HISTORY OF CERAMICS
Ceramics is one of the most ancient industries on
the planet. Once humans discovered that clay could be dug up and formed into
objects by first mixing with water and then firing, the industry was born. As
early as 24,000 BC, animal and human figurines were made from clay and other
materials, then fired in kilns partially dug into the ground.
Almost 10,000 years later, as settled communities
were established, tiles were manufactured in Mesopotamia and India. The first
use of functional pottery vessels for storing water and food is thought to be
around 9000 or 10,000 BC. Clay bricks were also made around the same time.
Glass was believed to be
discovered in Egypt around 8000 BC, when overheating of kilns produced a
colored glaze on the pottery. Experts estimate that it was not until 1500 BC
that glass was produced independently of ceramics and fashioned into separate
items.
Fast forward to the Middle Ages, when the metal
industry was in its infancy. Furnaces at that time for melting the metal were
constructed of natural materials. When synthetic materials with better
resistance to high temperatures (called refractories) were developed in the
16th century, the industrial revolution was born. These refractories created
the necessary conditions for melting metals and glass on an industrial scale,
as well as for the manufacture of coke, cement, chemicals, and ceramics.
Another major development occurred in the second
half of the 19th century, when ceramic materials for electrical insulation were
developed. As other inventions came on the scene-including automobiles, radios,
televisions, computers-ceramic and glass materials were needed to help these
become a reality, as shown in the following timeline.
Timeline of Selected Ceramic and Glass Developments
Year
|
Development
|
24,000 B.C.
|
Ceramic
figurines used for ceremonial purposes
|
14,000 B.C.
|
First
tiles made in Mesopotamia and India
|
9000-10,000 B.C.
|
Pottery
making begins
|
5000-8000 B.C.
|
Glazes
discovered in Egypt
|
1500 B.C.
|
Glass
objects first made
|
1550 A.D.
|
Synthetic
refractories (temperature resistant) for furnaces used to make steel, glass,
ceramics, cement
|
Mid 1800’s
|
Porcelain
electrical insulation
Incandescent light bulb |
1920’s
|
High-strength
quartz-enriched porcelain for insulators
Alumina spark plugs Glass windows for automobiles |
1940’s
|
Capacitors
and magnetic ferrites
|
1960’s
|
Alumina
insulators for voltages over 220 kV
Application of carbides and nitrides |
1970’s
|
Introduction
of high-performance cellular ceramic substrates for catalytic converters and
particulate filters for diesel engines
|
1980’s
|
High temperature superconductors
|
CERAMIC ART
In art history,
ceramics and ceramic art mean art objects
such as figures, tiles,
and tableware made from clay and other raw materials by the process of pottery. Some ceramic products
are regarded as fine
art, while others are regarded as decorative,
industrial
or applied
art objects, or as artifacts in archaeology.
They may be made by one individual or in a factory where a
group of people design, make and decorate the ware. Decorative ceramics are
sometimes called "art pottery".
The word "ceramics" comes from the
Greek keramikos (κεραμικος), meaning "pottery", which in turn
comes from keramos (κεραμος), meaning "potter's clay." Most
traditional ceramic products were made from clay (or clay mixed
with other materials), shaped and subjected to heat, and tableware and
decorative ceramics are generally still made this way. In modern ceramic
engineering usage, ceramics is the art and science of making objects from
inorganic, non-metallic materials by the action of heat. It excludes glass and mosaic made from
glass tesserae.
There is a long history of ceramic art in almost
all developed cultures, and often ceramic objects are all the artistic evidence
left from vanished cultures, like that of the Nok in
Africa over 2,000 years ago. Cultures especially noted for ceramics include the
Chinese,
Cretan, Greek, Persian, Mayan,
Japanese, and Korean cultures, as
well as the modern Western cultures.
Elements of ceramic art, upon which different
degrees of emphasis have been placed at different times, are the shape of the
object, its decoration by painting, carving and other methods, and the glazing
found on most ceramics.
PREHISTORIC POTTERY
Vessel from Mesopotamia,
late Ubaid
period (4,500-4,000 BCE)
Early pots were made by the "coiling"
method, working the clay into a long string which was wound round to form a
shape and then modelled to form smooth walls. The potter's
wheel was probably invented in Mesopotamia
by the 4th millennium BC, but spread across nearly all Eurasia and much of
Africa, though it remained unknown in the New World
until the arrival of Europeans. Decoration of the clay by incising and painting
is found very widely, and was initially geometric, but often included
figurative designs from very early on.
So important is pottery to the archaeology of
prehistoric cultures that many are known by names taken from their distinctive,
and often very fine, pottery, such as the Linear Pottery culture, Beaker
culture, Globular Amphora culture, Corded Ware culture and Funnelbeaker culture, to take examples only
from Neolithic Europe (approximately 7000-1800 BCE).
Ceramic art has generated many styles from its
own tradition, but is often closely related to contemporary sculpture and
metalwork. Many times in its history styles from the usually more prestigious
and expensive art of metalworking have been copied in ceramics. This can be
seen in early Chinese ceramics, such as pottery and ceramic-wares of the Shang
Dynasty, in Ancient Roman and Iranian pottery, and Rococo European
styles, copying contemporary silverware shapes. A common use of ceramics is for
"pots" - containers such as bowls, vases and amphorae, as
well as other tableware, but figurines have been very widely made.
CERAMICS AS WALL DECORATION
16th century Turkish Iznik
tiles, which would have originally formed part of a much larger group.
The earliest evidence of glazed brick is the
discovery of glazed bricks in the Elamite Temple at Chogha
Zanbil, dated to the 13th century BCE. Glazed and coloured bricks were used
to make low reliefs in Ancient Mesopotamia,
most famously the Ishtar Gate of Babylon (ca. 575
BCE), now partly reconstructed in Berlin, with sections elsewhere. Mesopotamian craftsmen were
imported for the palaces of the Persian
Empire such as Persepolis. The tradition continued, and after the Islamic
conquest of Persia coloured and often painted glazed bricks or tiles became an
important element in Persian architecture, and from there spread to
much of the Islamic world, notably the İznik
pottery of Turkey
under the Ottoman Empire in the 16th and 17th centuries.
Upper part of the mihrab decorated
with lusterware tiles (dating from the 9th century) in the Mosque
of Uqba also known as the Great Mosque of Kairouan, Tunisia.
Using the lusterware
technology, one of the finest examples of medieval Islamic use of ceramics as
wall decoration can be seen in the Mosque
of Uqba also known as the Great Mosque of kairouan (in Tunisia), the
upper part of the mihrab
wall is adorned with polychrome and monochrome lusterware tiles; dating from
862-863, these tiles were most probably imported from Mesopotamia.
Transmitted via Islamic Spain, a new tradition of
Azulejos
developed in Spain and especially Portugal, which
by the Baroque
period produced extremely large painted scenes on tiles, usually in blue and
white. Delftware
tiles, typically with a painted design covering only one (rather small) tile,
were ubiquitous in Holland and widely exported over Northern Europe from the
16th century on. Several 18th century royal palaces had porcelain rooms with
the walls entirely covered in porcelain. Surviving examples include ones at Capodimonte, Naples, the Royal Palace of Madrid and the nearby Royal Palace of Aranjuez. Elaborate tiled
stoves were a feature of rooms of the middle and upper-classes in Northern
Europe from the 17th to 19th centuries.
There are several other types of traditional
tiles that remain in manufacture, for example the small, almost mosaic,
brightly coloured zellige
tiles of Morocco.
With exceptions, notably the Porcelain Tower of Nanjing, tiles or
glazed bricks do not feature largely in East Asian ceramics.
EAST ASIA
Although pottery figurines are found from earlier
periods in Europe, the oldest pottery vessels come from East Asia, with finds
in China and Japan, then still united by a land bridge, and some in what is now
the Russian Far East, providing several from between
20,000 and 10,000 BCE, although the vessels were simple utilitarian objects.[7] Xianrendong
Cave in Jiangxi
province contained pottery fragments that dates back to 20,000 years ago.
CHINA
Chinese Longquan
celadon, Song Dynasty, 13th century. Celadon was first
made in China, and then exported to various parts of Asia and Europe. Celadon
became a favourite of various kings and monarchs, such as the Ottoman
Sultans, because of its pristine beauty, its resemblance to Chinese jade, and
the belief that the celadon would change its colour if the food or wine were
poisoned.
There is Chinese
porcelain from the late Eastern Han period (100 to 200 AD), the Three
Kingdoms period (220 to 280 AD), the Six
Dynasties period (220 to 589 AD), and thereafter. China in particular
has had a continuous history of large-scale production, with the Imperial
factories usually producing the best work. The Tang
Dynasty (618 to 906 AD) is especially noted for grave goods
figures of humans, animals and model houses, boats and other goods, excavated
(usually illegally) from graves in large numbers.
The Imperial porcelain of the Song Dynasty (960–1279), featuring very
subtle decoration shallowly carved by knife in the clay, is regarded by many
authorities as the peak of Chinese
ceramics, though the large and more exuberantly painted ceramics of the Ming Dynasty (1368–1644) have a wider reputation.
Chinese emperors gave ceramics as diplomatic
gifts on a lavish scale, and the presence of Chinese ceramics no doubt aided
the development of related traditions of ceramics in Japan and Korea in particular.
JAPAN
Nabeshima plate with three herons
The earliest Japanese pottery was made around the
11th millennium BC. Jōmon ware emerged in the 6th millennium BC and the plainer Yayoi style in about
the 4th century BC. This early pottery was soft earthenware, fired at low
temperatures. The potter’s wheel and a kiln
capable of reaching higher temperatures and firing stoneware appeared in the
3rd or 4th centuries AD, probably brought by southern Korean potters. In the
8th century, official kilns in Japan produced simple, green lead glazed wares.
Unglazed stoneware was used funerary jars, storage jars and kitchen pots up to
the 17th century. Some of the kilns improved their methods and are known as the
“Six Old Kilns”.
From the 11th to the 16th century, Japan imported
much porcelain from China and some from Korea. The Japanese overlord Toyotomi Hideyoshi's attempts to conquer China
in the 1590s were dubbed the "Ceramic Wars" because the emigration of
Korean potters appeared to be a major cause. One of these potters, Yi
Sam-pyeong, discovered the raw material of porcelain in Arita and produced
first true porcelain in Japan.
In the 17th century, conditions in China drove
some of its potters into Japan, bringing with them the knowledge to make
refined porcelain. From the mid-century, the Dutch East India Company began to import
Japanese porcelain into Europe. At this time, Kakiemon wares
were produced at the factories of Arita,
which had much in common with the Chinese Famille
Verte style. The superb quality of its enamel
decoration was highly prized in the West and widely imitated by the major
European porcelain manufacturers. In 1971 it was declared an important
"intangible cultural treasure" by the Japanese government.
In the 20th century, interest in the art of the
village potter was revived by the Mingei folk movement led by potters Shoji
Hamada, Kawai Kajiro and others. They studied traditional methods in order
to preserve native wares that were in danger of disappearing. Modern masters
use ancient methods to bring pottery and porcelain to new heights of
achievement at Shiga,
Iga, Karatsu, Hagi,
and Bizen.
A few outstanding potters were designated living cultural treasures (mukei
bunkazai 無形文化財). In the old capital of Kyoto, the Raku family
continued to produce the rough tea bowls that had so delighted connoisseurs. At Mino,
potters continued to reconstruct the classic formulas of Momoyama-era Seto-type
tea wares of Mino, such as Oribe ware. By the 1990s many master potters worked away
from ancient kilns and made classic wares in all parts of Japan.
KOREA
Korean pottery has had a continuous tradition
since simple earthenware from about 8000 BCE. Styles have generally
been a distinctive variant of Chinese, and later Japanese, developments. The
ceramics of the Goryeo
Dynasty (918–1392) and early Joseon white porcelain of the following
dynasty are generally regarded as the finest achievements.
WESTERN ASIA AND THE MIDDLE EAST
Islamic pottery
Cup with votive inscriptions in Kufic script.
Terracotta, Nishapur
(Tepe Madraseh). Metropolitan Museum of Art collections.
From the 8th to 18th centuries, glazed
ceramics was important in Islamic art, usually in the form of elaborate pottery,[11]
developing on vigorous Persian and Egyptian pre-Islamic traditions in
particular. Tin-opacified glazing was developed by the Islamic
potters, the first examples found as blue-painted ware in Basra, dating from
about the 8th century. The Islamic world had contact with China, and
increasingly adapted many Chinese decorative motifs. Persian wares gradually
relaxed Islamic restrictions on figurative ornament, and painted figuratives
scenes became very important.
Stoneware, originating from 9th century Iraq, was also an
important material in Islamic pottery.[12] Pottery was
produced in Ar-Raqqah,
Syria, in the 8th
century.[13]
Other centers for innovative ceramics in the Islamic world were Fustat (near modern
Cairo) from 975 to
1075, Damascus
from 1100 to around 1600 and Tabriz from 1470 to 1550.
The albarello
form, a type of maiolica
earthenware jar originally designed to hold apothecaries'
ointments and dry drugs, was first made in the Islamic Middle East. It was
brought to Italy by Hispano-Moresque traders; the earliest Italian
examples were produced in Florence in the 15th century.
Iznik
pottery, made in western Anatolia, is highly decorated ceramics whose heyday was the
late 16th century under the Ottoman
sultans. Iznik vessels were originally made in imitation of Chinese
porcelain, which was highly prized. Under Süleyman the Magnificent (1520–66), demand
for Iznik wares increased. After the conquest of Constantinople
in 1453, the Ottoman sultans started a programme of building,
which used large quantities of Iznik tiles. The Sultan Ahmed Mosque in Istanbul (built 1609-16)
alone contains 20,000 tiles and tiles were used extensively in the Topkapi
Palace (commenced 1459). As a result of this demand, tiles dominated the
output of the Iznik potteries.
EUROPE
Early figurines
The earliest known ceramic objects are the Gravettian
figurines from the Upper Paleolithic period, such as those
discovered at Dolní Věstonice in the modern-day Czech
Republic. The Venus of Dolní Věstonice (Věstonická
Venuše in Czech) is a statuette of a nude female figure dating from some time
between 29,000 and 25000 BCE. It was made by moulding and then firing a mixture
of clay and powdered bone. Similar objects in various media found throughout
Europe and Asia and dating from the Upper Paleolithic period have also been
called Venus figurines. Scholars are not agreed as to
their purpose or cultural significance.
THE ANCIENT MEDITERRANEAN
Hellenistic Tanagra
figurine of ca. 320 BCE, probably just intended to represent a fashionable
lady with a sun-hat.
Glazed Egyptian
faience goes back to the third
millennium BC, with painted but unglazed pottery developed even earlier in
the Naqada
culture. Faience became sophisticated and produced on a large scale, using
moulds as well modelling, and later also throwing on the wheel. Several methods
of glazing were developed, but colours remained largely limited to a range in
the blue-green spectrum.
On the Greek island of Santorini are
some of the earliest finds created by the Minoans dating to the third millennium BC, with
the original settlement at Akrotiri dating to the fourth millennium BC; excavation work
continues at the principal archaeological site of Akrotiri. Some of the excavated
homes contain huge ceramic storage jars known as pithoi.
Ancient Grecian and Etruscan ceramics are renowned for their
figurative painting, especially in the black-figure and red-figure styles. Moulded Greek terracotta figurines, especially those
from Tanagra, were small figures, often religious but later including many
of everyday genre figures, apparently used purely for decoration.
Ancient Roman pottery, such as Samian ware,
was rarely as fine, and largely copied shapes from metalwork, but was produced
in enormous quantities, and is found all over Europe and the Middle East, and
beyond. Monte Testaccio is a waste mound in Rome
made almost entirely of broken amphorae used for transporting and storing liquids and other
products. Few vessels of great artistic interest have survived, but there are
very many small figures, often incorporated into oil lamps or similar objects,
and often with religious or erotic themes (or both together - a Roman
speciality). The Romans generally did not leave grave goods, the best source of
ancient pottery, but even so they do not seem to have had much in the way of
luxury pottery, unlike Roman glass, which the elite used with gold or silver
tableware. The more expensive pottery tended to use relief decoration, often
moulded, rather than paint. Especially in the Eastern Empire, local traditions
continued, hybridizing with Roman styles to varying extents.
TIN-GLAZED POTTERY
A Hispano-Moresque
dish, approx 32cm diameter, with Christian monogram "IHS", decorated
in cobalt blue and gold lustre. Valencia, c.1430-1500. Burrell Collection
Ming Dynasty (1368-1644 AD) blue-and-white porcelain
dish from the reign of the Jiajing
Emperor (1521-1567 AD). Nanjing
Museum collections.
Tin-glazed pottery, or faience,
originated in Iraq
in the 9th century, from where it spread to Egypt, Persia and Spain before
reaching Italy in
the Renaissance,
Holland in the
16th century and England,
France and other
European countries shortly after. Important regional styles in Europe include: Hispano-Moresque,
maiolica, Delftware,
and English Delftware. By the High
Middle Ages the Hispano-Moresque ware of Al-Andaluz
was the most sophisticated pottery being produced in Europe, with elaborate
decoration. It introduced tin-glazing to Europe, which was developed in the Italian Renaissance in maiolica. Tin-glazed
pottery was taken up in the Netherlands from the 16th to the 18th centuries,
the potters making household, decorative pieces and tiles in vast numbers,[18]
usually with blue painting on a white ground. Dutch
potters took tin-glazed pottery to the British Isles, where it was made between
about 1550 and 1800. In France, tin-glaze was begun in 1690 at Quimper in Brittany,[19]
followed in Rouen,
Strasbourg
and Lunéville.
The development of white, or near white, firing bodies in Europe from the late
18th century, such as Creamware by Josiah
Wedgwood and porcelain, reduced the demand for Delftware, faience and
majolica. Today, tin oxide usage in glazes finds limited use in conjunction
with other, lower cost opacifying agents, although it is generally restricted
to specialist low temperature applications and use by studio potters. including
Picasso who
produced pottery using tin glazes.
PORCELAIN
Until the 16th century, small quantities of
expensive Chinese porcelain were imported into Europe. From
the 16th century onwards attempts were made to imitate it in Europe, including soft-paste and the Medici
porcelain made in Florence. None was successful until a recipe for hard-paste porcelain was devised at the Meissen
factory in Dresden
in 1710. Within a few years, porcelain factories sprung up at Nymphenburg in Bavaria (1754)
and Capodimonte in Naples (1743) and
many other places, often financed by a local ruler.
Soft-paste porcelain was made at Rouen in the 1680s,
but the first important production was at St.Cloud, letters-patent being granted in
1702. The Duc de Bourbon established a soft-paste factory, the
Chantilly porcelain, in the grounds of his Château de Chantilly in 1730; a soft-paste
factory was opened at Mennecy; and the Vincennes
factory was set up by workers from Chantilly in 1740, moving to larger premises
at Sèvres
in 1756. The superior soft-paste made at Sèvres put it in the leading position
in Europe in the second half of the 18th century. The first soft-paste in
England was demonstrated in 1742, apparently based on the Saint-Cloud formula.
In 1749 a patent was taken out on the first bone china,
subsequently perfected by Josiah Spode. The main English porcelain makers in the
18th century were at Chelsea, Bow, St James's, Bristol,
Derby and Lowestoft.
Porcelain was ideally suited to the energetic Rococo curves of
the day. The products of these early decades of European porcelain are
generally the most highly regarded, and expensive. The Meissen modeler Johann Joachim Kaendler and Franz Anton Bustelli of Nymphenburg are
perhaps the most outstanding ceramic artists of the period. Like other leading
modelers, they trained as sculptors and produced models from which moulds were
taken.
By the end of the 18th century owning porcelain
tableware and decorative objects had become obligatory among the prosperous
middle-classes of Europe, and there were factories in most countries, many of
which are still producing. As well as tableware, early European porcelain
revived the taste for purely decorative figures of people or animals, which had
also been a feature of several ancient cultures, often as grave goods.
These were still being produced in China as blanc
de Chine religious figures, many of which had reached Europe. European
figures were almost entirely secular, and soon brightly and brilliantly
painted, often in groups with a modelled setting, and a strong narrative
element (see picture).
WEDGWOOD AND THE NORTH STAFFORDSHIRE POTTERIES
From the 17th century, Stoke-on-Trent
in North Staffordshire emerged as a major centre of pottery making. Important
contributions to the development of the industry were made by the firms of Wedgwood, Spode, Royal
Doulton and Minton.
The local presence of abundant supplies of coal
and suitable clay for earthenware production led to the early but at first
limited development of the local pottery industry. The construction of the Trent and Mersey Canal allowed the easy
transportation of china clay from Cornwall
together with other materials and facilitated the production of creamware and
bone china.
Other production centres had a lead in the production of high quality wares but
the preeminence of North Staffordshire was brought about by methodical and
detailed research and a willingness to experiment carried out over many years,
initially by one man, Josiah Wedgwood. His lead was followed by other local
potters, scientists and engineers.
Wedgwood is credited with the industrialization of the manufacture of pottery. His work
was of very high quality: when visiting his workshop, if he saw an offending
vessel that failed to meet with his standards, he would smash it with his
stick, exclaiming, "This will not do for Josiah Wedgwood!" He was
keenly interested in the scientific advances of his day and it was this
interest that underpinned his adoption of its approach and methods to revolutionize
the quality of his pottery. His unique glazes began to distinguish his wares
from anything else on the market. His matt finish jasperware
in two colours was highly suitable for the Neoclassicism
of the end of the century, imitating the effects of Ancient Roman carved
gemstone cameos like the Gemma
Augustea, or the cameo glass Portland
Vase, of which Wedgwood produced copies.
He also is credited with perfecting transfer-printing,
first developed in England about 1750. By the end of the century this had
largely replaced hand-painting for complex designs, except at the luxury end of
the market, and the vast majority of the world's decorated pottery uses
versions of the technique to the present day.
Stoke-on-Trent's supremacy in pottery manufacture
nurtured and attracted a large number of ceramic artists including Clarice
Cliff, Susie Cooper, Lorna
Bailey, Charlotte Rhead, Frederick Hurten Rhead and Jabez
Vodrey.
STUDIO POTTERY IN BRITAIN
Studio
pottery is made by artists working alone or in small groups, producing
unique items or short runs, typically with all stages of manufacture carried
out by one individual. It is represented by potters all over the world but has
strong roots in Britain, with potters such as Bernard
Leach, William Staite Murray, Dora
Billington, Lucie Rie and Hans Coper.
Bernard Leach (1887–1979) established a style of pottery influenced by
Far-Eastern and medieval English forms. After briefly experimenting with
earthenware, he turned to stoneware fired to high temperatures in large oil- or
wood-burning kilns. This style dominated British studio pottery in the mid-20th
century. The Austrian refugee Lucie Rie (1902–1995) has been regarded as
essentially a modernist
who experimented with new glaze effects on often brightly coloured bowls and
bottles. Hans
Coper (1920–1981) produced non-functional, sculptural and unglazed pieces.
After the Second World War, studio pottery in Britain was encouraged by the
wartime ban on decorating manufactured pottery and the modernist spirit of the Festival of Britain. The simple, functional
designs chimed in with the modernist ethos. Several potteries were formed in
response to this fifties boom, and this style of studio pottery remained
popular into the nineteen-seventies.Elizabeth Fritsch (1940-) took up ceramics
working under Hans Coper at the Royal College of Art (1968–1971).
Fritsch was one of a group of outstanding ceramicists who emerged from the
Royal Collage of Art at that time. Fritschs' ceramic vessels broke away from
tradditional methods and she developed a hand built flattened coil technique in
stoneware smoothed and refined into accurately profiled forms. They are then
hand painted with dry matt slips, in colours unusual for ceramics.
THE AMERICAS
Anasazi mugs from the Four
Corners area, Southwestern US. Note the T-shaped cut-out in the
left mug's handle. Ancestral Puebloan doorways often have this same shape
NATIVE AMERICAN POTTERY
The people in North, Central, and South America
continents had a wide variety of pottery traditions before Europeans arrived.
The oldest ceramics known in the Americas — made from 5,000 to 6,000 years ago — are found in
the Andean region, along the Pacific coast of Ecuador at Valdivia
and Puerto Hormiga, and in the San Jacinto Valley of Colombia;
objects from 3,800 to 4,000 years old have been discovered in Peru. Some
archaeologists believe that ceramics know-how found its way by sea to Mesoamerica,
the second great cradle of civilization in the Americas.
The best-developed styles found in the central
and southern Andes
are the ceramics found near the ceremonial site at Chavín
de Huántar (800–400 BC) and Cupisnique
(1000–400 BC). During the same period, another culture developed on the
southern coast of Peru, in the area called Paracas.
The Paracas culture (600–100 BC) produced marvelous works of embossed
ceramic finished with a thick oil applied after firing. This colorful tradition
in ceramics and textiles was followed by the Nazca
culture (AD 1–600), whose potters developed improved techniques for
preparing clay and for decorating objects, using fine brushes to paint
sophisticated motifs. In the early stage of Nazca
ceramics, potters painted realistic characters and landscapes.
The Moche cultures (AD 1–800) that flourished on the northern coast
of modern Peru produced modelled clay sculptures and effigies decorated with
fine lines of red on a beige background. Their pottery stands out for its huacos
portrait vases, in which human faces are shown expressing different emotions —
happiness, sadness, anger, melancholy — as well for its complicated drawings of
wars, human sacrifices, and celebrations.
The Mayans
were a relative latecomer to ceramic development, as their ceramic arts
flourished in the Maya Classic Period, or the 2nd to 10th
century. One important site in southern Belize is known as Lubaantun,
that boasts particularly detailed and prolific works. As evidence of the extent
to which these ceramic art works were prized, many specimens traced to
Lubaantun have been found at distant Mayan sites in Honduras and Guatemala.
Furthermore, the current Mayan people of Lubaantun continue to hand produce
copies of many of the original designs found at Lubaantun.
In the United States, the oldest pottery dates to
2500 BC. It has been found in the Timucuan Ecological and
Historic Preserve in Jacksonville, Florida, and some slightly
older along the Savannah River in Georgia.[30]
The Hopi in Northern Arizona and several other Puebloan
peoples including the Taos, Acoma,
and Zuñi
people (all in the Southwestern United States) are renowned
for painted pottery in several different styles. Nampeyo[31] and
her relatives created pottery that became highly sought after beginning in the
early 20th century. Pueblo tribes in he state of New Mexico
have styles distinctive to each of the various pueblos (villages). They include
Santa Clara Pueblo, Taos Pueblo,
Hopi Pueblos, San Ildefonso Pueblo, Acoma
Pueblo and Zuni Pueblo, amongst others. Some of the renowned
artists of Pueblo pottery include: Nampeyo, Elva
Nampeyo, and Dextra Quotskuyva of the Hopi; Leonidas
Tapia of San Juan Pueblo; and Maria
Martinez and Julian Martinez of San Ildefonso Pueblo. In the
early 20th century Martinez and her husband Julian rediscovered the method of
creating traditional San Ildefonso Pueblo Black-on Black pottery.
MEXICAN CERAMICS
Mexican
ceramics are an ancient tradition. Precolumbian
potters built up their wares with pinching, coiling, or hammer-an-anvil methods
and, instead of using glaze, burnished their pots.
STUDIO POTTERY IN THE UNITED STATES
There is a strong tradition of studio artists
working in ceramics in the United States. It had a period of growth in the
1960s and continues to present times. Many fine art, craft, and contemporary
art museums have pieces in their permanent collections.
Beatrice
Wood was an American artist and studio potter located in Ojai,
California. She developed a unique form of luster-glaze technique, and was
active from the 1930s to her death in 1998 at 105 years old. Robert
Arneson created larger sculptural work, in an abstracted representational
style. There are ceramics arts departments at many colleges, universities, and
fine arts institutes in the United States.
SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA
Pottery in Sub-Saharan Africa is traditionally
made by coiling and is fired at low temperature. The figurines of the ancient Nok culture,
whose function remains unclear, are an example of high-quality figural work,
found in many cultures, such as the Benin of Nigeria.
Ladi Kwali, a Nigerian potter who worked
in the Gwari
tradition, made large pots decorated with incised patterns. Her work is an
interesting hybrid of traditional African with western studio
pottery. Magdalene Odundo is a Kenyan-born British
studio
potter whose ceramics are hand built and burnished.
GALLERY
Ceramic art, Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University.
Ancient
Egyptian ceramic art, Louvre Museum.
Ceramic goblet from Navdatoli, Malwa, India, 1300
BCE.
A funerary urn in the shape of a
"bat god" or a jaguar, from Oaxaca, Mexico,
dated to AD 300–650. Height: 9.5 in (23 cm).
Luca
della Robbia, Virgin and Child with John the Baptist
Ming
Dynasty plate depicting dragons, in the classic blue on white
18th century tiled stove in the Catherine
Palace, St Petersburg
Industrial art example: "Korean
girl." Meissen porcelain museum.
Group with lovers, modelled by Franz Anton Bustelli, Nymphenburg, 1756.
"Angel", public art
in Melbourne,
Australia
by Deborah Halpern.(mixed media of tiles on steel
frame.)
Ceramic art display, 1963