AL'TORF, the chief t. in the Swiss canton Uri, is situated in a sheltered spot at the base of the Grunberg, about 2 m. from the head of the lake of the Four Cantons, and contains (1S70) 2724 inhabitants. It is a well-built town, having several open places, a church, a nunnery, and the oldest capuchin monastery.in Switzerland. The little tower on which the exploits of William Tell are painted in rude frescoes, is known to be older than the legend of Tell. The lime-tree under which the. scene of the shooting of the apple was laid, was removed in 1567, and a stone fountain erected in its stead. Situated on the St. Gothard road, A. has some transit trade, but little or no industry of its own.
AL10-ItILIEVO (Ital.), high-relief, the term used in sculpture to designate that mode of representing objects by which they are made to project strongly and boldly from the background, without being entirely detached. In A. R., some portions of the figures usually stand quite and in this respect it differs not only from basso-riliem, or low-relief, but from the intermediate kind of relief known as mezzo-litter°, in which the figures are fully rounded, but where there are no detached portions. In order to be in high-relief, objects ought actually to project somewhat more than half their thickness, no conventional means being employed in this style to give them apparent prominence. In bass-relief, on the other hand, the figures are usually flattened; but means are adopted to prevent the projection from appearing to the eye to be less than half; because if an object projects less than half, or, to state it otherwise, be more than half buried in the background, it is obvious that its true outline or profile cannot be represented. This rule, that in all reliefs there shall be either a real or an apparent projection of at least half the thickness of round objects, was strictly observed in the best period of Greek art, but it has been often neglected in the execution of reliefs in later times, and hence attempts have been made at foreshortening and perspective, which have necessarily resulted in partial failure.
Relief forms a kind of intermediate stage between plastic art and painting, the mode of representation being borrowed from the former, whilst the mode of arrangement to a certain extent, is in accordance with the latter. The plastic principle occupies the most prominent place in the simple and tranquil reliefs of the earlier art of Greece, whereas the pictorial principle preponderates in the crowded and often excited scenes represented in the later Roman reliefs. In such reliefs as have been produced in modern times, the one element or the other has prevailed, according. as the one model or the other has been followed. The works which have been recovered from the ruins of Persepolis, Nineveh, and Babylon, still attest the extensive employment of relief in Perstan and Assyrian art. Of the latter, which usually belongs to the class of mezzo-rilieco, some of the finest specimens in existence are now to be seen in the British museum. Though never exhibiting the life and freedom of classical or modern European art, the elaborately executed and majestic reliefs of these send-oriental nations are greatly in advance not only of the whimsical distortions of nature exhibted by the Ilindoos, but of the inanimate and motionless representations of the Egyptians.
The earliest Greek reliefs possessed a hard and severe character, somewhat approach ing to the art of those earlier nations of which we have just spoken, and were very slightly raised. Of this we have an example in the two lions over the gate at Mycente- probably the oldest Greek relief in existence. It was Phidias who gave to relief its true character, and finally brought it to a degree of perfection which it has never since attained. The alti•rilievi which adorned the metopes of the parthenon at Athens, and the temple of Apollo at Phigalia in Arcadia, now preserved in the British museum, are still not only unsurpassed, but unapproached as examples of the style. In none of these do we see any attempt at perspective, and even foreshortening for the most part is avoided.