to both artist and viewer than the legs or feet. As unfinished examples from various periods show, raised reliefs, whether high or low, were normally "blocked out" by marking the outline of the figure and reducing the background areas to the new background level, work no doubt performed by apprentices (see gallery). A low relief is a projecting image with

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5332-472: The impression of three-dimensionality. In a simpler form, the images are usually mostly linear in nature, like hieroglyphs, but in most cases the figure itself is in low relief, but set within a sunken area shaped round the image, so that the relief never rises beyond the original flat surface. In some cases the figures and other elements are in a very low relief that does not rise to the original surface, but others are modeled more fully, with some areas rising to

5418-417: The left. Although the first group of centaur and hoplite, BM 521:1 and 2, is virtually identical to the pair BM 522:1 and 2, the hoplite on BM 521 props himself on his shield, which serves as a visual stop to the centaur's charge and as a reinforcement to the axis of the north side. The two figures on the left of the same slab, BM 521:3 and 4, repeat the pair of woman and centaur of BM 522:1 and 2. Here, however,

5504-936: The many grand figure reliefs in Ancient Greek sculpture used a very "high" version of high relief, with elements often fully free of the background, and parts of figures crossing over each other to indicate depth. The metopes of the Parthenon have largely lost their fully rounded elements, except for heads, showing the advantages of relief in terms of durability. High relief has remained the dominant form for reliefs with figures in Western sculpture, also being common in Indian temple sculpture. Smaller Greek sculptures such as private tombs, and smaller decorative areas such as friezes on large buildings, more often used low relief. Hellenistic and Roman sarcophagus reliefs were cut with

5590-404: The more traditional designs of the centauromachy is perhaps an attempt unify it with the other two subjects of the frieze as well as to adapt the subject to the patron deities of the sanctuary. Homer relates the events of Polypites birth and the attack of the centaurs, when the ritual procession to gift a girdle in the sanctuary of Artemis is interrupted. While nearing the sanctuary, the procession

5676-524: The most heavily armed soldier in either of the Amazonomachies depicted, and the only bearded Greek, so far as we can tell, anywhere on the frieze. On the second slab, BM 532, one Amazon uses a hoplite shield to guard a second kneeling Amazon who has just shot an arrow The battle reaches its climax on the third slab, BM 537, where Achilles slays the Amazonian queen. Achilles and Penthesilea appear in

5762-403: The next slab, BM 524, the goal of the procession, the ritual sanctuary of Artemis, is indicated by a tree hung with a lion or panther skin in thanksgiving for a successful hunt. The Greek (BM 524:1) who defends the two women against the centaur has no attributes save for the weapon that was held in his right hand. The roughly cut form that extends from the bottom of the fist seems to be the stump of

5848-414: The north and south conform to the architectural forms below the frieze. On the three slabs at the south, groups balance one another in axial symmetry around the prominent central figure of Herakles, who stands above the Corinthian column. The four slabs on the north divide into two pain; the movement of the figures is largely centrifugal, so that the formal and narrative void at the center of the frieze echoes

5934-433: The only clear disjuncture at the northwest corner. This description follows Cooper and Madigan's reconstruction. The first four slabs of the frieze, from the northwest corner to the middle of the west side, depict the attack on the Greeks at Troy by Amazons under Penthesilea BM 538, BM 532, BM 537, and BM 539 The battle itself spans three blocks, culminating in the death of Penthesilea at the hands of Achilles on BM 537, while

6020-435: The only surviving details of the disposition of the intact site and finds since the drawings he made in 1811 were lost at sea. However, though Haller's study was exacting by the standards of the day no record was kept of the findspots of the frieze, and only sketchy details that parts of the frieze were found on the temple floor inside the cella by Brondsted. Furthermore, the early explorers of the temple make little discussion of

6106-453: The original surface. This method minimizes the work removing the background, while allowing normal relief modelling. The technique is most successful with strong sunlight to emphasise the outlines and forms by shadow, as no attempt was made to soften the edge of the sunk area, leaving a face at a right-angle to the surface all around it. Some reliefs, especially funerary monuments with heads or busts from ancient Rome and later Western art, leave

6192-570: The plague of 429 BC. The architecture of the temple is one of the most strikingly unusual examples of the period, departing significantly from the norms of Doric and Ionic practice and including what is perhaps the first use of the Corinthian order and the first temple to have a continuous frieze around the interior of the naos . From the style of the frieze it belongs to the High Classical period, probably carved around 400 BC. Nothing

6278-412: The preceding slab, BM 536:3, who is about to drag off an Amazon. The Amazon Telamon is aiming at is dressed like Melanippe in an overgirt peplos, again probably a signifier of royalty. As Hippolyte will be seen later fighting Herakles, and Melanippe has already been slain, this Amazon may be identified as Antiope. The three slabs that comprise the south portion of the frieze, BM 542, BM 541, and BM 540, form

6364-414: The procession and, lacking the advantage of surprise that the attacking centaurs had, were the first victims of the Greeks. The two pairs of slabs that form the north part of the frieze share the same general figural pattern. A male and female pair, divine or mortal, dominate the left slab. On the right slab, a female and centaur are placed at left and a centaur and hoplite at right. This repetition highlights

6450-421: The rest of the temple, the blocks were carved from marble. Each of the 23 stones shows sections of the frieze but it is rare to find any continuation of the design from one stone to the next. It has also been proposed that the stones were not eventually installed as they had originally been proposed in the Temple of Apollo. These two complications are important as when the stones were found they had already fallen to

6536-491: The sculpture in their subsequent publications, it was not until 1892 that they were formally published with Arthur Smith's catalogue of the British Museum's holdings. The site was explored in 1812 by British antiquaries who removed the twenty-three slabs of the Ionic cella frieze and transported them to Zante along with other sculptures. The frieze was bought at auction by the British Museum in 1815. This frieze's stones were removed by Charles Robert Cockerell . Cockerell decorated

6622-523: The statue. It reappears in the priestess's left hand, being drawn from the left, up and to the right. As a result, it must be understood as partially encompassing the lower parts of the statue. On the next four slabs, BM 525, BM 530, BM 528, and BM 527, the Greeks are meeting with little success. Each of the Greeks in this section bears some armour or weapon, but they seem to have been taken by surprise and are hard pressed to hold their own. One hero, BM 525:3, has lost his sword and now futilely arms himself with

6708-500: The surviving slabs and this has been the subject of controversy. Archaeological research has determined that the site of the present ruin of the temple of Apollo was in continuous use since the archaic period , the existing temple is the last of four on the site and designated Apollo IV. Pausanias records that this last sanctuary was dedicated to Apollo Epikourios (helper or succourer) by the Phigalians in thanks for delivery from

6794-564: The technique far easier, was widely used in Egypt and the Near East from antiquity into Islamic times (latterly for architectural decoration, as at the Alhambra ), Rome, and Europe from at least the Renaissance, as well as probably elsewhere. However, it needs very good conditions to survive long in unmaintained buildings – Roman decorative plasterwork is mainly known from Pompeii and other sites buried by ash from Mount Vesuvius . Low relief

6880-418: The temple site in an endeavour to recover the sculpture, and in the process revealed it was part of the larger sculptural programme of the temple including the metopes of an external Doric frieze and an over-life-size statue. The find spots of the internal Ionic frieze blocks were not recorded by the early archaeologists, so work on recreating the sequence of the frieze has been based on the internal evidence of

6966-402: The walls of the Ashmolean Museum 's Great Staircase and that of the Travellers Club with plaster casts of the same frieze. The frieze was purchased by the British Museum from James Linkh , Thomas Legh , Karl Haller von Hallerstein, George Christian Gropius , John Foster and Charles Robert Cockerell who had bought it at auction. The frieze was constructed between 420 and 400 BC. Unlike

7052-571: The woman is not attacked by the centaur but runs past him. The centaur directs his attention to the hero on the next slab, BM 520:2, at whom he hurls a rock. The hero already grapples with one centaur, BM 520:1. As the only hero to engage two centaurs at once, and because of his proximity to the woman being carried away, BM 520:3, he must be Peirithoos . The woman is Hippodameia , the only woman being abducted. The four others who also have no cape: are all brought down from behind by Greeks: BM 526:1, BM 524:2, BM 528:23, BM 529:1. They must have been part of

7138-725: The works usually being described as low relief instead. The typical traditional definition is that only up to half of the subject projects, and no elements are undercut or fully disengaged from the background field. The depth of the elements shown is normally somewhat distorted. Mid-relief is probably the most common type of relief found in the Hindu and Buddhist art of India and Southeast Asia . The low to mid-reliefs of 2nd-century BCE to 6th-century CE Ajanta Caves and 5th- to 10th-century Ellora Caves in India are rock reliefs. Most of these reliefs are used to narrate sacred scriptures, such as

7224-453: The world on the walls of buildings and a variety of smaller settings, and a sequence of several panels or sections of relief may represent an extended narrative. Relief is more suitable for depicting complicated subjects with many figures and very active poses, such as battles, than free-standing "sculpture in the round". Most ancient architectural reliefs were originally painted, which helped to define forms in low relief. The subject of reliefs

7310-568: Was relatively rare in Western medieval art , but may be found, for example in wooden figures or scenes on the insides of the folding wings of multi-panel altarpieces . The revival of low relief, which was seen as a classical style, begins early in the Renaissance; the Tempio Malatestiano in Rimini , a pioneering classicist building, designed by Leon Battista Alberti around 1450, uses low reliefs by Agostino di Duccio inside and on

7396-563: Was used mostly for smaller works or combined with higher relief to convey a sense of distance, or to give depth to the composition, especially for scenes with many figures and a landscape or architectural background, in the same way that lighter colours are used for the same purpose in painting. Thus figures in the foreground are sculpted in high-relief, those in the background in low-relief. Low relief may use any medium or technique of sculpture, stone carving and metal casting being most common. Large architectural compositions all in low relief saw

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