© 2016 Catherine Kupiec ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
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© 2016 Catherine Kupiec ALL RIGHTS RESERVED THE MATERIALITY OF LUCA DELLA ROBBIA’S GLAZED TERRACOTTA SCULPTURES By CATHERINE LEE KUPIEC A dissertation submitted to the Graduate School-New Brunswick Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey In partial fulfillment of the requirements For the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Graduate Program in Art History Written under the direction of Dr. Sarah Blake McHam And approved by ____________________________________ ____________________________________ ____________________________________ ____________________________________ New Brunswick, New Jersey October 2016 ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION The Materiality of Luca della Robbia’s Glazed Terracotta Sculptures by CATHERINE LEE KUPIEC Dissertation Director: Dr. Sarah Blake McHam This dissertation examines the role of color, light, surface, and relief in relation to the novel medium of glazed terracotta sculpture developed by the Florentine artist Luca della Robbia (1399/1400-1482) during the 1430s and produced by his heirs until the mid- sixteenth century. Luca devised a tin glaze more brilliant, uniform, and opaque than any existing recipe which, applied to terracotta figures and decoration, produced an inimitable medium celebrated by his peers as an “invention”. In the last forty-five years, scholars have identified the resonances glazed terracotta sculpture held with valued media like marble, mosaic, and semiprecious stones. Yet new technical analysis of Della Robbia sculptures during the past three decades makes it possible to more precisely specify the possibilities – and thus the formal choices – available to Luca in relation to color, reflectivity, and relief in his distinctive new medium. Rooted in the physical qualities of glazed terracotta, this dissertation examines the artist’s choices in thematically organized chapters focused on invention, whiteness and light, color, and space. It argues that Luca’s engagement with color, relief, and reflectivity emphasized the materiality of his sculptures as tactile objects, placing them into productive tension with the illusionistic aims emerging in fifteenth-century Florentine art. ii Chapter One of the dissertation traces the development of a narrative of invention around Luca’s glazed terracotta sculpture, showing how contemporary audiences conceived the medium as both novel and related to existing arts of painting, sculpture, and fire. Chapter Two identifies the white bodies of Luca’s saints as a locus for perceiving effects of light that both modeled form and emphasized surface, materializing and dematerializing his subjects and contributing to an understanding of the ontology of holy figures, especially that of Christ as the Lux Mundi. Chapter Three contextualizes Luca’s negotiation of hue, tone, and saturation in his glazes in relation to available pigments and to the concerns recorded in treatises directed to painters and practitioners of the arts of fire. Finally, Chapter Four considers how Luca deployed relief, color, and composition in order to characterize the space of his glazed figures in relation to that of the viewer and to preexisting Florentine traditions. iii Acknowledgements I have accrued many debts of gratitude while researching and writing this dissertation. Foremost among them is to Sarah Blake McHam, who supervised my work with precision and patience. Her encouragement was as steady as it was essential to the completion of my work. I thank Benjamin Paul for his longstanding support of my project, especially in its early stages, and for consistently challenging my assumptions. Erik Thunø offered a medievalist’s perspective on glazed terracotta and valuable professional advice. Laura Weigert and Carla Yanni both gave incisive feedback on my project at a critical moment. I owe my interest in Italian Renaissance sculpture, and my commitment to direct observation, to William Wallace, my undergraduate advisor at Washington University in St. Louis. I will always be grateful for his suggestion that I complete my graduate work at Rutgers University. The concern with materials and technique that drives my project is the legacy of my first teacher, the late Anne Balbirnie, in whose multigenerational studio art classes I first explored a range of media. Her teaching shapes my scholarly outlook even now, nearly twenty years later. Numerous small and large grants supported my research on Luca della Robbia’s glazed terracotta art. I thank the Fulbright Scholar Program, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Rutgers University Graduate School-New Brunswick, and the Rutgers University Department of Art History for funding research travel in Italy and England. The Fulbright Program enabled me to spend one year of research in Florence, during which I was hosted by the Kunsthistorisches Institut in the department of Alessandro Nova, whom I thank warmly. At the Institut I benefitted from conversation with many colleagues, in particular my office-mates Francesca Borgo and Sean Nelson. Bettina iv Schindler welcomed me into her family and has acted as a mentor to me since I first studied art conservation with her in Florence as a college student. I thank the Rutgers Writing Program for supporting my final years of research and writing, and for providing me with exemplary pedagogical training. In the past two years I have been fortunate to belong to a growing group of researchers working on Della Robbia glazed sculptures. I am immensely grateful to Marietta Cambareri, Curator of Decorative Arts and Sculpture and Jetskalina H. Phillips Curator of Judaica at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, who took me on as a graduate research intern for the 2016-2017 exhibition, “Della Robbia: Sculpting with Color in Renaissance Florence.” She provided insightful and generous feedback on my work. In Boston I had the opportunity to exchange ideas and resources with Rachel Boyd, Courtney Harris, and Abigail Hykin. I am indebted to each of them for conversations which have deeply shaped my thinking on the Della Robbia. I thank Wendy Walker at the Metropolitan Museum of Art for discussing Della Robbia techniques with me, and Joaneath Spicer for including me in the 2015 Della Robbia Study Day at The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore. The friends I made at Rutgers University shaped me every bit as much as my professional training: Ben Eldredge, Jenevieve DeLosSantos, Brenna Graham, Olivia Gruber Florek, Hilary Haakenson, Mary Manning, Kathleen Sullivan, and Melissa Yuen. I am grateful for all of you. Geralyn Colvil and Cathy Pizzi made my work at Rutgers easier and more enjoyable. Brenna Graham deserves huge thanks for editing my entire dissertation and offering advice on every topic I could think of. I also single out Melissa Yuen for her friendship and for assistance with the final formatting of my manuscript. v Thank you to my friends who are not art historians but who have indulged my interest in glazed terracotta sculpture and encouraged me when my own determination faltered: Maggie Bergman, Hilary Brazeal, Mark Dilsizian, Ruth Loeffler. Thanks to my childhood friends, Kelly Hanna and Trisha Westermann, for faithfully keeping in touch despite my peripatetic lifestyle. I had the opportunity to make new friends (and reconnect with old ones) during research travels, in particular Anne Aasebø, Erik Anker, Filippa Jörnstedt, Robin Kao, Eliz Fenstermacher, Angela Grove, Catarina Pilati, and Amy Winter, who were my companions in new cities. I thank my friends, who feel like family, at Grand Apizza Shoreline for bringing humor and a healthy outside perspective to the many years their “Rutgers Scholar” spent on this project. Above all others, I acknowledge my family – my parents and my sister, Caroline. They offered unceasing encouragement and shared in all of my celebrations and struggles. Their support saw me through to the end of this dissertation. It is dedicated to them with love. vi Table of Contents Abstract ............................................................................................................................... ii Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................ iv List of Figures .................................................................................................................... ix Introduction ..........................................................................................................................1 Chapter One: Invention Introduction ....................................................................................................................16 The Life and Works of Luca della Robbia ....................................................................19 Early Accounts and a Developing Master Narrative for Luca della Robbia .................30 Examining Terminology and the Material Resonances of terracotta invetriata ...........48 Invention through the Lens of Modern Technical Analysis ..........................................61 Conclusion .....................................................................................................................69 Chapter Two: Whiteness and Light Introduction ....................................................................................................................72 Existing Interpretations of the White Glaze ..................................................................75 Questioning Monochromy in Renaissance Painting and Sculpture ..............................81 Artists’ Treatises. Looking at Light in the