Hardcover | 23.8 x 2.8 x 28.5 cm | 288 pp

Prestel | 2023 | 9783791379869

Is it painting or sculpture, surface or space? Hardly any other artistic medium challenges our sense of sight as much as the relief. It is precisely this indeterminacy that has always made it especially appealing to artists.

With the aid of outstanding works by Bertel Thorvaldsen, Jules Dalou, Auguste Rodin, Medardo Rosso, Paul Gauguin, Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, Alexander Archipenko, Sophie Taeuber-Arp, Jean Arp, Kurt Schwitters, Oskar Schlemmer, Lucio Fontana,
Louise Nevelson, Lee Bontecou and many others, this book illuminates variations on the theme of the relief from 1800 to the 1960s.

This period of more than 150 years witnessed a growing interest in overcoming the traditional boundaries between artistic mediums. Painters made sculptures, and sculptors preoccupied themselves with painting, In the process, the relief became a laboratory for experimenting with new forms, materials and techniques. Yet it also took on ever greater societal and political significance: in the wake of the early twentieth century's radical changes, the relief became a space for utopian visions and the emergence into a new world.

In thirteen chapters, this volume explores the possibilities and limitations of relief art above and beyond historical lines of development and stylistic classification systems - offering discoveries and surprises at every turn.