Endangered Animals

Ceramic Art

Ceramics (art)• Ceramics and ceramic art in the art

world means artwork made out of clay bodies and fired into the hardened ceramic form. Some ceramic pieces are classified as fine art, while many others can be classified as one of the decorative, industrial or applied arts

• The identification of a specific pottery piece as a "work of art" is not always clear. Ceramic art usually, but not always, was intended by the maker as art.

• It may have a signature, designer name or brand name stamp on the bottom. Ceramic art can be either manufactured by individuals or in a factory that employs artists to design, produce or decorate the ware.

• Historically, ceramic articles were prepared by shaping the clay body, a clay rich mixture of various minerals, into the desired shapes before being subjected to high temperatures in a kiln.

• However ceramics now refers to a very diverse group of materials which, while all are fired to high temperature, may not have been shaped from material containing any clay.

• Ceramic art has an extensive prehistoric development in the Chinese, Cretan, Greek, Roman, Persian, Mayan, and numerous other cultures.

Diomedes and Polyxena, from

the Etruscan amphora of the Pontic group,

ca. 540–530 BC. From Vulci.

Mediterranean Venus of Dolni Vestonice

Chinese porcelain, Tang Dynasty: Horse, glazed porcelain (funeral gift). Museum für Ostasiastische Kunst, Berlin.

Wine jar, Zhou Dynasty (1050-771 BC), collection of Art Institute of Chicago

North America: A canteen (pot) excavated from the ruins in Chaca Canyon, New Mexico

• Fine art ceramics include ceramic art made by hand and designed to be purely art, that is to be looked at and enjoyed visually and contemplativey. The use of cerami art as a choice of medium for artistic impression.

• Picture taken at Delapre Abbey by R Neil Marshman 18 Oct 20

Picture taken at Delapre Abbey by R Neil Marshman 18 Oct 20

Industrial art ceramics• Industrial art ceramics includes

ceramics made in factories that employ artists to design or handpaint the ceramics, or industrial-minded art collectives, and is often known by the name of the founder or the brand name of the product line.

• Jasperware (or jasper ware) is a form of pottery that has a stoneware body which is either white or colored, which is noted for its matte finish. It was first developed by Josiah Wedgwood and its best known form is the popular blue-and-white ware, but it comes in many other colors.

• Industrial art example: "Korean girl." Meissen porcelain museum.

• Pottery is the ceramic ware made by potters. In everyday usage the term is taken to encompass a wide range of ceramics, including earthenware, stoneware and porcelain.

• Pottery is made by forming a clay body into objects of a required shape and heating them to high temperatures in a kiln to induce reactions that lead to permanent changes, including increasing their strength and hardening and setting their shape.

• The potter's most basic tools are the hands, but many additional tools have been developed over the long history of pottery manufacture, including the potter's wheel and turntable, shaping tools (paddles, anvils, ribs), rolling tools (roulettes, slab rollers, rolling pins), cutting/piercing tools (knives, fluting tools, wires) and finishing tools (burnishing stones, rasps, chamois).

Man shaping pottery in Cappadocia, Turkey. Photo taken by Randy Oostdyk

Pottery making in Kathmandu, Nepal

• A glaze is a vitreous coating to a ceramic material whose primary purposes are decoration or protection. Glazes can be considered specialised forms of glass and therefore can be described as amorphous (a material that changes threw reaction) solids. Glazing is the process of coating the piece with a thin layer the raw materials which, on firing, will form a hard, glass-like coating.

Contemporary Okinawan pottery Japan

Composite body, painted, and glazed bottle. Dated 16th century. From Iran. New York Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Mug with blue underglaze decoration on porcelain