Stiacciato

Donatello's Saint George Freeing the Princess of 1417, the first known stiacciato relief

Stiacciato (Tuscan) or schiacciato (Italian for "pressed" or "flattened out") is a technique where a sculptor creates a very shallow relief sculpture with carving only millimetres deep. The rilievo stiacciato is primarly associated with Donatello (1386–1466).

To give the illusion of greater depth, the thickness of the carving gradually decreases from the foreground to the background, which may consist of merely incised lines and minute alterations of the plane. Undercutting of figures or objects in the foreground is also used to gain plasticity. In some ways it is more similar to a two-dimensional image than a three-dimensional sculpture. The technique allows the use of perspective in the relief.

The most influential art historian and a Renaissance master in his own right, Giorgio Vasari, wrote of the technique:

The third types are called bas- and stiacciati-relief, which have nothing in them but drawing the figure with dents and schiacciato relief. They are very difficult if there is a large amount of drawing and invention involved, because it is hard to give these things grace thanks to the mode's love of contours. And Donato [ie Donatello] worked best of all sculptors in this genre, with art, drawing and invention. We see many of this kind [of sculpture in the form of] highly-figured ancient Aretine vases, masks and other ancient works; and similarly in ancient cameos and in bronze-stamping cones for medals and coins.

The technique, already known from coining, was mainly used for sculptural reliefs in the fifteenth century. It was introduced and dominated by Donatello, applying it to marble and bronze as well as terracotta and stucco. The earliest surviving example is his St. George Freeing the Princess (1416-1417), which is also the first surviving example of a perspectival projection. His other works in the genre include the so-called Pazzi Madonna (1420–30), The Feast of Herod for the Siena Baptistery (1423–1427), The Ascension with Christ Giving the Keys to Saint Peter (1428-30), propably for the guardaroba of Cosimo de' Medici, where he accomplished to depict even atmosphere, The Assumption of the Virgin (Sant'Angelo a Nilo, Naples, 1426–1428), along with the Hildburgh Madonna (1426), attributed to his workshop, and maybe his most accomplished work in this technique, The Feast of Herod, once again, from around 1435 (Palais des Beaux-Arts de Lille). He was followed by a next generation like his pupil Desiderio da Settignano, the brothers Antonio and Bernardo Rossellino, and Agostino di Duccio. But by the end of the century Michelangelo for example executed a rilievo stiacciato only once in his forming years. His Madonna of the Stairs from 1491, when he was 16 years old, was obviously a result of studying the master Donatello, particularly his latest stiacciato relief.

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  Donatello, Pazzi Madonna, between 1420–30, Bode Museum, Berlin
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  Donatello, Assumption of the Virgin, on the Tomb of Cardinal Rainaldo Brancacci, 1426–28, Sant'Angelo a Nilo, Naples
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  Donatello, The Feast of Herod, Siena Baptistery, 1427
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  Donatello, The Ascension with Christ Giving the Keys to St. Peter, 1428–32, Victoria and Albert Museum, London
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  Donatello, The Feast of Herod, ca. 1435, Palais des Beaux-Arts de Lille
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  Desiderio da Settignano, San Giovannino, ca. 1450-5, Bargello, Florence
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  Desiderio da Settignano, Saint Jerome in the Desert, ca. 1461, NGA, Washington
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  Antonio Rossellino, Madonna and Child with Angels, ca. 1450–65, MET, New York
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  Bernardo and Antonio Rossellino, central relief panel of the Monumental tomb of Filippo Lazzari, 1462, San Domenico, Pistoia
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  Michelangelo, Madonna della Scala, ca. 1491, Casa Buonarroti, Florence