Jade carving, a magical skill that turns decay into magic

If jade is not carved, it cannot become a useful object. There are many different jade carving techniques, each with its own characteristics. Today, let us take a look at the relief craft in the world of jade carving.

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.

In order to express the three-dimensionality and sense of space of jade, the carving master will use the thickness compressed to different degrees, use the different images of concave and convex surfaces, the illusion of light and dark formed after being illuminated, and various perspective changes to express a stronger sense of three-dimensionality and space. In this way, jade relief is closer to painting in its carving form. Therefore, it can be said that relief is a form of sculpture art expression 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.

What is a bas-relief? The bas-relief of jade is to remove 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. Because the distance between its highest point and the ground is very small, this method is called bas-relief to indicate its small thickness. Generally speaking, bas-relief is suitable for high-grade jadeite. For example, the patterns and textures on coins are typical bas-reliefs. Because the coin itself is very small, it fits the concept of bas-relief perfectly. From this, we can also understand why bas-relief is also called thin carving. In fact, the meaning of "bo" is as thin as paper.

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

What is deep relief? The thickness of jadeite's deep relief is the same as or slightly thinner than that of a round sculpture. The carved object has stronger ups and downs due to its own structure. If it weren't for the fact that its back is connected to the background, it could almost be treated as a round sculpture. In actual application, deep relief is often used in combination with shallow relief or medium relief to fully express the three-dimensional spatial relationship between foreground, middle ground and background.

There are many jade carving techniques, including line carving, round carving, relief carving, openwork carving, etc. They each have their own characteristics, and the final works present different expressiveness.

Three-dimensional jade carvings are worthy of praise from the world. The beauty they bring to us is always the most intuitive, and the gains are like the warmth of basking in the sun, filling the body with energy.

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