coelanaglyphic

English

WOTD – 28 February 2021

Etymology

A coelanaglyphic depiction of the Egyptian pharaoh Akhenaten with his wife Nefertiti and three of their daughters on a c. 1340 house altar. The relief does not project beyond the surface as it is within a hollow.

From coel- (a variant of coelo- (prefix meaning ‘hollow’)) + anaglyphic (“relating to an anaglyph”), modelled after French coilanaglyphique. Coelo- is derived from Ancient Greek κοῖλος (koîlos, “hollow; concave; a cavity, hollow”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *ḱewh₁- (“to swell; to be strong”)), while anaglyphic is derived from anaglyph (“decorative ornament worked in low relief or bas relief”) (from Ancient Greek ἀναγλυφή (anagluphḗ, “a work in low relief”), from ανα- (ana-, prefix meaning ‘above; upward’) + γλῠ́φειν (glúphein) (the active infinitive of γλῠ́φω (glúphō, “to carve, engrave”), from Proto-Indo-European *glewbʰ- (“to split”))) + -ic (suffix meaning ‘of or pertaining to’ forming adjectives from nouns).

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˌsiːlænəˈɡlɪfɪk/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˌsilænəˈɡlɪfɪk/
• Rhymes: -ɪfɪk
• Hyphenation: coel‧a‧na‧glyph‧ic

Adjective

coelanaglyphic (not comparable)

1. (sculpture) In the form of cavo-rilievo (“sculpture in relief within a sinking made for the purpose, so no part of it projects beyond the surrounding surface”).
   • 1895, “relief”, in William Dwight Whitney, editor, The Century Dictionary: An Encyclopedic Lexicon of the English Language, volume VI, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC, page 5062, column 1:

     The varieties of relief are still further distinguished as […] cavo-rilievo, hollow relief, also called intaglio rilevato, or cœlanaglyphic sculpture, an Egyptian form of relief obtained by cutting a furrow with sloping sides around a figure previously outlined on a stone surface, leaving the highest parts of the finished work on a level with the original surface-plane.

   • 1916, Russell Sturgis, “The Columnar Architecture”, in A History of Architecture, volume I (Antiquity), Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, Page & Company, book I (Ancient Egypt), page 30:

     The Egyptian column, covered with painted figures from top to bottom, and in many cases wrought with cœlanaglyphic sculptures which are then elaborately treated in colour, was more in itself, shaft and capital taken together, than any column of the Greeks. [Footnote 12: Cœlanaglyphic; also concavo-convex or cavo-rilievo: denoting relief-sculpture which is in a sunken panel, which it fills completely, leaving no background. It is as if a groove were cut around the sculptured figure, which is then wrought into complete modelling; while the background is not cut away, lowered, or abated, as in ordinary relief […]]

   • 1947, Jack C. Rich, “The Anatomy of Sculpture”, in The Materials and Methods of Sculpture, New York, N.Y.: Dover Publications, published 1988, →ISBN, page 7:

     A type of incised relief employed largely by the Egyptians for architectural ornament is the inverse bas-relief, also referred to as coelanaglyphic or Egyptian relief. […] It is an intaglio form in which the figures do not project from the wall, but are cut into it, as on the pylon of the Temple at Philae (Temple of Isis). In this from of intaglio relief, the figures are outlined by means of grooves or furrows cut around the forms. The highest points or portions of the completed work are on a level with the original surface plane.

   • 2003, William H[enry] Gerdts, “The Neoclassic Relief”, in Thayer Tolles, editor, Perspectives on American Sculpture before 1925 (The Metropolitan Museum of Art Symposia), New York, N.Y.: Metropolitan Museum of Art; New Haven, Conn.; London: Yale University Press, →ISBN, page 2, column 2:

     A relief is generally a sculptured surface raised from a background, although the ancient Egyptians, for instance, also devised intaglio relief—that is, sculptured relief within a bordered boundary, referred to as coelanaglyphic relief. The basic characteristic of relief that distinguishes it from sculpture in the round is its physical dependence on some kind of background or matrix.

   • 2017, Cleo Kuhtz, editor, Sculpture: Materials, Techniques, Styles, and Practice (Britannica’s Practical Guide to the Arts)‎^[1], New York, N.Y.: Britannica Educational Publishing, →ISBN:

     Sunken relief is also known as incised, coelanaglyphic, and intaglio relief. It is almost exclusively an ancient Egyptian art form, but some beautiful smallscale Indian examples in ivory have been discovered at Bagrām in Afghanistan.

Related terms

• anaglyph
• anaglyphic

Translations

in the form of cavo-rilievo

• French: coilanaglyphique f

See also

• sunk relief, sunken relief, anaglyph

Further reading

• relief on Wikipedia.Wikipedia