George James Cox

“ The study of the fictile art of the potter, even from the theoretical side alone, cannot fail to quicken and broaden education. The antiquity of the craft, stimulating research amongst the records of ancient civilizations, brings to light customs and habits bearing very closely upon the earliest struggles of man to emancipate himself from mere brute surroundings. The primitive decorations rudely scratched on clay vessels antedate and forecast the hieroglyphic and sign languages of all nations. ”

“ The finest work in pottery was not produced by scientists alone and does not depend altogether upon the quality of its paste, its unique colour, or strange lustre. The last word, the form, decoration, and craftsmanship, is with the artist. ”

“ Sharp edges are always bad, and projections that are liable to crack in the fire or break at a touch are a fruitful source of loss, and are, at the best, doubtful craft. It is quite possible to produce delightful figures glazed with low-firing glazes, and where a wide range of colour is desired, they are the only glazes available. But for delicate modelling, where colour is a secondary consideration and where refinements may be obscured by too much gloss, the grand feu porcelain or salt glaze are the best and only alternatives. ”

“ To a craftsman the fabrication of one fine individual glaze or lustre is an achievement of which he may be proud, and for which he will find abundant and varied uses. In this connection it is encouraging to the craftsman to learn from so high an authority as W. Burton, Esq., F.C.S., that it is impossible to obtain with purified oxides the fine tones got by the Orientals with impure materials. Further, that the simple glaze of the Persians—a mixture of clean white sand with soda or wood ash or potash—is still the best for under-glaze painting. ”

“ In China the art decadence of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, coupled with internal revolutions, has sadly dimmed her plots, dispersed her potters, and all but destroyed her priceless traditions.
For the further development of pottery in Europe and America and Asia the student has many excellent books to consult. From the seventeenth century the ramifications are rapid and all-embracing, giving, however, more joy to the collector than to the artist.14 Modern work has made an enormous advance in the science of the craft. ”

“ Before turning to more sophisticated work it would be well to learn the lesson of simplicity and fitness here taught by primitive folks. The simple beginning leads to the simple, strong, and satisfying end. Much of this primitive work is inspiring for its freshness or naïveté; its unspoiled innate taste allied to downright common sense. Properly approached, it should be a sure corrective to any desire for unsightly new shapes or extravagance in decoration. ”

“ Lustres of all shades, crystalline, star, and crackle glazes with safe methods of oxidizing and reducing in the fire, have been brought to perfection. Yet, with some few exceptions, commerce seems writ large upon them all and their very perfection of finish damns them in the eyes of an artist. ”

“ These processes are certainly tedious, but that will not deter a craftsman searching for the right clay in which best to shape his ideas. To the craftsman working alone it is the only way by which he can accommodate his clays to the various necessities of throwing, casting, or modelling. Each process will require a slightly different nature in the clay if the finest results are to be obtained.
Although in this craft book we shall not approach porcelain, a good, hard, true-ringing body with a tough well-fitting glaze should be a sine qua non with all craftsmen ”

“ The application of glaze has already been described. A pot possessing a noble form and glaze is obviously in no need of decoration; no artist would attempt it. The Chinese and Japanese are safe guides here. Their rich glazes and fine forms are set off in the simplest and most effective manner. This is potting, pure and simple.
Under relief, we group all modelling,—raised or sunk, embossments, flutings, mouldings, feet, handles, or applied figures. At one extreme come the earliest attempts at decoration in slip or clay, highly developed in the Gallo- and Egypto-Roman and Romano-British wares. ”

“ Pottery is an exacting and difficult craft, abounding in as many trials and disappointments as excitements and rewards. Its true devotee must suffer. Yet the delightful tale of Palissy’s heroic battle16 should hearten the more fortunate student of to-day. ”

“ Putting aside salt glaze we find a countless number of both lead and leadless glazes. They range from the thin silicious coating of the ancients up to the rich alkaline glazes of the Persians and Chinese; from the raw galena of peasant pottery to the rich Majolicas and fine hard glazes of modern commerce. Salt glaze is obtained by the vaporizing of salt inside the kiln at a great heat. The sodium oxide so formed combines with the silicates in the clay to form a very thin coat of refractory glass, intimately connected with the body. ”

“ The divinity that presides over potting is an expensive as well as an exacting mistress. The equipment of even a small pottery is, unfortunately, a matter of considerable expense. Try it from whatever angle we may there is the cost of the kiln to be faced, besides a host of other small but cumulative expenses. The first essential is, of course, a roomy workshop with if possible a top as well as a side light. If the craftsman means business, he should remember that the initial cost of a kiln is often in inverse ratio to its upkeep. ”

“ The making of a bowl, with the concentration required to shape it in a manner at once beautiful and serviceable, must quicken the perception of beauty and sharpen the quality of judgement, not only for things fictile, but in far wider fields. ”

“ A painter might far more reasonably be ashamed to use modern tube colours or a stained-glass craftsman as logically insist on making his own glass, as a potter in the twentieth century refuse to avail himself of the wonderful range of glazes that modern research has placed at his disposal. ”

“ In the hurried curricula of to-day art plays a rather sorry part. Little time indeed is left for contemplation, for the realization of all that beauty and harmony in our surroundings may mean to us in our everyday work. ”

“ In packing a kiln with biscuit or glaze much care, thought, and expedition have to be exercised. An experienced setter is essential in a factory if the pots are to have every chance in the fire, for all kilns vary and have their hot and cool corners. First, the floor is well bedded with quartz sand or flint that will not vitrify but will provide a good setting for the bottom saggars. These saggars are fire-clay boxes, round or oval, rarely square, and without lids, in which the pots are placed. Piled one above another they form the bungs, the bottom of one supplying the top of that beneath. ”

“ It is a medium at once attractive and easy to mould, giving a tangibility and reality to forms and things that can never be obtained by drawing or painting. Then the limitless uses to which clay is put, and, with the development of hygiene, increasingly will be put, have the closest bearing upon the everyday life of the child. They are intimately connected with other studies that cannot fail to be rendered more attractive by working in clay. ”

“ It is12 to them that the student must turn to see the summit of the potter’s art, which, it is logically contended, commences on the wheel and ends at the glost oven with the potter, the only attendant from the pot’s inception to its finish. Painting or modelling is not essential to its perfection and unless applied by a true disciple detracts rather than adds to the beauty of the piece.
In China, where tradition holds that earthenware was first made in 2698 B.C., the art of the potter, in body, shape, glaze, and colour, through centuries reached perfection. ”

“ It is here that the commercial potter is such an admirable fellow. Many of the glazes on modern tablewares are perfect for their purposes. Sometimes only a little more fire is needed to stop the nuisance, but a bad craze usually needs more attention.122 The glaze requires stiffening, and the addition of ground flint or quartz, China stone or clay and felspar introduces alumina and silica and raises the fusing point. The substitution of borax for a portion of the silica can also be tried and will permit the use of slightly lower firing point. ”

“ It is no part of a craftsman’s work to go finnicking with file and sandpaper; too frequently nothing remains of what might have been a vigorous shape but a meticulous finish. The best Japanese work was superb in this respect and despite the many quaint and surprising shapes into which they fashioned the clay, it very rarely seems to lose its plastic character, it never assumes forms more suited to metal, wood, or stone. ”

“ The wheel is the true fountain head of all beautiful shapes, and the student who would become a potter cannot get “on the wheel” too soon. Throwing, sometimes spinning, is the term applied to the making of shapes on the wheel. Interesting and really fine pots may be built or cast, but the ultimate appeal rests with the thrown shape. ”

“ A simple palette is prepared with the colours ground upon a slab of glass. The medium employed is a solution of gum arabic and water, the colours being applied directly to the green shape with a brush. The difficulty of firing glaze on the135 raw clay deters any attempt at high finish, and the absorbent ground develops a desirable freedom and directness of touch. When painted, the pot is dipped or poured in a transparent glaze and fired. The gum prevents the colour shifting during the immersion, but does not prevent the glaze adhering. ”

“ Some of the hard pastes are so stiff or short that they require soap water to give plasticity, but usually after a thorough wedging it is now ready for the thrower.
Generally speaking, kaolin, China clay, ball clay, pipe clay, China stone, felspar, flint, quartz, sand, lime, chalk, and calcined bone are the ingredients of most modern pastes. These supply the alumina, silica, lime, potash, and soda, with traces of iron and magnesia, that are found in all clays when analyzed. Carbon is only present in impure bodies fired at a low heat. ”

“ The oil kiln differs considerably from the gas kiln. The oil is fed through tubes into fire boxes some distance below the bottom of the muffle. It burns on asbestos fibre in an iron pan to which the draught can be admitted. The flames strike the bottom of the muffle and pass up through fire-clay pipes, which project into the muffle, then pass off through a twin flue regulated by dampers. With this kiln a long flue is necessary and any excess of carbon is liable to choke the pipes, and further it cannot be “sweated” up at the finish so easily as a gas kiln having a large number of burners. ”

“ In such a spacious craft as Pottery it is difficult to steer a fair course between the empirical and the scientific. With that in mind this book sets out to tell in simple terms some of the processes of Potting, practicable to the student and to the more finished craftsman. ”

“ The gas and oil kilns described in Chapter IX are excellent as far as they go, and indeed the only practicable kind for indoor schools. But their restricted size soon becomes irksome to a craftsman, whilst the expense of firing makes only the finest work remunerative. For over-glaze work they are excellent, but for some reason glazes fired in them seem to lack some of the richness and maturity the same glazes exhibit when fired in the slower and more soaking fire of a brick kiln. ”