Pottery

“ On almost every mesa are the remains of ancient dwellings. There are arrowmaker’s chips and fragments of pottery, and crude colored beads that may have delighted some wee maiden with their brilliance. The pottery shows two distinct varieties, the finger-nail decorations covering the blackened bowls which seem to have served as cooking utensils, and the finer pottery, on which the black and white tracings are as startlingly vivid today, as they were so many, many centuries ago when they were drawn by the day-dreaming housewife as she sat in the sun and painted the fanciful designs. ”

“ An art like pottery-making, which is nearly as old as the human race, is naturally approached with some degree of reverence. One thinks of its old masters in various lands and ages—how they were content to spend a lifetime in the study and practice of it.
There is, however, another thought that comes to mind—that this art, like every other, had to have its beginning. Moreover, every potter, from the primitive man who first realised that clay which held water could be moulded into portable vessels for a like purpose, to the artist potter of to-day, has learned the first steps of the craft. ”

“ The decorative element disappears, and pottery becomes, as in its earliest days, a mere utilitarian industry, the secrets of its former technical achievements irrevocably lost, its ornamentation reduced to the simplest and roughest kinds of decoration, and its status among the products of human industry once more limited to the mere supplying of one of the humblest of men’s needs. ”

“ Modern pottery is either moulded by hand, thrown on the potter’s wheel, or cast in moulds. After it has been formed, it is generally decorated, either by the artist-potter himself or by some young man or woman who has learned design as applied to pottery. The decoration is either painted with colours which have been mixed with clays, like some of the Rookwood ware, or incised, modelled in relief, or built up, as the Volkmar pottery. ”

“ Individual work of merit is being produced every year in this country, and it will not be long before the solitary potter of to-day, moulding his pieces and testing his glazes in some little workshop, like a brown chrysalis, will perfect his ware; so that the tiny workshop will expand into a great building, and another beautiful ware will be added to modern American pottery. ”

“ Many young women have found, in the making of this pottery, an artistic vocation from which they reap profit and reputation. The aim of the originators from the first has been to make a ware that would be individual—one that should have a charm all its own. This has been accomplished by taking as motives for the designs the unusual and beautiful Southern flowers, plants, and trees, as well as the animal life of that part of the country. A charming pitcher has a design of snow-drops, painted in cream-white slip on a yellow-gray background. ”

“ Much of the simplicity of method and design in American pottery comes from the study of primitive processes, shapes, and decorations. Indian ware, though of less value than some others to the student of ceramics, on account of its softness of body and unglazed surface, is nevertheless full of artistic feeling and suggestion to makers of pottery. ”

“ It is impossible to determine when the manufacture of pottery was invented. Clay is a material so generally diffused, and its plastic nature is so easily discovered, that the art of working it does not exceed the intelligence of the rudest savage. Even the most primitive graves of Europe and Western Asia contain specimens of pottery, rude and elementary indeed, but in sufficient quantities to show that it was at all times reckoned among the indispensable adjuncts of daily life. ”

“ 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. ”

“ When, about the middle of the 18th century, European pottery took on its modern form, of earthenware made after the English fashion, and porcelain like the French and German, the lead or felspathic glazes used brought about another revolution in the potter’s palette. The growing ideal of mechanical perfection discounted the freedom of the earlier brushwork, and printed patterns, or painting that might almost have been printed, removed the mind still farther from the richness of painted faience or majolica. ”

“ The more simple and strong pottery designs are, the better. Those that are intricate, no matter how beautiful, are out of place on the big, substantial forms; while delicate traceries are lost under the glaze. Here, as in basketry, we can learn much from the work of primitive peoples.
In applying such designs, simple methods, too, are best—incising, building up the outline so that the design shall be raised above the background, cutting away the background to leave the design in low relief, and piercing. ”

“ The history of pottery and its manufacture is a subject of great extent; because from a very early period of human existence, known to us only by the tangible memorials of primitive inhabitants, the potter’s art appears to have been practised. At first the vessels were of coarse clay, rude and sun-dried or ill-baked, and occasionally ornamented with concentric and transverse scratches; from which state they gradually developed to the exquisite forms and decoration of the Greek pottery ”

“ The pottery is hard, and the glaze such as is applicable to a ware which fires at a great heat. The colours of Grueby pottery are beautiful and rich, ranging from an old ivory tint to golden yellows, russet browns, and velvety blues and a variety of green shades. The texture of the glaze is soft, like the bloom of a melon, and it has an unusual network of markings. No moulds are174 used in making this pottery; it is all thrown on the wheel, and, as in the old wares, no two pieces are exactly alike. ”

“ Not a single article of needlework appeared upon the stall; not a solitary pincushion, nor handkerchief sachet, nor nightdress bag, not even so much as an inoffensive tray cloth. There was pottery from Portugal, and pottery from France, pottery from Switzerland in the shape of jam and marmalade jars, originally purchased for twopence apiece, and offered for sale at an alarming sacrifice for a shilling. ”

“ The methods of decoration are incising, painting, and modelling, used together or singly, according to the requirements of the design. Great freedom is allowed in the choice of colour as well as in the decoration, each worker feeling the responsibility attached to a signed piece of pottery. Some of the ware is undecorated save for the unexpected touches of the kiln, which give charming and unusual effects. ”

“ It is to be regretted that, among the Indians, this art, like that of basketry, is passing. The coming of civilisation has brought iron and tin cooking-vessels and ordinary tableware to take the place of the bowls, platters, and cups, the jars and bottles of clay, so full of individual charm. Not only to the collector and the student of ethnology is Indian pottery of value; the potter of to-day finds much that is helpful and suggestive162 in primitive processes, as well as in the forms and decoration. ”

“ Mere chance, or the most casual observation, might have taught our earliest forefathers that a morsel of clay placed near a fire-hearth became hardened and altogether impenetrable to water, that is, that it formed a perfect specimen of pottery. Yet the art, though ancient, has not been universally found among mankind.
Ere long, experience must have taught men certain improvements in the manufacture of pottery. ”

“ They are Indian red and creamy yellow in colour, with designs of black, and rarely are two of them alike.
Fashions change in pottery as well as in other things, and freakish forms which please us to-day may be ridiculed to-morrow; but primitive wares have an enduring value. Pieces that were moulded for service, by potters whose love for nature and its beauties must needs express itself even on the decoration of a cooking-pot, will last long after the ware that is made only for money has gone back to the ground from whence it came. ”

“ My own attention was first directed to the patterns in finger-prints, as they occurred impressed on sun-baked pottery which I found in the numerous shell-heaps dotted around the great Bay of Yedo. The subject was quite unknown to me till then, in the seventies. No pottery has yet been found which belongs to the early stone stage of man’s culture. But with evidence of the use of fire, and of the manufacture of polished stone weapons, fragments of rude hand-moulded pottery—sun-baked or fire-burned—begin to be associated. ”

“ The production of pottery by hand is a form of modeling but with the important difference that while pieces modeled by art-school methods are not intended to be preserved in the clay itself, built pieces are destined for the fire. ”

“ If you live near a pottery you can procure a vase, in what is called a green or unbaked state, and ornament it with some leafy design, or if you choose you may make for yourself a vase, and having ornamented it with a design in relief, you can have it baked at a pottery. ”

“ Neatness, serviceableness and durability, English domestic wares undoubtedly possess in a degree unknown to any earlier type of pottery, but the general use of transfer-printing as the principal method of decoration, and the absence of any distinctive style of ornament, must cause them to take a low rank in comparison with the wares of past centuries, when mechanical perfection was impossible and rich colour and truly decorative painting were the chief distinctions of the pottery of every country. ”

“ The pottery of different sections of the country varies in material, form, colour, and decoration. That the ware of a certain tribe was crude and im151perfect does not necessarily indicate that the people who made it were inferior in culture, but that the natural conditions were not favourable to pottery-making. A tribe living near clay-beds would as naturally make good pottery as one around whose homes materials for basket-making grew in abundance would excel in that craft. ”

“ So important a part does the kiln play in perfecting a piece of pottery—putting the final touch upon it: the touch that shall make or mar—that the potter realises he must plan, before anything else, either to own a good kiln or to know of one where his pieces can be sent to be fired. ”

“ The pottery of Egypt, the faience of Assyria and Persia, the Greek and Etruscan vases, the famous red ware from the Isle of Samoa, and its counterpart the Roman Samian ware, the beautiful maiolica of Spain and Italy, the pottery of Rouen, St. Porchaire, Delft, and most of our English pottery are earthenwares; the paste or body consists of natural clays selected for their plasticity, their hardening qualities, their fusibility or their colour, and when burnt have a porous opaque body, usually dull in colour. ”

“ Of the pottery used for domestic purposes we know very little. According to Canon Greenwell, "the pottery which has been discovered on the site of dwelling-places is a dark-coloured, hard-baked, perfectly plain ware, without ornament of any kind, is, in fact, just what we would expect domestic pottery to be, and has nothing in which it resembles the sepulchral vessels. ”

“ This the potter set and kept in motion with his foot, leaving his hands28 free at all times to mould the clay, while the wheel was kept at a regular speed.
What is technically known as “throwing” or moulding pottery on the wheel is a process that is not learned in a moment, or even in a day. It takes time and patience, but it is certainly one of the most fascinating parts of the craft. One would have lost half of the charm of pottery-making who had not felt the plastic clay, on the potter’s wheel, rise and fall between his hands, almost as if endowed with life! ”

“ In building pieces of pottery whose walls have a decided flare, a plaster mould will be found most useful. Its sides support the coils of clay and enable the potter to form his piece much more rapidly and surely than he could by eye, or even with the cardboard outline. ”

“ In the thirteenth century pottery was reinstated in public favour; and a great advance was made in the art, a glaze being employed from the fourteenth to the beginning of the sixteenth century, when a new description of pottery was invented, a salt-glazed stoneware, which came into the market with importations of Italian fayence and oriental porcelain. ”

“ Nothing can exceed the deftness and skill with which, under the magic touch of the experienced workman, shapeless lumps of this prepared clay are fashioned into cups, dishes, vases and every conceivable form of the most delicate pottery. It is so quickly done, too! One handy operative can make two hundred cups a day. Once moulded into shape, the piece of pottery is dipped into liquid enamel which gives it hardness and brilliancy. It receives too the stamp of the manufacturer. ”

“ A comparison of the pottery immediately above and below this stratum of soil representing a period of two hundred years ought to give us some idea of the rate of progression made in the arts. And a critical comparison of the different styles of pottery with each other in different portions of the heap should give us a rude idea of the age of the shell-heaps. ”

“ The ordinances are interesting which in 1732-1733 prescribe, "that in our manufactory only pottery of the most excellent kind should be made, similar to the Chinese, to be equally fine as to the earths employed, that the models and wheels should be perfect, the drawing of a first-rate kind, and the varnish and colours excellent, and the pottery light and of good quality, for it is our express wish that the best pottery should only be distinguished from that of an inferior kind by the greater or less amount of painting which covers it." ”