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50-592: The Mary Schenley Memorial Fountain , also known as A Song to Nature , is a 1918 landmark public sculpture in bronze and granite by Victor David Brenner . It sits in Schenley Plaza at the entrance to Schenley Park and directly in front of the University of Pittsburgh 's Frick Fine Arts Building in Pittsburgh , Pennsylvania , United States. The fountain is designated as a contributing property to

100-544: A stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . This article about a sculpture in the United States is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Victor David Brenner Victor David Brenner (born Avigdor David Brenner ; June 12, 1871 – April 5, 1924) was a Lithuanian sculptor, engraver and medalist known primarily as the designer of the United States Lincoln cent . Brenner

150-463: 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

200-635: A 1929 speech given by Alexander M. Rackus , and noted that "(u)nfortunately, [Rackus] could not substantiate much of what he said." Some of Brenner's most noteworthy sculptural works include: Bas-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

250-464: A coin in photographs to document the size of objects. Several sources claim that Brenner's original name was "Viktoras Baranauskas" (or "Barnauskas"). In a 2000 article in Draugas , Lithuanian-American historical researcher Edward Baranauskas described this as a "fable" — one which Lithuanian numismatist Jonas K. Karys "spent many years exposing (...) as a fabrication". Baranauskas traced the claim to

300-521: 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

350-676: 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

400-584: 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

450-547: 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,

500-640: 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

550-467: A national competition for the memorial. The judges selected the design by Brenner, who is famous for his design of the still-circulating Lincoln cent . In June 2008, restoration efforts were begun that included repairs, cleaning, plumbing, paving, and landscaping. A gift from the Benter Foundation will provide lighting for the fountain and plaza. This Pittsburgh -related article is

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600-492: 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

650-472: 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,

700-470: 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

750-479: 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

800-566: Is buried at Mount Judah Cemetery, Ridgewood, Queens , New York. Brenner is probably best known for his enduring Lincoln coin design, the obverse of which is the longest-running design in United States Mint history, and perhaps the most reproduced piece of art in world history. His design was picked by President Theodore Roosevelt , who had earlier posed for him in New York. Since immigrating 18 years earlier, he had become one of

850-446: 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

900-525: 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

950-475: 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

1000-421: 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

1050-744: 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

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1100-480: 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

1150-667: The Schenley Farms Historic District . The work of art comprises two major figures: a reclining Pan , the Greek god of the wild, shepherds, and flocks, and above him a female singer playing a lyre . From crevices along the fountain's rim four turtles spew water into the basin. An inscription on the pedestal reads, "A Song of Nature, Pan the Earth God Answers to the Harmony and Magic Tones Sung to

1200-1044: 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

1250-543: 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,

1300-534: The Lyre by Sweet Humanity." The basin of the fountain is 15 feet high, above which the figures rise another 15 feet. The fountain honors Mary Schenley , a major philanthropist to the city of Pittsburgh. In 1889, after intensive lobbying by Edward Manning Bigelow , director of parks for the City of Pittsburgh, Schenley donated the land for the park named in her honor. Upon her death in 1903, Pittsburgh City Council sponsored

1350-525: 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

1400-442: 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

1450-519: The design's first year of issue. In 1918, they returned as small letters below Lincoln's shoulder, where they remain today. Incorporation of a designer's initials into a coin design is now commonplace in America. A 1909 VDB US cent was mounted on the calibration target on the Mars Curiosity rover . This is a nod to the rover's geologic mission and the common practice by geologists including

1500-411: 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

1550-522: 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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1600-584: 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"),

1650-524: 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

1700-427: 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

1750-467: 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

1800-414: 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

1850-472: 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

1900-403: The initials substituted for the name. Following the precedent of James B. Longacre , whose initials "JBL" (or simply "L") graced a number of U.S. coin designs for much of the latter half of the 19th century, Brenner placed his initials "VDB" at the bottom of the reverse between the wheat ear stalks. Widespread criticism of the initials' prominence resulted in their removal midway through 1909,

1950-936: 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

2000-502: The nation's premier medalists. Roosevelt had learned of his talents in a settlement house on New York City's Lower East Side and was immediately impressed with a bas-relief that Brenner had made of Lincoln, based on the early Civil War era photographer, Mathew Brady 's photograph. Roosevelt, who considered Lincoln the savior of the Union and the greatest Republican president, and also considered himself Lincoln's political heir, ordered

2050-532: The new Lincoln penny to be based on Brenner's work and that it be produced to commemorate Lincoln's 100th birthday in 1909. The likeness of President Lincoln on the obverse of the coin is an adaptation of a plaque Brenner executed several years earlier and which had come to the attention of President Roosevelt in New York. Bronze bas-reliefs dated 1907 and signed by Brenner have been identified and some sold in auctions for as much as $ 3,900. Charles Eliot Norton of Harvard, whom Brenner counted among his friends, gave

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2100-453: 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

2150-568: The sculptor an unpublished portrait of Lincoln which served Brenner as a basis for Lincoln's features. He also examined other portraits. When Brenner forwarded the model of the Lincoln cent to the Director of the Mint, the design bore his whole name, after the fashion of the signatures on the coinage of other countries, notably on the gold coins which Oscar Roty designed for France. The director had

2200-564: 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

2250-599: The tools of the sculptor's craft. He took night classes at Cooper Union and soon learned English as he had learned French. Eight years later Brenner was in Paris, studying with the great French medalist Oscar Roty at the Académie Julian . There he exhibited his work and obtained awards at the Paris Exposition of 1900 . He returned to the United States, whre his career prospered. Brenner died in 1924 and

2300-725: 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

2350-453: 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

2400-623: Was born to Jewish parents in Shavel , Lithuania, Russian Empire . His name at birth was Avigdor David Brenner ("Avigdor ben Gershon," in Hebrew, as his gravestone attests), but he changed the name to Victor David Brenner. Brenner emigrated to the United States in 1890, living mostly in the New York City area. He arrived with little more to fall back but the trade his father taught him — gem and seal engraving. This technical preparation included

2450-568: 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

2500-563: 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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