Italian Maiolica (Art eBook)

Maiolica has many joys, as collectors have always known. It is an art of transformation—an almost alchemical conjuring of glistening solid form and vivid color out of ordinary elements. The concave walls of a bamboo container become the potter's albarello. The refined turnings and twistings of a goldsmith's pitcher are transformed into a robust vernacular vessel. Christ in the form of a half- length marble bust, austere in monochrome, is turned into a vivid likeness in bright colors. And the stories of the Old Testament and classical authors (including the Metamorphoses of Ovid), once visu- alized by painters and already transformed by printmakers, are given new life by the resourceful dec- orators of maiolica. For all its complexities, however, the best maiolica combines a harmony of shape, decoration, and color which vibrates in the heart today just as it must always have done.