Egypt


Pottery was one of the earliest art forms undertaken by the ancient Egyptians. This piece from the Predynastic period (5000 bc-3000 bc) is decorated with ostriches, boats, and geometrical designs.

In the 5th millennium bc Egyptian potters made graceful, thin, dark, highly polished ware with subtle cord decoration. The painted ware of the 4th millennium, with geometric and animal figures on red, brown, and buff bodies, was not of the same high standard. Dynastic Egypt was famous for its faience (to be distinguished from the later European ceramics of that name). First made about 2000 bc, it is characterized by a dark green or blue glaze over a body high in powdered quartz, somewhat closer to glass than to true ceramics. Egyptian artisans made faience beads and jewelry, elegant cups, scarabs, and ushabti (small servant figures buried with the dead).
 


Greece


The Northampton Vase is an example of Greek vase painting from the late 600s and early 500s bc. The shape of this vase is known as an amphora, one of six standard shapes used in pottery at that time. The mythological creatures and delicate, floral designs reflect the Greek interest in Oriental imagery, and these forms are augmented with white and brown highlights.


The fashioning and painting of ceramics was a major art in classical Greece. Native clay was shaped easily on the wheel, and each distinct form had a name and a specific function in Greek society and ceremonial: The amphora was a tall, two-handled storage vessel for wine, corn, oil, or honey; the hydria, a three-handled water jug; the lecythus, an oil flask with a long, narrow neck, for funeral offerings; the cylix, a double-handled drinking cup on a foot; the oenochoe, a wine jug with a pinched lip; the crater, a large bowl for mixing wine and water. Undecorated black pottery was used throughout Greek and Hellenistic times, the forms being related either to those of decorated pottery or to those of metalwork. Both styles influenced Roman ceramics.

Even in the Bronze Age, the Greeks took advantage of oxidizing and reducing kilns to produce a shiny black slip on a cream, brownish, or orange-buff body, the shade depending on the type of clay. At first, decorative designs were abstract. By the Middle Bronze Age (2000-1500 bc), however, stylized forms from nature appeared. By the Late Bronze Age, plants, sea creatures, and fanciful animals were painted on pots of well-conceived shape by the Mycenaeans, who were initially influenced by Cretan potters. Athenian geometric style replaced the Mycenaean about 1000 bc and declined by the 6th century bc. Large craters in the Geometric style, with bands of ornament, warriors, and processional figures laid out in horizontal registers, were found at the Dipylon cemetery of Athens; they date from about 750 bc.

Attic potters introduced black-figure ware in the early 6th century. Painted black forms adorned the polished red clay ground, with detail rendered by incising through the black. White and reddish-purple were added for skin and garments. Depictions of processions and chariots continued; animals and hybrid beasts were also shown (particularly in the Orientalizing period, roughly 700 to 500 bc), at times surrounded by geometric or vegetal motifs. Such decoration was always well integrated with the vessel shapes, and the iconography of Greek mythology is clear. Beginning in the 6th century, the decoration emphasized the human figure far more than animals. Favorite themes included people and gods at work, battle, and banquet; musicians; weddings and other ceremonies; and women at play or dressing. In some cases, events or heroes were labeled. Mythological and literary scenes became more frequent. Potters' and painters' names and styles have been identified, even when they did not sign their works.

Red-figure pottery was invented about 530 bc, becoming especially popular between 510 and 430. The background was painted black, and the figures were left in reserve on the red-brown clay surface; details on the figures were painted in black, which allowed the artist greater freedom in drawing. The paint could also be diluted for modulating the color. Secondary colors of red and white were used less; gold sometimes was added for details of metal and jewelry. Anatomy was rendered more realistically, and after 480, so were nuances of gesture and expression. Although Athens and Corinth were centers for red-figure pottery, the style also spread to the Greek islands. By the 4th century bc, however, it declined in quality. Another Greek style featured outline drawing on a white ground, with added colors imitating monumental painting; these vessels, however, were impractical for domestic use.

                      


Iran and Turkey


This mug was made in 16th-century Turkey during the Ottoman Empire. It is earthenware, with a white underglaze and blue, purple, and red overglazes. The floral and calligraphic designs are similar to those found in most Islamic art. This piece is part of the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

The Seljuk dynasty that ruled Iran, Iraq, Asia Minor, and Syria in the 12th and 13th centuries found substitutes for porcelain, and the Iranian cities of Rayy and Kāshān became centers for this white ware. Another fine Seljuk type was Mina'i ware, an enamel-overglaze pottery that, in its delicacy, imitated illuminated manuscripts. Kāshān potters, after the 13th-century Mongol conquests, used green glazes influenced by Chinese celadons. Cobalt-blue glazes appeared in Iran in the 9th century but later fell out of use. They were taken up again in the 14th to the 18th century in response to the popularity of blue-and-white ware with Chinese and European clients.

İznik was the center for Turkish pottery. There slip-painted pieces influenced by Persian and Afghanistani ware predated the Ottoman Turks' conquest of the region. Later, between 1490 and 1700, İznik ware displayed decorations painted under a thin transparent glaze on a loose-textured white body; in its three stages the designs were in cobalt blue, then turquoise and purple, then red.

During the Safavid dynasty, Kubachi ware, contemporary to İznik pottery, was probably made in northwestern Iran, and not at the town of Kubachi where it was found. Characteristic Kubachi pieces were large polychrome plates, painted underneath their crackle glazes. Gombroon ware, exported from that Persian Gulf port to Europe and the Far East in the 16th and 17th centuries, featured incised decorations on translucent white earthenware bodies. Copper-colored Persian lusterware was fashionable in the 17th century, as was polychrome painted ware.

In general, Islamic pottery was made in molds. Shapes were either Chinese inspired or were the basic shapes of metalwork. In addition to lusterware, the most creative work was the manufacture of tiles for mosques.


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