The most commonly used carving technique for jadeite - detailed explanation of relief carving

Relief is a very common carving technique in jade carving. It uses different images of concave and convex surfaces, various perspective changes and light and dark illusions to express a strong sense of three-dimensionality and space.

Simply put, it is to make the carved object float on the surface, so it is called relief.

Relief is actually a kind of carving technique that is closer to painting. It focuses on compressing the volume of three-dimensional images and carving them on jadeite raw stones. Painting is actually the same, which is to draw various objects in proportion on the drawing paper.

There are two major types of relief patterns. One is the traditional deformed pattern, such as the zigzag pattern, cloud pattern, lotus pattern, etc., and the other is the realistic pattern, such as flowers, insects, birds, beasts, landscapes, figures and auspicious patterns, etc. Relief is generally used in jade carvings on pendants, ornaments and handles.

Relief can be carved on a flat surface or on a curved surface. It usually only changes the thickness of the raw material while maintaining the original length-to-width ratio to express the jade carving art.

Depending on the thickness of the compression, that is, the thickness of the relief carving, the relief can be divided into three types: deep relief, shallow relief and medium relief.

【Bas-relief】

Bas relief is also called thin relief. Its carving method is to first determine the designed outline, and then remove the blank space outside the outline to make the image slightly protruding, as if floating on the surface.

Such scenes carved in bas-relief can show ups and downs, but the height is not as high as that of medium relief and deep relief. Therefore, shallow relief is suitable for use on high-end jadeite raw stones, which reduces the amount of waste and ensures that high-quality jadeite is carved out.

If you want to understand bas-relief, for example, the depth of the pattern on a coin can be roughly called bas-relief.

【Medium relief】

The medium relief carving method is to cut the outline of the pattern on the original stone material. It will first shave off a slightly thicker layer of material and carve out an undulating structure. The depth of the carving is deeper than that of the shallow relief, and the level changes are also more.

The application range of medium relief is very wide, and it is also the most widely used method among the three jade relief methods.

【Deep relief】

Deep relief is also called high relief. According to the above explanation, we can know that it is the deepest of the three relief carving methods. Therefore, the works it carves out have ravines and grooves, a strong sense of ups and downs, and a strong sense of realism and three-dimensionality.

In the actual application of jade carving, deep relief is often used in combination with shallow relief to express the distance and spatial three-dimensional relationship of objects.

Relief has always been a traditional Chinese craft, with its own distinct characteristics and feelings, forming a unique entity. It has a unique aesthetic effect, and the jade carvings created often give people a shock of craftsmanship and respect for the ingenuity of the jade carver.

Although relief is divided into shallow, medium and deep relief, the carving rules for jadeite raw stones are all based on painting principles to deal with the relationship between space and shape.

Although relief uses the flat space of painting to express a three-dimensional sculptural effect, it is based on scattered perspective and focuses on the expression of artistic conception, giving the sculpture a different depth of meaning.

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