Terracotta was also popular in sub-Saharan African sculpture: it was first developed by the mysterious Nok culture of Nigeria, about 1000 BCE, and by the Igbo culture of eastern Nigeria. It was also a feature of Pre-Columbian art, beginning with the Olmec culture (1000-500 BCE).


Following the collapse of the Roman Empire (c.450), the use of terracotta declined dramatically. It wasn't until the Early Renaissance that it was properly revived as an artistic medium. Donatello and Lorenzo Ghiberti were among the first Renaissance sculptors to rediscover the potential of terracotta for making images of Christian art (notably that of the Virgin and Child): a discovery which came about through their close knowledge of bronze sculpture - the use of clay being central to the production of bronze statues. Before long, clay was being molded to replicate devotional images, and other figures, which were then fired, painted and gilded, thus creating a low-cost alternative to more expensive materials, like marble and bronze. Other artists, including the Della Robbia family, popularized the use of glazed terracotta for relief sculpture and church altarpiece art. See, for instance, the pulpit reliefs for Santa Croce in Florence (1481), by the Florentine artist Benedetto da Maiano. For more details of the Della Robbia, see works by Luca Della Robbia, as well as his nephew Andrea Della Robbia. Terracotta was also used in Renaissance portrait art, as exemplified by the wonderful Bust of Cardinal Giovanni de' Medici (later Pope Leo X) (c.1512, Victoria and Albert Museum) by Antonio de' Benintendi. Terracotta models were also used by most sculptors when submitting designs, or when creating studies for larger sculptures or for paintings. Paleolithic terracotta figures were fired in primitive kilns, created underneath open fires.

In short, Renaissance sculpture re-established terracotta as a major medium of artistic expression and creativity. During the era of Baroque sculpture, the tradition was further developed by Bernini (1598-80) and Alessandro Algardi (1598-1654), notably in the area of relief sculpture and portrait busts. During the 18th century, terracotta was explored for its decorative qualities, while the great Antonio Canova (1757-1822) continued to use it for models until he replaced it with plaster in the early 19th century.

Use of Terracotta in Architecture

During the 1860s in England and the 1870s in America, architects began using unglazed terracotta to decorate the exterior surfaces of buildings. It was used, for instance, on a number of buildings in Birmingham; on the elaborate terracotta facade of the Natural History Museum, in London; the Victoria and Albert Museum (1859–71); and the Royal Albert Hall (1867–71). Earlier, in 1842-45, St Stephen and All Martyrs' Church, at Lever Bridge in Bolton had been built almost entirely from terracotta. Curiously, terracotta received approval as a building material from the Arts and Crafts movement, since it was deemed to be a handmade material, designed by craftsmen.


In America, the Chicago School of architecture was an early convert to terracotta. The architect Louis Sullivan (1856-1924), for instance, was noted for his elaborate glazed terracotta decorations, that would have been extremely difficult to produce in any other medium. Fired clay was also used by Chicago designers Daniel Hudson Burnham (1846-1912) and John Root (1850-91) in the curtain walls of their Reliance Building (1895), and by William Le Baron Jenney who pioneered its use in skyscrapers as a way of reducing the risk of fire.

The Venus of Dolni Vestonice (c.26,000 BCE)


The Czech Venus of Dolni Vestonice (Vestonicka Venuse) is the oldest surviving item of ceramic art in the world. Roughly 4.5 inches tall and 1.7 inches wide, it was made from local clay, combined with powdered bone and baked in an earthen oven at about 700°C. One of many Venus figurines mostly sculpted during the Gravettian period of Paleolithic culture, it was discovered at a Stone Age settlement in the Moravian basin, near Brno, in the Czech Republic. It now resides in the Vienna Natural History Museum.


The Thinker of Cernavoda (5000 BCE)


One of the greatest sculptures of early art, The Thinker of Cernavoda (Ganditorul) was found in 1956 - along with a similar (female) figurine, known as The Sitting Woman of Cernavoda, amid the remains of a prehistoric settlement near Cernavoda in Romania. Its unique character and name derived from its extraordinary "thinking" pose, quite unlike the usual shape of other figures. It is dark red/brown in color, about 4.5 inches in height and is made from terracotta. It was created during the Hamangia culture (5250-4500 BCE) centered on Dobruja, between the River Danube and the Black Sea. The sculpture is completely lacking in the sort of ornamentation which is usually seen in ceramic works from the Hamangia culture. It resides in the National Museum of Romanian History, Bucharest.

The Chinese Terracotta Army Warriors (246-208 BCE)


One of the greatest works in the history of sculpture, the set of fired clay figures known as the Chinese Terracotta Army - made during the short period of Qin Dynasty art (221-206 BCE) - consists of 8,000 clay warriors and horses which were unearthed in 1974 adjacent to the tomb of the First Qin Emperor, Qin Shi Huangdi, in Shaanxi province, China. According to the curators of the tomb, there are many thousands of additional figures still to be uncovered. The figures were commissioned by the Emperor after he became Emperor in 247 BCE. Work started in about 246 BCE and is estimated to have taken almost 40 years to complete, using 700,000 workers. The role of the army was to serve the Emperor in the afterlife.