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Pottery found in the Japanese islands has been dated, by uncalibrated radiocarbon dating, to around the 11th millennium BC, in the Japanese Palaeolithic at the beginning of the Jomon period.
This is the oldest known pottery. In Europe, burnt clay was already known in the late Palaeolithic (Magdalenian) and was used for female figurines, like the “Venus” of Dolni Vestonice(Czech Republic), as well as figures of animals.
In Palestine, Syria and south-eastern Turkey, the earliest finds of clay pots date from Neolithic times, around the 8th millennium BC (black burnished ware).
Before that, clay had been used to make statuettes of humans and animals that were sometimes burned as well. In the preceding Pre-Pottery Neolithic, vessels made of stone, gypsum and burnt lime (vaiselles blanches or white ware) had been used. Sometimes a mixture of clay and lime was used, not very successfully, in the earliest pottery.
Pottery was one of the earliest art forms undertaken by the ancient Egyptians. Pieces from the Predynastic period (5000 bc-3000 bc) are decorated with ostriches, boats, and geometrical designs.
In the 5th millennium bc Egyptian potters made graceful, thin, dark, highly polished ware with subtle cord decoration. The painted ware of the 4th millennium, with geometric and animal figures on red, brown, and buff bodies, was not of the same high standard.
Dynastic Egypt was famous for its faience (to be distinguished from the later European ceramics of that name). First made about 2000 bc, it is characterized by a dark green or blue glaze over a body high in powdered quartz, somewhat closer to glass than to true ceramics. Egyptian artisans made faience beads and jewelry, elegant cups, scarabs, and ushabti (small servant figures buried with the dead).
When a pot is built up from the base by hand, it is impossible that it should be perfectly round. The solution to this problem ia the potter’s wheel, which has been a crucial factor in the history of ceramics.
It is not known when or where the potter’s wheel is introduced. Indeed it is likely that it develops very gradually, from a platform on which the potter turns the pot before shaping another side (thus avoiding having to walk around it). By about 3000 BC a simple revolving wheel is a part of the potter’s equipment in Mesopotamia, the cradle of so many innovations.
The fashioning and painting of ceramics was a major art in classical Greece. Native clay was shaped easily on the wheel, and each distinct form had a name and a specific function in Greek society and ceremonial.
The amphora was a tall, two-handled storage vessel for wine, corn, oil, or honey; the hydria, a three-handled water jug; the lecythus, an oil flask with a long, narrow neck, for funeral offerings; the cylix, a double-handled drinking cup on a foot; the oenochoe, a wine jug with a pinched lip; the crater, a large bowl for mixing wine and water. Undecorated black pottery was used throughout Greek and Hellenistic times, the forms being related either to those of decorated pottery or to those of metalwork. Both styles influenced Roman ceramics.
Even in the Bronze Age, the Greeks took advantage of oxidizing and reducing kilns to produce a shiny black slip on a cream, brownish, or orange-buff body, the shade depending on the type of clay. At first, decorative designs were abstract. By the Middle Bronze Age (2000-1500 bc), however, stylized forms from nature appeared. By the Late Bronze Age, plants, sea creatures, and fanciful animals were painted on pots of well-conceived shape by the Mycenaeans, who were initially influenced by Cretan potters. Athenian geometric style replaced the Mycenaean about 1000 bc and declined by the 6th century bc. Large craters in the Geometric style, with bands of ornament, warriors, and processional figures laid out in horizontal registers, were found at the Dipylon cemetery of Athens; they date from about 750 bc.
Attic potters introduced black-figure ware in the early 6th century. Painted black forms adorned the polished red clay ground, with detail rendered by incising through the black. White and reddish-purple were added for skin and garments. Depictions of processions and chariots continued; animals and hybrid beasts were also shown (particularly in the Orientalizing period, roughly 700 to 500 bc), at times surrounded by geometric or vegetal motifs. Such decoration was always well integrated with the vessel shapes, and the iconography of Greek mythology is clear. Beginning in the 6th century, the decoration emphasized the human figure far more than animals. Favorite themes included people and gods at work, battle, and banquet; musicians; weddings and other ceremonies; and women at play or dressing. In some cases, events or heroes were labeled. Mythological and literary scenes became more frequent. Potters’ and painters’ names and styles have been identified, even when they did not sign their works.
Red-figure pottery was invented about 530 bc, becoming especially popular between 510 and 430. The background was painted black, and the figures were left in reserve on the red-brown clay surface; details on the figures were painted in black, which allowed the artist greater freedom in drawing. The paint could also be diluted for modulating the color. Secondary colors of red and white were used less; gold sometimes was added for details of metal and jewelry. Anatomy was rendered more realistically, and after 480, so were nuances of gesture and expression. Although Athens and Corinth were centers for red-figure pottery, the style also spread to the Greek islands. By the 4th century bc, however, it declined in quality. Another Greek style featured outline drawing on a white ground, with added colors imitating monumental painting; these vessels, however, were impractical for domestic use.
The Seljuk dynasty that ruled Iran, Iraq, Asia Minor, and Syria in the 12th and 13th centuries found substitutes for porcelain, and the Iranian cities of Rayy and Kāshān became centers for this white ware.
Another fine Seljuk type was Mina’i ware, an enamel-overglaze pottery that, in its delicacy, imitated illuminated manuscripts. Kāshān potters, after the 13th-century Mongol conquests, used green glazes influenced by Chinese celadons. Cobalt-blue glazes appeared in Iran in the 9th century but later fell out of use. They were taken up again in the 14th to the 18th century in response to the popularity of blue-and-white ware with Chinese and European clients.
İznik was the center for Turkish pottery. There slip-painted pieces influenced by Persian and Afghanistani ware predated the Ottoman Turks’ conquest of the region. Later, between 1490 and 1700, İznik ware displayed decorations painted under a thin transparent glaze on a loose-textured white body; in its three stages the designs were in cobalt blue, then turquoise and purple, then red.
During the Safavid dynasty, Kubachi ware, contemporary to İznik pottery, was probably made in northwestern Iran, and not at the town of Kubachi where it was found. Characteristic Kubachi pieces were large polychrome plates, painted underneath their crackle glazes. Gombroon ware, exported from that Persian Gulf port to Europe and the Far East in the 16th and 17th centuries, featured incised decorations on translucent white earthenware bodies. Copper-colored Persian lusterware was fashionable in the 17th century, as was polychrome painted ware.
In general, Islamic pottery was made in molds. Shapes were either Chinese inspired or were the basic shapes of metalwork. In addition to lusterware, the most creative work was the manufacture of tiles for mosques.
In Neolithic China, pottery was made by coil building and then beating the shapes with a paddle; toward the end of the period (2nd millennium bc) vessels were begun using the handbuilt technique, then finished on a wheel.
At Gansu, in northwestern China, vessels from the Pan-shan culture, made from finely textured clay and fired to buff or reddish-brown, were brush painted with mineral pigments in designs of strong S-shaped lines converging on circles. They date from 2600 bc. The early Chinese kiln was the simple updraft type; the fire was made below the ware, and vents in the floor allowed the flames and heat to rise. Lung-shan pottery, from the central plains, was wheel made. Chinese Neolithic vessels include a wide variety of shapes-tripods, ewers, urns, cups, amphorae, and deep goblets.
Life-sized terra-cotta figures are a small part of the more than 6000 figures and horses that were made for the tomb of Emperor Qin Shihuangdi of the Chinese Qin dynasty in 210 bc. They were originally painted in bright colors. The burial mound, in the northern province of Shaanxi, was discovered in 1974. Except for the white pottery, all the Shang types continued in the Zhou period (1045?-256 bc). Coarse red earthenware with lead glazes was introduced in the Warring States era (403-221 bc); this ware also resembled bronzes. In the south, stoneware with a pale brown glaze was fashioned into sophisticated shapes.
The discovery in 1974 of the terra-cotta army of Shihuangdi (Shih-huang-ti), the first emperor of the Qin (Ch’in) dynasty (221-206 bc) - an imperial legion of more than 6000 life-size soldiers and horses buried in military formation-added new dimensions to modern knowledge of the art of the ancient Chinese potters. These handsome idealized portraits, each with different details of dress, were modeled from coarse gray clay, with heads and hands fired separately at high earthenware temperatures and attached later. Afterward, the assembled, fired figures were painted with bright mineral pigments (a procedure called cold decoration), most of which have now flaked.
Tomb figures and objects with molded and painted decoration continued to be made in the Han dynasty (206 bc-ad 220); these included houses, human figures, and even stoves. Bricks sometimes were decorated with scenes of everyday animal and human activity. Gray stoneware with a thick green glaze and reddish earthenware were also produced.
During the Six Dynasties period (ad 220-589), celadon-glazed stoneware, a precursor of later porcelain celadons, began to appear. (Celadons are transparent iron-pigmented glazes fired in a reducing kiln that yield gray, pale blue or green, or brownish-olive.) Called Yüeh (or green) ware, they were less influenced than earlier pottery by the shapes of cast bronzes. Jars, ewers, and dishes became more delicate of line and classical in contour, and some had simple incised or molded ornamentation.
Chinese pottery and porcelain always exerted a strong influence in Korea, but Korean potters introduced subtle variations on Chinese models. Gray stoneware, found in tombs, was typical of the Silla dynasty (4th to 10th century ad).
Song-influenced celadons characterize pottery of the Koryŏ dynasty (918-1392). Tradicional Chosŏn pottery(1392-1910),the blue and white style ranks as some of the most beautiful in the world. Later work, although less refined, was admired for its straightforward dignity. Koreans, in turn, introduced Korean and Chinese pottery into Japan.
At the beginning of the Edo period, kaolin was discovered near Arita, in northern Kyūshū, which is still a major pottery center. This discovery enabled Japanese potters to make their own hard, pure white porcelain. One type, Imari ware (named for its port of export), was so popular in 17th-century Europe that even the Chinese imitated it.
Its bright-colored designs were inspired by ornate lacquerwork, screens, and textiles. By the late Edo period (1800-1867) Imari ware declined. Kakiemon (persimmon) porcelain, made in Arita, was a far more refined, classically shaped ware, even when its motifs were similar to Imari ware. Both wares used overglaze enamels. Nabeshima ware, also of high quality and similar to silk textiles in its designs, was reserved for members of that family and their friends; only in the Meiji era (1868-1912) was it sold commercially and imitated.
The designs were first drawn on thin tissue, and then in underglaze blue lines; the enamel colors were added and heat-fused after the glaze firing. In eastern Japan in the Edo period, Kutani was the porcelain center. Kutani vessels were grayish in color because of impurities in the clay, and their designs were bolder than those of Arita and Imari wares. Kyōto, formerly a center for enameled pottery, became famous for its porcelain in the 19th century. In the Edo period, some 10,000 kilns were active in Japan.
Contemporary taste esteems the utilitarian works of folk potters as highly as the export items of earlier centuries. New influences from Europe came with the Meiji pottery, but native folk traditions were still appreciated within the country. Potters at the old centers remain active in the 20th century, working in the same styles as their ancestors, with the same local clays. Japan’s most famous 20th-century potter is Hamada Shoji, important not only for his pottery but also as a forceful figure in the revival of folkcraft.
Hamada favored iron and ash glazes on stoneware, producing shades of olive green, gray, brown, and black, and did not sign his pots (although he signed their wooden containers). In 1955 the Japanese government declared Hamada an Intangible Treasure of the country.
The longest surviving tradition of African sculpture is figures in terracotta. Cast metal is the only other material to withstand the continent’s termites (fatal to the carved wood of most African sculpture). But the superb metal sculptures of Nigeria, beginning in about the 12th century, are of a much later period than the first terracottas.
West Africa, and in particular modern Nigeria, provides the longest and richest sequence of terracotta figures. They date back two and a half millennia to the extraordinary Nok sculptures. By around the 1st century AD figures of a wonderful severity are being modelled in the Sokoto region of northwest Nigeria.
Terracotta heads and figures have been found in Ife, dating from the 12th to 15th century - the same period as the first cast-metal sculptures of this region. At Jenne, further north in Mali, archaeologists (followed unfortunately by thieves) have recently unearthed superb terracottas of the same period.
One extraordinary group of terracottas is the exception in this mainly west African story, in that they come from south Africa where they are the earliest known sculptures. They are seven heads, found at Lydenburg in the Transvaal. Modelled in a brutally chunky style, they date from about the 6th century AD.
Pottery from about 3200 bc has been found at Ecuadorian sites, but the foremost styles appeared in Peru. There, the Chavín style (which reached its height from about 800 bc to about 400 bc), with its jaguar motifs, was succeeded in the Classic period (1st millennium ad) by one of the finest pre-Columbian potteries, that of the Mochica culture of the north coast.
Molded buff-colored vases were painted in red with vivid narrative scenes; portraitlike jars were modeled in relief with great subtlety. Both had the characteristic Peruvian stirrup spout, a hollow handle with a central vertical spout. To the south the Nazca culture produced double-spouted polychrome jars with complex stylized animal motifs.
The later Tiwanaku and Inca polychrome styles were well crafted but were less dazzling. Portrait bottles were unique to the Moche culture of Peru. Produced during the 5th and 6th centuries, they were generally hand built and used a two-colored slip for the glaze. The images represented either warriors or priests. The stirrup-spout was also used on other types of jars and bottles.
The Maya of pre-Columbian America depended on maize for their subsistence. The earliest domestic Mexican ceramics date from the Formative period (1500-1000 bc) in the Valley of Mexico. On the Gulf coast the Olmec culture produced hollow, naturalistic figurines. During the Classic period (ad 300? to 900?), pottery figurines from the east showed lively freedom of expression; those from the west were often grouped in impressionistic scenes of daily life.
At Teotihuacán in the central plateau, polychrome three-footed vessels were produced in molds. In the Post-Classic era the Toltecs occupied the central plateau, producing typical ceramics painted red on cream or orange on buff. Later, the Aztecs first assimilated earlier abstract decoration, then turned to red and orange bowls ornamented with birds and other life forms. Farther south, the Zapotecs and Mixtecs resisted Aztec influence. Besides modeled animals, humans, and gods, they made a highly burnished polychrome ware that influenced later Mexican pottery.
In the Mississippi Valley the Mound Builders of the 1st millennium bc produced painted, modeled, and incised ware. In the Southwest, fine pottery was made by the ancestors of the Pueblo peoples - notably the red-on-buff ware (ad600?-900?) of the Hohokam and the polychrome ware (1300 and later) of the Anasazi, both adorned with human and animal figures; and the delightful, distinctive Mimbres pottery (1000-1200) of the Mogollon culture, with black-on-white geometric designs, birds, bats, frogs, and ceremonial scenes.
The ancient tradition has been carried on into modern Pueblo pottery, notably in the work of Maria Martinez, who is widely known for her burnished black ware. Pottery making is an old and respected tradition among the Zuni people of North America. For example storage jar from the early 1900s was made using the “coil” method, in which long, thin coils of clay are formed around a flat, circular base and built up to create the shape of the jar, then smoothed and glazed. The white background with black and brown geometric designs is characteristic of Zuni pottery.
