There are four main types of relief artwork: low, high, sunken, and counter. They all essentially refer to raised or sunken aspects of an artwork. Originating as a sculptural term, relief sculptures are made from and bonded to a background of the same material—picture a coin or Mount Rushmore. A coin is considered low relief because of the shallow depth between the sculpture and the background, while Mount Rushmore is high relief as it protrudes from the mountain.
In Egyptian hieroglyphics, writers often used sunken relief with the main elements of the image carved out to different degrees of depth. Printmaking employs a similar technique but in reverse—carving out the background completely and leaving the main elements in place like a stamp. As a result, woodcuts and linocuts are sometimes referred to as relief prints because they use a type of negative imaging called counter-relief.