Different heights and depths, it's time to learn about this jade carving technique

I believe everyone is familiar with relief, which is a type of sculpture. It refers to the sculptor carving the image he wants to create on a flat plate, making it separate from the plane of the original material. Let’s talk specifically about jade relief.

What is relief?

The so-called relief is a method of compressing the volume of future three-dimensional images of people, animals, landscapes, flowers, etc. on the flat or curved surface of the jadeite raw stone. Generally speaking, only the thickness will be compressed to express the artistic image of jadeite by maintaining the original length and width ratio.

This carving method can better express the three-dimensionality and spatial sense of jade. The surface of jade is abrupt and well-organized, so different places receive different degrees of light, which creates a feeling of staggered light and dark and distinct layers, which distances the subject from the background.

The relief of jade is closer to painting in its carving form, but it is not completely a flat form of expression. It can be said that relief is a form of sculpture art between painting and round sculpture.

Depending on the depth to which the thickness is compressed, relief can be divided into three types: shallow relief (also known as thin relief), medium relief, and deep relief.

Bas-relief

As the name suggests, the thickness of the jadeite used in the bas-relief is compressed to a relatively shallow degree. It only requires removing a layer of equal depth from the blank space outside the designed image outline so that the image can be slightly raised. The carved object will have slight ups and downs due to its own structure.

Using the shallow relief method, the distance between the highest point and the ground is very small, so the flatness of the jade will be stronger and closer to painting. It also has another name called "boyi carving", which means carving as thin as paper. It saves materials, so this carving method is more suitable for some high-end jade.

Medium relief

Medium relief is another form of jade relief, which mainly uses the subtractive method to make the outline, but the protrusions of the carved object are higher and will show higher ups and downs due to its own structural relationship. The distance between its highest point and the horizon is relatively large. Therefore, medium relief is also the most widely used.

Medium relief is more three-dimensional than shallow relief, and the sense of layering is more obvious.

Deep relief

Deep relief is a type of relief that is close to round sculpture. The carved object has strong ups and downs due to its own structure. Jadeite carved in deep relief has a distinct sense of layering and three-dimensionality, and is a semi-three-dimensional form. If the carved subject is not connected to the background, it can almost be regarded as a round sculpture. In fact, when we look at the carved jadeite from the front, it is almost a three-dimensional object.

In actual application, deep relief is often used in combination with shallow relief or medium relief to fully express the spatial three-dimensional relationship between foreground, middle ground and background. This technique is often used in jade landscape plaques.

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