RENCE
F WARSAW
INTERNATIONAL CONFER
ONLINE / UNIVERSITY OF
Modelled,
SEP 9–10, 2021
Fired,
Transformed:
Materiality of Terracotta
Sculpture 1400–1600
Modelled, Fired, Transformed:
Materiality of Terracotta
Sculpture 1400–1600
Terracotta has long suffered from the
view that it is merely an auxiliary medium, to be analyzed primarily in relation
to its role as a building material or its
preparatory use in the design of more
prestigious bronze or marble sculptures.
Yet in recent decades scholars have
shown that terracotta sculpture revolutionized the Italian fifteenth-century
art scene and during the sixteenth century its artistic significance resonated
in other parts of Europe. The success of
terracotta sculpture at that time should
be credited to the technical ingenuity,
including glazing its surface, believed in
the Renaissance to have been unknown
in antiquity and therefore artistically
and intellectually innovative.
The
growing field of studies of terracotta
sculpture contributed to the re-evaluation of the material but at the same
time it divided small-scale terracotta
figurines from large-scale sculptures.
The arbitrary distinctions into the fine
art and the applied arts, with the latter category often dismissed as purely
decorative, obscured the image of the
artistic production and neglected the
technical similarities between the two
products. However, in the fifteenth and
sixteenth centuries all terracotta sculptures solicited a complementary range of
interactions through the agency of their
material and form.
Modern conservation research assists art historians
in thinking about the practice, artistic
technique and production of terracotta
sculpture. Various teams of conservators
use similar methods to analyse smalland large-scale artefacts. This provides
a scientific justification for inclusive examination of terracotta sculpture from
that period.
This two-day conference
held at the University of Warsaw will offer a possibility of the full exchange of
ideas between researchers working on
terracotta as a sculptural material.
DAY 1 — THURSDAY SEP 9, 2021
9.00–9.20 Registration 9.20–9.30 Welcome & Introduction —
Zuzanna Sarnecka and Agnieszka Dziki
9.30–11.00
•
online
•
•
11.00–11.15
Session 1 — Agency of Clay
Bart van Eekelen (Utrecht University/Museum Het
Markiezenhof): Materiality as Incentive to Stylistic
Innovation in Earthenware from Bergen op Zoom
(15th–16th century)
Nicola Jennings (Courtauld Institute of Art): Making
Necessity a Virtue: Lorenzo Mercadante and the
Beginnings of Sevillian Terracotta
João Rolaça (University of Lisbon/Vicarte – Glass
and Ceramics for the Arts): Monumental Terracotta
Sculpture in Portugal before and after Hodart –
Artistic and Technical Approach
Discussion
Coffee Break
11.15–12.45
•
Session 2 — Forging Identities
Jeanette Kohl (University of California, Riverside):
A Material Anthropology of Resemblance.
Quattrocento Portrait Sculpture in Terracotta
online
• Francesca Padovani (Università di Trento): Hans
Reichle’s Contribution to the Practice of Terracotta
Sculpture in Tyrol
online
• Oxana Smagol (Moscow State University): The
Problem of Terracotta Sculptural Cornice of
Palazzo Bolognini, Bologna
Discussion
12.45–14.00 Lunch
14.00–15.30 Session 3 — Terracotta and Design
• Catherine Kupiec (Independent Researcher): Luca
della Robbia’s Labors in Terracotta
online
• Roberta Olson (New-York Historical Society): The
Transformation of Della Robbia Glazed Terracotta
Garlands from Luca through Giovanni: The Promise
of Immortality and Paradise in a Frame
online
• Dylan Smith (National Gallery of Art, Washington,
D.C.): Clay Models in Verrocchio’s Workshop
Discussion
15.30–15.45 Coffee Break
15.45–16.45 Session 4 — Sculpture and Painting
• Andreas Huth (Technische Universität Berlin):
Face and Surface. Some Observations on Painted
Quattrocento Terracotta Busts
SEP 9–10, 2021
ONLINE / UNIVERSITY
OF WARSAW
online
•
David Lucidi (Independent Researcher): The
Primacy of Terracotta. Sculptures for Painting
in the 16th-century Renaissance Florence
Discussion
17.00–18.00 Keynote Lecture: Marietta Cambareri
(Museum of Fine Arts, Boston)
online
19.00
Conference Dinner
DAY 2 — FRIDAY SEP 10, 2021
10.00–11.00 Keynote Lecture: Giancarlo Gentilini
(Università degli Studi di Perugia)
11.00–12.30 Session 5 — Devotional Terracotta
• Rachel Boyd (Ashmolean Museum, University
online
of Oxford): Familiar Visions: Glazed Terracotta,
Serial Production, and Devotional Experience in
Renaissance Italy
• Marco Scansani (Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa):
Giovanni de Fondulis, a ”scultor tere” for the Ordo
Eremitarum
• Zuzanna Sarnecka (University of Warsaw): Popes’
Clay: Devotional Terracotta Sculpture in the Papal
States
Discussion
12.30–14.00 Lunch
14.00–15.30 Session 6 — Mimetic Ventures
• Federica Carta (Université de Picardie – Jules
Verne, Amiens/Università degli Studi di Perugia):
Jeux d’échelle: glazed ornament between
architecture and altarpieces
• Erin Giffin (Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität
online
München/Villa I Tatti): Exceeding Expectations:
Traversing Material Boundaries through Terracotta
• Virna Ravaglia (University of Genova): Antonio
Begarelli and Small-Scale Terracotta Sculpture
Discussion
15.30–16.00 Closing Remarks
16.00–18.00 Visit to the National Gallery in Warsaw
REGISTRATION:
Please contact us at z.sarnecka@uw.edu.pl
or dzikiagnieszka@gmail.com if you would
like to join us in person or to request the
event link.