pottery
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What is pottery?
Pottery is an ancient decorative art form. It consists of objects made of clay that are hardened by heat. The clay is molded into the desired shape, and firing protects the clay body against water. The objects are commonly useful, such as vessels for holding liquids or bowls and plates for serving food. The earliest vessels were dried in the sun, but not fired, so they could only store dry materials.
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What materials are commonly used to make pottery?
Pottery commonly uses clay, silica, and feldspar. Clay is the main ingredient because, when mixed with water, it can be molded and retain its shape. Silica, often added as quartz sand, sandstone, or flint pebbles, acts as a filler, giving the pottery strength before firing and helping it keep its shape during firing, as well as improving the final product. Feldspars, aluminosilicates containing sodium, potassium, or calcium, work as fluxing agents to lower the melting temperatures of the aluminosilicate phases.
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How is pottery created using clay?
Pottery creation begins with clay, a plastic material that hardens when fired. The earliest method involved hand-modeling, but the potter's wheel was later introduced to shape the clay by manipulating it with both hands on a rotating disc. Another method of shaping clay is molding, where clay is smeared around the inside of a basket or woven sack. After shaping, the pottery is dried and then fired in a kiln, which can be a simple hole in the ground or a more advanced oven using wood, coal, gas, or electricity. The firing process protects the clay from water and vitrifies it, resulting in a durable finished product.
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What are some basic techniques for shaping pottery?
Pottery shaping techniques include hand-modeling, slab construction, coiling, wheel throwing, jollying/jiggering, and molding.
- Hand-modeling uses fingers and thumbs to shape clay.
- Slab construction involves luting together flat clay slabs to form vessels.
- Coiling uses long clay rolls layered in a circle to build the desired shape, with walls finished by scraping and smoothing. Coil pottery is common among American Indians.
- Wheel throwing uses a rotating wheel, shaping the clay with hands for symmetry.
- Jollying/jiggering is a mechanized wheel throwing adaptation for mass production, especially for cups and plates.
- Molding presses clay into molds, with early methods using baskets as molds.
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How is pottery fired and why is this step important?
Firing pottery is a crucial step that hardens the clay, making it durable and water-resistant. The process involves heating the pottery in a kiln to high temperatures, typically starting around 900°F (500°C), which causes chemical changes that prevent the clay from returning to its plastic state.
Firing protects the clay from water damage; unfired clay will collapse if filled with water. The atmosphere in the kiln and the clay's composition influence the final color of the pottery. For structural clay products, firing temperatures usually range from 1,925° to 2,000° F (1,050° to 1,100° C).
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What are some different styles or uses of pottery in various cultures?
Pottery serves various cultural functions, with styles evolving across regions and eras.
In ancient Greece, pottery was essential for storing and transporting liquids, with painted decorations offering insights into Greek art and mythology. Geometric patterns evolved into black-figure and red-figure styles, displaying narrative scenes.
Japanese pottery values natural, accidental effects, diverging from Western norms. The tea ceremony profoundly influenced pottery, emphasizing handcraftsmanship and unique glazes.
In China, Ming dynasty pottery saw expanded production in the south, with Jingdezhen becoming a key site. Celadon dishes were traded to the Middle East, while new ceramic traditions emerged, like the purple-sand teapots of Yixing.
In North America, the Ancestral Pueblo people transitioned from baskets to grayware coil pots around 700 CE, with geometric designs. The Mimbres period of the Mogollon culture is known for its lively black and white pottery. Pueblo pottery is made by women using coils of clay and decorated with geometric, floral, animal, and bird patterns.
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pottery, one of the oldest and most widespread of the decorative arts, consisting of objects made of clay and hardened with heat. The objects made are commonly useful ones, such as vessels for holding liquids or plates or bowls from which food can be served.
Kinds, processes, and techniques
Clay, the basic material of pottery, has two distinctive characteristics: it is plastic (i.e., it can be molded and will retain the shape imposed upon it); and it hardens on firing to form a brittle but otherwise virtually indestructible material that is not attacked by any of the agents that corrode metals or organic materials. Firing also protects the clay body against the effects of water. If a sun-dried clay vessel is filled with water, it will eventually collapse, but, if it is heated, chemical changes that begin to take place at about 900 °F (500 °C) preclude a return to the plastic state no matter how much water is later in contact with it. Clay is a refractory substance; it will vitrify only at temperatures of about 2,900 °F (1,600 °C). If it is mixed with a substance that will vitrify at a lower temperature (about 2,200 °F, or 1,200 °C) and the mixture is subjected to heat of this order, the clay will hold the object in shape while the other substance vitrifies. This forms a nonporous opaque body known as stoneware. When feldspar or soapstone (steatite) is added to the clay and exposed to a temperature of 2,000 to 2,650 °F (1,100 to 1,450 °C), the product becomes translucent and is known as porcelain. In this section, earthenware is used to denote all pottery substances that are not vitrified and are therefore slightly porous and coarser than vitrified materials.
The line of demarcation between the two classes of vitrified materials—stoneware and porcelain—is extremely vague. In the Western world, porcelain is usually defined as a translucent substance—when held to the light most porcelain does have this property—and stoneware is regarded as partially vitrified material that is not translucent. The Chinese, on the other hand, define porcelain as any ceramic material that will give a ringing tone when tapped. None of these definitions is completely satisfactory; for instance, some thinly potted stonewares are slightly translucent if they have been fired at a high temperature, whereas some heavily potted porcelains are opaque. Therefore, the application of the terms is often a matter of personal preference and should be regarded as descriptive, not definitive.
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Kinds of pottery
Earthenware
Earthenware was the first kind of pottery made, dating back about 9,000 years. In the 21st century, it is still widely used.
The earthenware body varies in colour from buff to dark red and from gray to black. The body can be covered or decorated with slip (a mixture of clay and water in a creamlike consistency, used for adhesive and casting as well as for decoration), with a clear glaze, or with an opaque tin glaze. Tin-glazed earthenware is usually called majolica, faience, or delft (see below Decorative glazing). If the clear-glazed earthenware body is a cream colour, it is called creamware. Much of the commercial earthenware produced beginning in the second half of the 20th century was heat- and cold-proof and could thus be used for cooking and freezing as well as for serving.
Stoneware
Stoneware is very hard and, although sometimes translucent, usually opaque. The colour of the body varies considerably; it can be red, brown, gray, white, or black.
Fine white stoneware was made in China as early as 1400 bce (Shang dynasty). In Korea, stoneware was first made during the Silla dynasty (57 bce–935 ce); in Japan, during the 13th century (Kamakura period). The first production of stoneware in Europe was in 16th-century Germany. When tea was first imported to Europe from China in the 17th century, each chest was accompanied by a red stoneware pot made at the Yixing kilns in Jiangsu province. This ware was copied in Germany, the Netherlands, and England. At the end of the 17th century, English potters made a salt-glazed white stoneware that was regarded by them as a substitute for porcelain (see below Decorative glazing). In the 18th century, the Englishman Josiah Wedgwood made a black stoneware called basaltes and a white stoneware (coloured with metallic oxides) called jasper. A fine white stoneware, called Ironstone china, was introduced in England early in the 19th century. In the 20th century, stoneware was used mostly by artist-potters, such as Bernard Leach and his followers.
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