TY - BOOK ID - 100092465 TI - The allure of glazed terracotta in Renaissance Italy. PY - 2022 SN - 9781912554782 191255478X 9781912554898 1912554895 PB - London - Turnhout : Brepols Publishers, DB - UniCat KW - Terra-cotta sculpture, Renaissance KW - Terra-cotta sculpture, Italian KW - Christian art and symbolism KW - Robbia family KW - Sculpture KW - Applied arts. Arts and crafts KW - sculpture [visual works] KW - terracottas [sculptural works] KW - glazed terracotta KW - Italian Renaissance-Baroque styles KW - anno 1400-1499 KW - Italy KW - Terra-cotta KW - Renaissance KW - Italië KW - Terres cuites KW - Sculpture en terre cuite de la Renaissance KW - Céramique vernissée KW - Majolique de la Renaissance KW - Della Robbia KW - Critique et interprétation. KW - Art KW - History. KW - Della Robbia, Andrea, KW - Della Robbia, Luca, UR - https://www.unicat.be/uniCat?func=search&query=sysid:100092465 AB - 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. ER -