128 
RERAMIC STUDIO 
"I/ARTE DELLA CERAMIC A" 
Marshall Cutler 
N " Venice in America" at the Pan-Ameri- 
can Exposition, among the Italian pro- 
ducts displayed, one of the most note- 
worthy exhibits of art applied to industry 
is that of the Tuscan ceramic factory, 
" LArte della Ceramica." This factory 
wars founded in 1897 by a group of artists 
and cultivated men, who proposed to 
imitate also in Italy that fecund renais- 
sance of decorative art of which England 
had set such an admirable example to 
the world, and more particularly to 
restore to their former post of honor the 
arts of pottery, making " a gran fuoco" which, together with 
those of glass making, were formerly the glory of Italy. 
The task was not an easy one in a country like Italy, 
where for more than a century there has been a lack of both 
knowledge and desire to do anything but copy the works of 
the great makers of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and 
where no one has dared to leave the beaten path of tradition 
through fear of the hostile criticism any such attempt would 
create. 
The members of this Society, however, have sought to 
prove by facts that the material characteristics of Italian 
majolica could be preserved in products inspired and pervaded 
by a strong living modern sentiment, and executed with the 
new processes which our present age has developed in chemi- 
cal science. 
Notwithstanding the scepticism and indifference which 
still reigns in Italy regarding all matters of industrial art, this 
hardy attempt has been understood and appreciated and the 
products of the Society have encountered the praise of con- 
noisseurs and the favor of the public. 
In the National Exhibition at Turin in 1898, which was 
of no slight importance as marking the intellectual progress 
in Italy, the young Society obtained a gold medal, and in the 
Paris Exposition of 1900 it was the only one among all the 
"Ir'AKTE DELLA CERAMICA. - ' 
••L'ARTK UELLA CERAMICA." 
