This book explores the role of glazed terracotta sculpture in Renaissance Italy, from c. 1450 to the mid-1530s. In its brightness and intense colour glazed terracotta strongly attracted the viewer's gaze. Its pure and radiant surfaces also had the power to raise the mind and soul of the faithful to contemplation of the divine. The quasi-magical process of firing earthenware coated with tin-based paste, promoted initially by imports from the East, was seized upon by Luca della Robbia, who realised that glazed terracotta was the ideal vehicle for the numinous. He began to create sculptures in the medium in the 1430s, and continued to produce them for the rest of his life. After Luca's death, his nephew, Andrea della Robbia, inherited his workshop in Florence and continued to develop the medium, together with his sons. The book considers some of the large-scale altarpieces created by the Della Robbia family in parallel with a number of small-scale figures in glazed terracotta, mostly made by unidentified sculptors. The captivating illustrations integrate these two categories of glazed terracotta sculpture into the history of Italian Renaissance art. By focusing on a specific artistic medium which stimulated piety in both ecclesiastical and domestic contexts, this book offers new ways of thinking about the religious art of the Italian Renaissance. The links it establishes between lay devotion and the creation of religious images in glazed terracotta invite reassessment of habitual distinctions between private and public art.
Author(s): Zuzanna Sarnecka
Series: Studies in Medieval and Early Renaissance Art History
Publisher: Harvey Miller Publishers
Year: 2022
Language: English
Pages: 183
City: London
Front Matter
Introduction. Between High Art and the Decorative Arts
Chapter One. Glazing Across the Mediterranean
Chapter Two. Italian Centres of Ceramic Production
Chapter Three. Developing the Successful Formula
Chapter Four. Between the Painted and the Sculpted Image
Chapter Five. Beholders of Glazed Terracotta Figures
Chapter Six. Multisensory Experience
Chapter Seven. Designed for Transport
Chapter Eight. Non-Tuscan Commissions
Chapter Nine. Local Cults
Chapter Ten. The Della Robbia Artists as Worshippers
Chapter Eleven. Pious Expectations
Chapter Twelve. Devotion through the Glaze
Final Remarks
Back Matter
