Ceramic industry

“ The manufacture of the greater number of these articles, if intended for persons of rank, did not fail to engage the industry of artisans and the talent of artists. Spoons, forks, nut-crackers, cruet-stands, sauce-boats, &c., furnished inexhaustible subjects for embellishment and chasing; knife-handles, made of ivory, cedar-wood, gold, or silver, were also fashioned in the most varied forms. Until ceramic art introduced plates more or less costly, they naturally enough followed the shape of dishes, which in fact they are, on a small scale. ”

“ In the open air children are painting the cups. Each artist paints with his own colour and his own few strokes, whether a leaf, a tree, a man’s dress or beard, and passes it over to his neighbour, who in turn applies his brush to paint what is his share in the decoration.” Unfortunately there is no reason to suppose that the writer made his observations with an expert eye which would make a distinction between pottery and porcelain, but in any case it is certain that he found a vast ceramic industry in full blast at Tê-hua. ”

“ Manufacture of European porcelain had not ceased during the years British earthenware dominated the American ceramic market, but the nature of the product had changed considerably. The French porcelain industry, in particular, had evolved from a restricted craft patronized by royalty to a number of independently owned factories turning out standardized dinnerwares for the public taste. These relatively inexpensive wares appealed to Americans as well as Europeans, 22 and French porcelains were imported in quantity beginning around 1850. ”

“ The great expense attending the production of works of art is not, however, the only drawback with which the American manufacturer has to contend. It may, in fact, be said that the impediments to the rapid advancement of ceramic art in America have not yet been touched upon. They consist of neither the lack of capital, enterprise, experience, nor skill.
It is a singular fact that while native manufacture advances with rapid strides, and finds on all sides a public ready to give it a hearty reception, native art must force its way to recognition. ”

“ Besides this, we notice in the English céramiste a want of sincerity, with the result that at first sight you cannot tell what manner of substance you are looking at, whether it is porcelain or dirty ivory, or again a gilt ceramic ware rather than a bronze with a poor patina.’ A curious point in connection with this criticism is that, if I am not mistaken, a good deal of the work thus severely dealt with has been designed, if not executed, by French artists. It is made, however, to satisfy the demand of our great unleavened middle-class. ”

“ Among London establishments who, from a long and intimate connection with some of the more eminent of our porcelain works, may almost be considered to be manufacturers, are the following. To these firms the world owes many of the most striking and beautiful of ceramic productions. These have been designed by the firms themselves, and made specially for them; they thus become literally their own productions. ”

“ In Europe, where the value of the various ceramic productions has been more investigated than in the other parts of the world, there is hardly an amateur who does not recognize the superiority of a soft porcelain for decorated articles, and if the English china is not, properly speaking, as soft as the old Sèvres, it is certainly nearer to it than any other porcelain. ”

“ Fig. 337.
At the commencement of the eighteenth century, the ceramic art in this country was beginning to expand in a remarkable degree, and many important strides for its improvement were taken. The brown-ware dishes, tygs, and other vessels for domestic use, were still made as before, and stoneware bottles, ale pots, and other articles continued to be produced; but, beyond these, some much finer kinds of earthenware were introduced, which gradually took their place. ”

“ The goods produced at Cauldon Place embrace almost every description of ceramics. In earthenware all the usual table and toilet services, and useful and ornamental articles of every class are made. The quality is peculiarly good, hard, compact, and durable, and the patterns chaste and effective. They are produced in white and in every variety of printed, flown, enamelled, painted, and gilt patterns. ”

“ If, for instance, some of the highly advanced Alaskan tribes which do not make pottery should migrate to another habitat, less suitable to the practice of their old arts and well adapted to art in clay, and should there acquire the art of pottery, they would doubtless, to a great extent, copy their highly developed utensils of wood, bone, ivory, and basketry, and thus reach a high grade of ceramic achievement in the first century of the practice of the art ”

“ Colors are prepared from refractory materials and upon clay or soft burned biscuit ware, scenes, in more or less conventional form, are painted, or else a design purely conventional in character is applied by the artist. The ware is then glazed and subjected to the severe fire which all porcelain undergoes. The result is that the porcelain and the painting are united in a sense that can never be the case with over-glaze treatment. The colors become part of a purely ceramic unit; the spirit of the artist is fixed by the fire. ”

“ It has been noted that during a certain period—namely, the 3rd and 2nd centuries B.C.—ceramic art had reached the same stage of evolution all round the Mediterranean, painted pottery had been ousted by metal-work, and such vases as continued to be made were practically imitations of metal both in Greece and Italy. ”

“ Applied ornament of roughly modelled clay and scratched designs were the chief embellishments of such wares, which were of the same class as the medieval pottery of Great Britain and the north of Europe. In the 12th and 13th centuries, however, contact with Asia Minor, Syria, Egypt and Spain, where ceramic skill had been highly developed in fresh directions, as we have seen, introduced into Italy as well as the rest of Europe those superior wares characterized by a white surface decorated with bright colours under a brilliant transparent glaze, and glorified by metallic lustres. ”

“ In a native work on porcelain it is said: “The painting and decoration of vases is a secret that it is not permitted to reveal.” Similar instances present themselves on every hand. The production of any unusually beautiful color, although really only one-half of the difficulty with which the ceramic artist has to contend, is universally regarded as a triumph. Such were the efforts upon which the potters of China expended their skill, and upon which the emperors of the Flowery Kingdom bestowed rewards. There are dynastic colors, but no dynastic style of ornamentation with design. ”

“ The goods produced by the Company are of the usual useful classes of table, tea, toilet, and other requisites, in fine earthenware, stoneware, buff, turquoise, and cream-coloured ware; and in decorations of the fine earthenware services improvements have been effected by which the printing of enamel upon the glaze, and lining on the bisque, are effected. The last is produced at considerable less cost than enamel lines, and while making a tolerably near approach in point of colour, is more durable, because protected by the glaze. ”

“ To understand the important influence of this aristocratic patronage upon the scattered kilns of Japan (only a few of these, indeed, produced porcelain) , I cannot do better than quote the words of Captain Brinkley, perhaps our first authority on Japanese ceramics: ‘During the two centuries that represent the golden age of Japanese ceramic art, that is to say, from 1645 to 1845, every factory of any importance was under the direct patronage either of the nobleman in whose fief it lay, or of some wealthy amateur whose whole business in life was comprised in the cultivation of the Cha-no-yu. ”

“ Champion is in possession of the result of all his experiments and real discoveries with respect to the art of manufacturing these raw materials into porcelain, no essential part of which has been revealed by him to the public, either in his specifications or otherwise, then there is reason to expect a very large and extensive manufactory of porcelain will be established in various parts of this kingdom, to the great benefit of the public, without any injury to Mr. ”

“ We now know that, from Lake Superior to Peru and Chili we can traverse the sites of old settlements and find the vestiges of peoples who lived we cannot tell how many hundred or thousand years ago. In the history of ceramic art America in no way differs from Europe or Asia. We can begin with the sun-dried bricks of the Peruvians, or Mound-builders, and end with the porcelain of Greenpoint. ”

“ Different kinds of wood and coal are used. Efforts are made to adopt gaseous fuels, with which alone we can expect to be able to obtain a complete mastery over the baking.
Having reviewed as succinctly as possible the principal points in the fabrication of porcelain, we now come to the description of the processes employed to enrich that beautiful material. The art of fixing colors on pottery differs essentially from that of fixing them on cloths, wood, and paper; besides, special qualities, distinguishing it from all other kinds, are exacted of ceramic decoration. ”

“ The materials being finely ground together, the teeth are either cast or pressed in metal moulds, the inner surface of the moulds being oiled, as is usual when metal moulds are used in potting, to prevent the adhesion of the clay or slip. It will surprise most potters to learn of ceramic articles being made, or cast, from ‘slip’ in metal moulds ”

“ A wide range is before us from which to choose—from the vulgarity of overloaded glaring colors and gilt, to the most exquisite simplicity of design and perfection of workmanship. Every house-keeper ought to visit an extensive collection, and, by comparing and contrasting one style with another, learn in what the true beauty of ceramic decoration consists. The painting and moulding of pottery and porcelain are quite as important as oil-painting and sculpture. ”

“ Imitations are mingled with works showing a developing originality. The Mussulman and Persian traditions become modified, and the symbolical meaning of the animals painted on the dishes and basins appears to have become obscure to the artists employing them as decoration.{217}
A great deal of the African pottery can only be taken as a basis for conjecture. Its place of manufacture is unknown. Its style is peculiar and its coloring unique. It is not impossible that European art was paying the debt it had incurred to Southern teachers. Ceramic art travelled with the Saracens wherever they went. ”

“ Cookworthy, of Plymouth, took out a patent for the sole use of the materials in question, called in the patent moor-stone or growan, and growan clay, for the making of porcelain, which is defined to have a fine colour and a lucid grain, and likewise to be as infusible as the Asiatic. ”

“ Among Japanese ceramic products there is a big middle class, what we have called kaolinic stoneware. Wares of this kind, when made in neighbouring kilns and differing in their decoration in no way from what may be classed as true porcelain—and this is the case in the pottery districts of Kaga and around Kioto—have naturally found their way within our limits. ”

“ The ceramics of England are of special interest to the American reader. In many of our old homes are to be found samples of English pottery and porcelain brought to this country long before Revolutionary{390} times. Many of them are, like heirlooms, passed on from generation to generation, the remnants being all the more highly prized as they become fewer in number. A great deal of the earthen-ware and porcelain used here within the last century has come from the centres of which we have been treating. To the student of the art, also, England has an interest all its own. ”

“ In that year he had conveyed to him, by deed, some premises which were situated “by the river running from Merton Mill to Wandsworth, in the county of Surrey,” and consisted in part of a mill, “used for a colour-mill for grinding colours for the glazeing of white ware” made by him. The original deed, which is in my own possession, was first made public by me in my “Reliquary,” and is altogether one of the most interesting contributions to the history of the ceramic art in England which has of late been made. The deed is as follows:—
THIS INDENTURE, made the Tenth Day of March, Anno Dom. ”

“ In pestles and mortars the factory has considerable trade, and of the minor articles of patch-boxes, &c., there is enormous produce. For supremacy in these objects it is indebted to the purity of the clay and felspar, producing a clear brilliant white, and singular “compactness,” resulting in remarkable hardness and durability. In sanitary ware, cabinet-stands, plug-basins, and other articles, form a staple part of the trade of these works. ”

“ This new ware was first made public at the Great International Exhibition of 1851, and from its peculiar qualities of durability, hardness, and freedom from cracking with heat, attracted considerable attention. The surface of the semi-porcelain bears every characteristic of the finest china, and, of course, in colour, in painting, and in gilding can be made quite equal to it; but it has the additional advantage of being so completely vitrified that the inside, in case of being chipped or broken, remains of its original whiteness. ”

“ A third quality of ware is called “Semi-china,” and is nearly as translucent as porcelain. It is made from American kaolin clay, with a large admixture of felspar. It is decorated in styles{459} similar to those found upon the iron-stone china. Mr. Carr also makes statuettes and busts in terra-cotta, of a warm, rich tint, and in a fine, partially translucent parian. Besides these, the works produce cream-colored ware and majolica. The latter is made into a great variety of forms—jars, pedestals, seats, boxes, and cups, the leading colors of which are a clear deep blue, yellow, and green. ”