Ceramics and Artistic Nativity (Figulina Tradition)

Ceramics and Artistic Nativity (Figulina Tradition)

Property included in the Register of Intangible Heritage of Sicily (REIS)

 

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Technical sheet prepared by: Region of Sicily - Department of cultural heritage and Sicilian identity - CRicd: Regional center for inventory, cataloging and documentation and Sicilian regional film library

Card insertion: Heritage Sicily 

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Technical sheet prepared by: Region of Sicily - Department of cultural heritage and Sicilian identity - CRicd: Regional center for inventory, cataloging and documentation and Sicilian regional film library

N. Prog. 22
Well: Pottery and Artistic Nativity Scene (Figulina Tradition)
Book: REI - Book of knowledge
Approval date: 25-01-2006
Category: Artisan technique
Province: Catania
Municipality: Caltagirone
 
Chronological News
Ceramic
The first hints on the history of the origins of the ceramic art of Caltagirone can be traced back to the seventeenth century, when the historian and Jesuit Giovanni Chiarandà wrote, in his work "Piazza, city of Sicily“, That the working of ceramics, in the Calatina city, was prior to the coming of the Arabs and carried out by many potters.
The scientific basis of this historical information derives from the excavations carried out by the archaeologist Paolo Orsi in the territory of Caltagirone, in particular in the villages of Scala, Pile and S. Ippolito which return examples of ceramics dating back to the 1000th millennium BC. The rediscovered pottery, with flask or fruit bowl shapes, presented geometric decorations painted in brown with a yellow and reddish background. It is certified that the use of the lathe in Sicily was introduced around the year XNUMX BC following contacts with the Greek world.
In the Byzantine period they were the "stazzunari”To produce pottery of coarse workmanship, without glaze or paint, worked on the lathe with horizontal streaks. It will be the Arabs in 827 AD who favored local production, determining a relaunch of local crafts and transferring their knowledge on the subject.  
Through the shapes, decorations and colors it is possible to proceed to a correct dating of the ceramic, these elements differed according to the historical period of production.
In the medieval period we find the production of basins with not very wide brims, decorated with manganese. In this period of splendor, the coats of arms of religious orders or aristocratic families who came to Sicily from Spain following the Aragonese were preferred for Caltagirone ceramics. An important fragment to testify to the use of this type of plastic decoration is the fragment of a basin with a Jesuit monogram in relief preserved in Piazza Armerina, dated to 1568 and attributed to the Calatine master Iovannello Maurici.
During the 500th century the preference for calligraphic and geometrical decorations in blue on white enamel began, the result of the fashion of the market of the time.
The influence of oriental charm is particularly affirmed in the 600th century and finds ample space in the decorations of the porcelain which also reflect the Renaissance decorative schemes. It is to respond to the exuberance of the previous chromatism that in Faenza the style "white summaries“, Characterized by a clean and legible majolica with essential decorations placed at the center of the object. At the same time in Caltagirone the ceramic of use developed some important innovations such as the creation of the flask tambura, capable of holding more water. The lack of innovation in decoration can be attributed to the atmosphere that was experienced in eastern Sicily due to natural disasters or human causes. The earthquake will have great repercussions on the human and professional training of artisans. In eastern Sicily the earthquake of 1693 brought with it a process of rebuilding the destroyed cities in an attempt to bring the population back to normal life. Following this event i canetari, artisans specialized in the production of ceramic, worked tirelessly, constantly innovating their art, starting to experiment with new forms and continuing to produce various types of tableware: fourth reddi, howl, canned, molds for mustard and sludge large dishes that served a thousand uses. The Bertolone brothers, for example, created drained artifacts in imitation of marble. It is in this historical period that the city furnaces began to produce floors, vases with relief decorations and paintings, holy water fonts, altar frontals, statuettes and architectural decorations for churches and bell towers. At the same time, artists such as the masters Polizzi, Dragotta, Branciforti, Bertolone, Blandini, Ventimiglia, Capoccia, Di Bartolo established themselves.
 Due to the collapse of the development of ceramics, consequential to the earthquake, the Calatini artisans, to arouse new interest, began to open up to roba Sicilian produced mainly in Campania.
The ceramic was able to flourish again only in the eighteenth century when it followed new artistic directions, it represented the search for luxury and elegance mixed with a taste for the ephemeral and for ornaments.
In the history of ceramics, the nineteenth century opens with an innovation: the development of industrial products such as earthenware in the English way and cement for floors begins. The development of this practice resulted in a period of decline for potters. Only the most skilled were able to work like the Caltini Giacomo Bongiovanni and his nephew Giuseppe Vaccaro, known for their terracotta figurines.
 
The artistic nativity scene
The eighteenth century can be defined as the golden age of nativity scenes. In fact, it was between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries that the commission for the construction of these artifacts increased progressively. Historical period in which the Viceroys and the very rich and powerful ecclesiastical orders competed for the commission and for the possession of the most precious and at the same time sumptuous cribs. Nativity scenes that often crossed the borders of Sicily, reaching the most refined European courts.
In the Calatina area, towards the end of the 700th century and in the following century, there is a group of artists who were inspired by the figulina tradition, from which a group of masters known as "sanctariums"and "pasturaries".
In the nineteenth century the greatest exponent of figurine art in Sicily was the master Giacomo Bongiovanni, who expressed his artistic genius by shaping clay figurines that found widespread diffusion everywhere. The modeling technique, a traditional Calatina technique, was widely used by the artist in his workshop, which had already been opened as far back as 1794. The master, however, did not disdain to embrace classical orientations as well, as evidenced by the decoration of the altar of the Church of the Crucifix in Caltagirone.
Currently the crib production, while always looking at the legacy coming from the great Calatina tradition, does not fail to merge and give rise to new genres, the result of classic mixes with modern intuitions and personal interpretations, thus representing the sum of different schools and trends.
 
Description
Ceramic
The city of Caltagirone owes its fame to the production of ceramics. The Calatini artisans qualified themselves as one of the most important majolica producers on the island. Their fortune was the geographical position of the city which enjoyed large quarries from which they could extract the clay, the raw material for their work, and obtain wood from the nearby woods, such as that of San Pietro, to light the furnaces. The Calatine majolicas were intended for daily use (plates, dishes, containers and the notes “lhumor“) And were aimed at a purely poor market, but which did not despise the aesthetic taste of their decorations.
Originally, the large production of honey increased the demand on the part of producers for storage containers. Following this fact, the potters began to produce terracotta containers suitable for this use.
The innovation of the Calatini masters also made its way into the decorations. In the eighteenth century, in the face of the use of the very expensive blue color, which had characterized the century, the Calatini potters studied new decorations with manganese, verdigris and yellow iron.  
The Calatini artisans also distinguished themselves for the production of ceramics for architectural coatings such as the façades of churches, spiers and bell towers, as well as the production of majolica for flooring. The latter will follow a stylistic evolution similar to that of pottery, making use of the planning of important architects called to build the noble palaces and the monumental churches of the city. Among these, the Gagini worked in Caltagirone between the XNUMXth and XNUMXth centuries, while the first to use majolica as a decorative element was Natale Bonajuto.
Two different types of majolica begin to emerge in the pavement. The first uses the association of terracotta and majolica with square or rectangular tiles decorated with geometric motifs placed to surround a carpet of hexagonal terracotta tiles or with small square pieces placed to fill the vacant spaces between octagonal terracotta tiles. The second type is all with rhomboid-shaped tiles glazed in white, blue and manganese, variously arranged together to compose geometric patterns, stars, ears, chessboards.
 
The artistic nativity scene
Caltagirone owes its notoriety, as well as to its ceramics, to the devotional figurines of the cribs, an art that is deeply stimulated by the religious sentiment of the population. The art of nativity scenes originates from that artistic branch that aimed at the production of anthropomorphic and prosopomorphic pottery.
It will be around the nineteenth century that the characteristic nativity scene with multiple shepherds, physiognomically reflecting, almost always, people of the country and characteristic subjects of the places will develop in Caltagirone. The shepherds of Bongiovanni, Bonanno, Vaccaro and also the tiny statuettes of the architect GB Nicastro and Father Benedetto Papale, the latter executor, not only of the small figurines, but also of qualified landscapes with an extraordinary realistic connotation, deserve mention.
Peculiar are the crib figures made in the workshop of the artists Giacomo Bongiovanni and his nephew Giuseppe Vaccaro. The artist Bongiovanni, heir of the Bertolone family, who for centuries had given the Calatina city skilled artisans, revolutionized the technique of figulina art, which from Caltagirone then spread throughout Europe. Instead of molding them entirely, he covered them with thin clay leaves overlapping them with the previously modeled bodies, creating light and fluctuating draperies. The result generated by this technique is of particular realism in the representation of popular life scenes. If the latter artists had limited themselves to creating figures contextualizing them in their environment and in their times, the artist Bonanno goes back to history by re-proposing characters and landscapes that masterfully match the environment in which Jesus was born and lived. this which was subsequently taken up by Benedetto Papale, who did not despise the care of the environmental and historical character.
Today, the figurine art is experiencing a period of new development thanks to the cultured reinterpretation of important contemporary masters such as Giuseppe Bonaccorso, who has taken up the ancient tradition of Calatina plastic art. From the vast production, the artist Bonaccorso ranges from sacred to allegorical themes, connoting them with characters recovered from the reinterpretation of Serpotta's work combined with traits attributable to the art of the Renaissance. After his death, his work has become the object of collectibles and systematic collections.
 
Bibliography
Exhibition catalog, Nativity. Glory and Humility in Sicilian crib iconography from the XNUMXth to the XNUMXth century,
 
Alessi, Giacomo and Giuseppe Lazzaro Danzuso. 2003. Flasks, canteries and canned lights. Ceramics used in Caltagirone between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries. Silvana Editorial.
 
Museum of Ceramics, Novecento Editions, Palermo, 1997
 
Colaeo, Louis. 1994. Caltagirone nativity scenes. Artists and figurines in the Calatina tradition. Palermo: Arnaldo Lombardi Publisher. 
 
 
Author Profile: Francesca Maria Riccobene

 

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