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56-535: The 12-foot tall (3.7 m) bronze statue rests on an 18-foot (5.5 m) granite pedestal on the west side of Scott Circle. The statue depicts Webster as an orator. The pedestal features two bas-reliefs , one depicting the Webster–Hayne debate and the other Webster speaking at the Bunker Hill Monument dedication ceremony. There are inscriptions describing Webster's life and the sculptor's name. The memorial

112-463: 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

168-679: A blind clergyman who was Chaplain of the United States Senate at the time. New Hampshire Senator William E. Chandler spoke on behalf of Congress, officially accepting the memorial. Secretary of the Navy John Davis Long accepted the memorial on behalf of the American people. Henry N. Couden , who was serving as Chaplain of the United States House of Representatives , delivered a benediction before

224-516: A bowtie effect with the layout of Scott Circle. Reservation 62 is at the intersection of N Street, Massachusetts Avenue , and Rhode Island Avenue NW. The statue is facing east towards Scott Circle. The location of the statue is near Webster's former residence at 1603 Massachusetts Avenue NW. The bronze statue is approximately 12 feet tall (3.7 m), 4 feet wide (1.2 m), and 3 foot deep (0.9 m). It depicts Webster as an orator and, according to historian James Moore Goode , "The shoulders are thrown back in

280-521: 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

336-728: A dedication speech from a flag-draped balcony at the Bunker Hill Monument in 1843. There is a quote from the illustrated speeches above each bas-relief. The inscription reads: G. Trentanove F. Galli Fuseri, Firenze 1898 Italia (Front of base:) DANIEL WEBSTER LIBERTY AND UNION NOW AND FOREVER ONE AND INSEPARABLE (Proper left bottom:) BORN AT SALISBURY, N.H. JAN 18, 1782 DIED AT MARSHFIELD MASS OCT. 24, 1852 (Bottom rear:) GIVEN BY STILLSON HUTCHINS A NATIVE OF N.H. DEDICATED JAN. 18, 1900 (Rear top:) OUR COUNTRY OUR WHOLE COUNTRY AND NOTHING BUT OUR COUNTRY (Proper right, bottom:) EXPOUNDER AND DEFENDER OF THE CONSTITUTION Bas-relief Relief

392-450: A defiant manner as if in answer to a challenge." Historian Eve L. Barsoum said his face "portrays an intensity and sternness, indicative of his litigious and oratory skills. Webster's right hand is holding a book, which rests on a stand. His clothing includes a long cape draped around his shoulders featuring epaulets . The rose granite pedestal is approximately 18 feet tall (5.5 m) and 14 feet (4.3 m) on each side. The memorial's total height

448-676: 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

504-647: 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

560-547: 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,

616-640: 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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672-492: 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

728-527: 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,

784-470: 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

840-435: Is 30 feet and reflects neoclassical architecture . On the pedestal are two bronze bas-reliefs , one on the west side and one on the east side, that portray pivotal moments of Webster's life. The bas-relief on the east side depicts the 1830 Webster–Hayne debate , a debate in the U.S. Senate between Webster and Robert Y. Hayne , and includes over 100 additional people in relief. The second bas-relief depicts Webster delivering

896-485: 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 (lit. to lift back). To create a sculpture in relief is to give the impression that the sculpted material has been raised above the background plane . When a relief is carved into a flat surface of stone (relief sculpture) or wood ( relief carving ),

952-479: 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

1008-446: 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

1064-525: 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

1120-475: 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

1176-421: 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

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1232-744: 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

1288-480: 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

1344-1044: 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

1400-543: 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,

1456-597: The NRHP on August 25, 1978, and the L'Enfant Plan , listed on April 24, 1997. The Daniel Webster statue is located on Reservation 62, a small parcel of land on the west side of Scott Circle. On the opposite side of the circle in Reservation 64 is the Samuel Hahnemann Monument . The equestrian statue of Winfield Scott , in Reservation 63, stands in the middle of the circle. The three monuments create

1512-525: 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

1568-425: The architecture as decorative highlights. Notable examples of monumental reliefs include: Smaller-scale reliefs: Henry N. Couden Henry Noble Couden (November 21, 1842 – August 22, 1922) was a Universalist minister who was the 54th Chaplain of the United States House of Representatives from December 2, 1895, to February 21, 1921. He was the second blind religious leader to serve in this position,

1624-442: 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

1680-411: 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

1736-522: 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

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1792-639: 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"),

1848-495: The field is actually lowered, leaving the unsculpted areas seeming higher. The approach requires a lot of chiselling away of the background, which takes a long time. On the other hand, a relief saves forming the rear of a subject, and is less fragile and more securely fixed than a sculpture in the round, especially one of a standing figure where the ankles are a potential weak point, particularly in stone. In other materials such as metal, clay, plaster stucco , ceramics or papier-mâché

1904-524: 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

1960-424: The form can be simply added to or raised up from the background. Monumental bronze reliefs are made by casting . 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

2016-427: 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

2072-467: 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

2128-414: 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

2184-414: The idea of a memorial was Stilson Hutchins , founder of The Washington Post , who lived near Scott Circle and was a native of New Hampshire like Webster. Hutchins greatly admired Webster and told members of Congress he would pay for a statue to honor the man. Congress approved the commission on July 1, 1898, and allocated $ 4,000 to build the pedestal. The architect chosen for the memorial is unknown, but

2240-472: 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

2296-936: 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

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2352-496: The memorial dedication ceremony was January 18, 1900, exactly 118 years since Webster was born. The dedication took place at the Lafayette Square Opera House whilst the unveiling took place at the memorial site. Amongst the dignitaries in attendance were President William McKinley and his cabinet , members of Congress, and Supreme Court justices. The event began with a prayer from William Henry Milburn ,

2408-654: The memorial was unveiled by Webster's great-grandon, Jerome Bonaparte, along with Hutchins' wife and a young lady, Katherine Deering. On February 22, 2007, the memorial was added to the District of Columbia Inventory of Historic Sites . It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) on October 12, 2007. The memorial is also designated a contributing property to the Sixteenth Street Historic District , listed on

2464-465: The nation's capital, it was proposed to build a memorial to him somewhere in the city. Scott Circle , a traffic circle located a few block north of the White House , already had the equestrian statue of Winfield Scott . There were two small lots on each side of the circle, and it was here where the memorial to Webster and the Samuel Hahnemann Monument would be located. The person responsible for

2520-453: 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

2576-651: The other is William Henry Milburn . He was born on November 21, 1842, in Plymouth, Indiana, the nephew of Noah Noble , governor of Indiana. Days after the outbreak of the American Civil War , on 16 April 1861, he enlisted in the 6th Regiment, Ohio Volunteer Infantry, serving in Company K, with the rank of corporal upon entering and the rank of sergeant upon leaving. He was also a corporal in Company D, 1st Cavalry Battalion, Mississippi Marine Brigade . He

2632-687: The sculptor was Italian-American Gaetano Trentanove , whose other works in the city include the statue of Jacques Marquette in the National Statuary Hall Collection and the Albert Pike Memorial . He attended academies in Florence and Parma , before moving to the U.S. and later becoming a U.S. citizen. The founder for the project was Fonderia Galli, who also worked on the Pike memorial. The date chosen for

2688-564: 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

2744-725: 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

2800-453: 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

2856-702: Was known as a great statesman and orator, which he often demonstrated in the Senate and in front of the Supreme Court . Some of the landmark cases Webster won in the Supreme Court include Dartmouth College v. Woodward , McCulloch v. Maryland , and Gibbons v. Ogden . In total, Webster spent 23 years serving in Congress , and served as Secretary of State under Presidents William Henry Harrison , John Tyler , and Millard Fillmore . To honor Webster in

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2912-489: Was listed on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) and the District of Columbia Inventory of Historic Sites in 2007. It is also a contributing property to the Sixteenth Street Historic District and the L'Enfant Plan , both of which are listed on the NRHP. Daniel Webster (1782-1852) was a lawyer and politician who served in the House of Representatives and Senate , and served as Secretary of State twice. He

2968-714: Was ordained to the Universalist ministry that same year. After his ordination, he served churches in Madrid, New York; Willoughby, Ohio; Chatham, Massachusetts; and Port Huron, Michigan. He became chaplain of the U.S. House of Representatives in 1895 and served in that post for 25 years, until February 21, 1921. A collection of his daily opening prayers for the 62nd Congress was issued in 1913. In his foreword, Rep. Champ Clark praised Couden's "prayers of excellent character, in both form and matter ... full of piety, sympathy, and philanthropy ... voiced in choice English". He

3024-568: 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

3080-563: 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

3136-755: Was wounded at the Battle of Beaver Dam Lake on May 24, 1863, losing his sight. He described his activity during this battle in a 24 January 1903 letter to Warren D. Crandall, author of History of the Ram Fleet and Mississippi Marine Brigade . He studied at the State School for the Blind in Columbus, Ohio, and the Divinity School of St. Lawrence University . He graduated from St. Lawrence in 1878 and

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