relief sculpture

thumb|Side view of Lorenzo Ghiberti's cast [[gilt-bronze Gates of Paradise at the Florence Baptistery in Florence, Italy, combining high-relief main figures with backgrounds mostly in low relief.]] thumb|upright=1.2|A common mixture of high and low relief, in the Roman Ara Pacis, placed to be seen from below. Low relief background. thumb|upright=1.2|A face of the high-relief Frieze of Parnassus round the base of the [[Albert Memorial in London. Most of the heads and many feet are completely undercut, but the torsos are "engaged" with the surface behind.]]

Relief is a sculptural method in which the sculpted pieces remain attached to a solid background of the same material. The term relief is from the Latin verb , to raise (). To create a sculpture in relief is to give the impression that the sculpted material has been raised above the background plane. When a relief is carved into a flat surface of stone (relief sculpture) or wood (relief carving), the field is actually lowered, leaving the unsculpted areas seeming higher. The approach requires chiselling away of the background, which can be time-intensive. On the other hand, a relief saves forming the rear of a subject, and is less fragile and more securely fixed than a sculpture in the round, especially one of a standing figure where the ankles are a potential weak point, particularly in stone. In other materials such as metal, clay, plaster stucco, ceramics or papier-mâché the form can be simply added to or raised up from the background. Monumental bronze reliefs are made by casting.