Palaeolithic Pottery
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…
Neolithic pottery
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…
Pottery in Egypt
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…
The potter´s wheel: 3000 BC
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…
Ceramics in Greece
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,…
Iran and Turkey
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,…
China pottery
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…
Korea - Korean potters
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…
Japanese pottery
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…
African terracotta figures: from the 5th century BC
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…
South America
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…
Middle America
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…
North America
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…
Ceramics - Forming techniques
Pottery can be produced in three basic forming traditions: handwork, wheel work, and slipcasting. It’s very common for wheel-worked pieces to be finished by handwork techniques. Slipcast pieces tend not to be, as that negates one of the prime advantages of casting. Handwork methods…
Decorative and finishing techniques
Additives can be worked into moist clay, prior to forming, to produce desired characteristics to the finished ware. Various coarse additives, such as sand and grog (fired clay which has been finely ground) give the final product strength and texture, and contrasting colored clays…
Glazing and firing techniques
Glazing is the process of coating the piece with a thin layer of material that during firing forms a glass coating. Compositions are varied but are usually a mixture of minerals that fuse at temperatures lowers than the body itself. This is important for functional earthenware vessels,…
Raku
Rakuyaki or Raku is a form of Japanese pottery characterized by low firing temperatures (resulting in a fairly porous clay body), lead glazes, and the removal of pieces from the kiln while still glowing hot. In the traditional Japanese firing process, the pot is removed from the hot…
Western raku techniques
The use of a reduction chamber at the end of the raku firing was introduced by the American potter Paul Soldner in the 1960s, in order to compensate for the difference in atmosphere between wood-fired Japanese raku kilns and gas-fired American kilns. Typically, pieces removed from…
Porcelain
Porcelain is a hard ceramic substance made by heating at high temperature selected and refined materials often including clay in the form of kaolinite. Porcelain clay when mixed with water forms a plastic paste which can be worked to a required shape or form that is hardened and made…
Faience
Faience or faïence is the conventional name in English for fine tin-glazed earthenware on a delicate pale buff body. The invention of a pottery glaze suitable for painted decoration, by the addition of an oxide of tin to the slip of a lead glaze, was a major advance in the history…
Slipcasting
Slipcasting is an easy technique for the mass-production of pottery, especially for shapes not easily made on a wheel. A liquid clay slip (technically a slip) is poured into plaster moulds and allowed to form a layer, the cast, on the inside cavity of the mould. The slip can be formulated…
The word ceramic
The word ceramic can be traced back to the Greek term keramos, meaning “a potter” or “pottery”. Keramos in turn is related to an older Sanskrit root meaning “to burn.” Thus the early Greeks used the term to mean “burned stuff” or “burned earth” when referring to…
Pablo Picasso - clay sculpting
Already world famous for his paintings, and with his notorious Blue, Rose and Cubism periods behind him, Picasso started to learn the art of clay sculpting in 1948. He worked at the Madoura pottery works in the small Cote d’Azur town of Vallauris. Picasso lived there for seven years…
