bas-relief

[bah-ri-leef, bas-, bah-ri-leef, bas-]

noun

1. relief sculpture in which the figures project slightly from the background.

bas-relief

/ ˈbæs-, ˈbɑːrɪˌliːf, ˌbɑːrɪˈliːf, ˌbæs- /

noun

1. Also called (Italian): basso rilievo. sculpture in low relief, in which the forms project slightly from the background but no part is completely detached from it

bas-relief

1. A kind of carving or sculpture in which the figures are raised a few inches from a flat background to give a three-dimensional effect. The term is French for “low relief.”

Word History and Origins

Origin of bas-relief¹

1660–70; < French, on the model of Italian bassorilievo. basso-relievo, base ², relief ²

Word History and Origins

Origin of bas-relief¹

C17: from French, from Italian basso rilievo low relief; see _base ², _relief

Example Sentences

As The Times reported in 1989, the giant bas-relief figures on the venue’s exterior are of the Maya god Huitzilopochtli seated on a symbolic earth monster.

From Los Angeles Times

That the women were made of stone and were attached to the building of Bonwit Teller, in the process of being razed and replaced by Trump Tower, was of little comfort to the trustees at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which had been promised these Art Deco bas-relief beauties — long hovering over pedestrians, now shattered.

From New York Times

We were at his newest acquisition because he wanted me to see something: On the side of the house, on a wall behind a trellis near the driveway, was a bas-relief stucco swastika the size of an adult head.

From Los Angeles Times

Responding to Wright’s evocation of the four elements in the living room — and the room’s expansive view stretching to the Pacific — Silverman adds foraged clay, seaweed, salt, driftwood and shells to the glazes of his ceramics, two of which flank Wright’s famous concrete bas-relief hearth.

From Los Angeles Times

These people were the unwitting models for his bas-relief sculpture of a Black Jesus breaking bread with 12 Black apostles.

From Washington Post