From Library Journal
What drawing has been to painting, terra cotta (fired clay) has often been to Italian sculpture of the 400 years from the Renaissance through the neoclassical period. This superbly executed exhibition catalog for a current show mounted by the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and the Victoria & Albert Museum, London, deftly, coherently, and revealingly unfolds what was formerly only the narrowly appreciated and understood role of clay in the best years of the Italian sculptural tradition. Boucher (history of art, University Coll. London) cogently synthesizes a body of significant art historical material unjustly relegated to the byways of the discipline. Emerging from this collaborative effort is not only a more profound comprehension of the manner in which terra cotta has been employed in preparatory "sketches," working models, and finished works of art but also an understanding of its importance in the creative processes of artists as great as Michelangelo, Bernini, and Canova. Aside from an excellent series of independent essays, which together reveal terra cotta's historical centrality, the catalog proper documents this same narration with some 80 exquisite examples. Libraries in any way concerned with the achievement of Italian art will require this exploration into a former terra incognita. Robert Cahn, Fashion Inst. of Technology, New York City
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
Book Description
This book is an ambitious work that surveys the development of a major sculptural medium in Italy across four centuries. It is the first work of its kind to consider the varieties of fired clay sculpture, especially in the context of the sculptural process. Whenever possible, clay models have been juxtaposed with finished works in order to show changes between a sculptor's initial concept and the final product. Over eighty objects are considered, ranging from drawings and sketch models to enamelled terracottas and marbles. The entries are supplemented by a series of essays, addressing major aspects of clay sculpture from the Renaissance to Neo-classicism; there is also a survey of recent information gleaned from the conservation of terracotta sculpture.
