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The materiality of Luca della Robbia's glazed terracotta sculptures

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TitleInfo
Title
The materiality of Luca della Robbia's glazed terracotta sculptures
Name (type = personal)
NamePart (type = family)
Kupiec
NamePart (type = given)
Catherine
NamePart (type = date)
1985-
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Catherine Kupiec
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author
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Blake McHam
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Sarah
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Sarah Blake McHam
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Advisory Committee
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chair
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NamePart (type = family)
Paul
NamePart (type = given)
Benjamin
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Benjamin Paul
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Advisory Committee
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internal member
Name (type = personal)
NamePart (type = family)
Thunø
NamePart (type = given)
Erik
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Erik Thunø
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Advisory Committee
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internal member
Name (type = personal)
NamePart (type = family)
Cambareri
NamePart (type = given)
Marietta
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Marietta Cambareri
Affiliation
Advisory Committee
Role
RoleTerm (authority = RULIB)
outside member
Name (type = corporate)
NamePart
Rutgers University
Role
RoleTerm (authority = RULIB)
degree grantor
Name (type = corporate)
NamePart
Graduate School - New Brunswick
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school
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Text
Genre (authority = marcgt)
theses
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DateCreated (qualifier = exact)
2016
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2016-10
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2016
Place
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xx
Language
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eng
Abstract (type = abstract)
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 midsixteenth 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. 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.
Subject (authority = RUETD)
Topic
Art History
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Title
Rutgers University Electronic Theses and Dissertations
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ETD
Identifier
ETD_7728
PhysicalDescription
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electronic resource
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application/pdf
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text/xml
Extent
1 online resource (xiii, 342 p. : ill.)
Note (type = degree)
Ph.D.
Note (type = bibliography)
Includes bibliographical references
Note (type = statement of responsibility)
by Catherine Kupiec
Subject
Name (authority = LC-NAF)
NamePart (type = personal)
Robbia, Luca della, 1484-1519
RelatedItem (type = host)
TitleInfo
Title
Graduate School - New Brunswick Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Identifier (type = local)
rucore19991600001
Location
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NjNbRU
Identifier (type = doi)
doi:10.7282/T3FJ2K3S
Genre (authority = ExL-Esploro)
ETD doctoral
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Rights

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The author owns the copyright to this work.
RightsHolder (type = personal)
Name
FamilyName
Kupiec
GivenName
Catherine
Role
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RightsEvent
Type
Permission or license
DateTime (encoding = w3cdtf); (qualifier = exact); (point = start)
2016-10-03 09:11:55
AssociatedEntity
Name
Catherine Kupiec
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Affiliation
Rutgers University. Graduate School - New Brunswick
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License
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Author Agreement License
Detail
I hereby grant to the Rutgers University Libraries and to my school the non-exclusive right to archive, reproduce and distribute my thesis or dissertation, in whole or in part, and/or my abstract, in whole or in part, in and from an electronic format, subject to the release date subsequently stipulated in this submittal form and approved by my school. I represent and stipulate that the thesis or dissertation and its abstract are my original work, that they do not infringe or violate any rights of others, and that I make these grants as the sole owner of the rights to my thesis or dissertation and its abstract. I represent that I have obtained written permissions, when necessary, from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis or dissertation and will supply copies of such upon request by my school. I acknowledge that RU ETD and my school will not distribute my thesis or dissertation or its abstract if, in their reasonable judgment, they believe all such rights have not been secured. I acknowledge that I retain ownership rights to the copyright of my work. I also retain the right to use all or part of this thesis or dissertation in future works, such as articles or books.
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DateTime (encoding = w3cdtf); (qualifier = exact); (point = start)
2016-10-31
DateTime (encoding = w3cdtf); (qualifier = exact); (point = end)
2018-10-31
Type
Embargo
Detail
Access to this PDF has been restricted at the author's request. It will be publicly available after October 31st, 2018.
Copyright
Status
Copyright protected
Availability
Status
Open
Reason
Permission or license
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