The history of ceramics is a fascinating adventure into ancient cultures and into the ways in which the techniques of this art underwent refinement.

Photos this chapter courtesy The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Delia Robbia medallion, portraying Prudence, is enameled terra cotta made in Florence around 1455.

Ceramics may be defined as the mold­ing of clay or earth bodies into various plastic shapes and then using intense heat to give them permanency.It is probably the oldest of all crafts, since nothing more is needed to fashion a crude earthenware vessel than natural clay, warm sun and two hands.

Archeologists have uncovered the pottery remains of societies which antedate recorded history by hundreds of centuries.Some of these primitive jugs and bowls were made when man still did his hunting with stone axes.The ravages of time have not marred their utilitarian beauty, for when a ceramic article is fired properly it is converted into one of the most inde­structible of ordinary things.When it is shaped with imagination and skill, it can become a work of exquisite beauty.

Egyptian decorated pottery of predynastic era, before 3200 B.C.; heights are 2 to 12 inches.

Today it is possible for anyone, in his spare time, to produce eye-pleasing ce­ramic objects for the home—from simple ash trays to complete sets of dinnerware.With the advantages of modern technology, the do-it-yourself hobbyist can make ce­ramic pieces which until recently could only be turned out by the full-time pro­fessional.Best of all, perhaps, is that ce­ramics as a hobby is satisfying and exciting fun.

Despite the many innovations—easy-to-apply colors and glazes, electric kilns, pre­pared clays—enjoyed by hobbyists today, the basic methods of ceramic manufacture have not changed since the days of pre­historic man.They have been improved, embellished upon, but not essentially changed.

Of course, there is no precise history of how or when man added pottery-making to his repertoire of skills.For millions of years he used what he found lying about him, such things as seashells and gourds, to transport his precious water supply.Thus, it is not surprising that the earliest examples of earthenware are modeled after these naturally formed vessels.

In all probability, man stumbled across this revolutionary discovery as the result of some fortunate accident.Perhaps some cave children were playing by a river bank, making mud pies as youngsters still do.Maybe one inventive child shaped his mud pie after a gourd shell and left his handi­work in the sun for a few days, where it was baked into the first man-made ceramic bowl—capable of holding water.

In virtually every known primitive cul­ture the secret of making clay pottery was known.It was learned either by word of mouth or discovered independently.The tribes-people took such clay as they could find on the surface of the ground, or by some river bed, and spread it out on stone slabs.Then they picked out the rocky fragments and beat it with the hands or sticks to fashion it into the shapes they needed or fancy dictated.For ages, the tools and techniques were of the simplest: the fingers for shaping or building up ves­sels and a piece of mat or basketwork on which to work.

Then some original genius of the tribe found that by turning his support he could bring every part under his hand in suc­cession.The potter's wheel was born.

At first all pottery was hardened by dry­ing in the sun, but the increasing use of fire soon brought out the fact that a fire-baked clay vessel becomes as hard as stone.Man had no time for luxury then: everything was made strictly for utilitarian pur­poses.Thousands of years were to pass before he found that different districts pro­duce different colors of clay, which led to the use of decoration.

These ancient discoveries have been the base upon which the ceramics of the last 4000 years have been built.

Pottery-making, however, did not be­come a complete art until the technique of glazing was mastered.Simple clay is porous after being fired—it will hold water for some time, but the liquid will leak slowly through the air spaces between the clay particles.Glazing not only made ce­ramics more durable and eye-worthy, but also watertight.

Glazes are superficial layers of molten material which have been fired on the clay substance.They are as varied as the many kinds of pottery, and it must never be for­gotten that each type of ceramic body is at its best with its appropriate glaze.

The early Egyptians, Syrians and Per­sians are generally credited with develop­ing the first practical glazing material—a very uncertain alkaline.Pioneer pottery-makers found that glazes often changed the natural clay colors.They gradually learned to use iron, manganese and cobalt to tint their wares with breath-taking results.Some of the earliest glazes were colored containing copper or iron which pro­duced elegant green, turquoise and yellow vases of ancient Egyptian and Assyrian origin.

Marvelous work was wrought with these few materials, but the era of truly fine pottery dawned with the Persian, Egyptian and Syrian work that immediately pre­ceded the Crusades.

By this time, the art of glazing pottery with a clear soda-lime had been thoroughly learned by Middle East artisans.This permitted a new and revolutionary color­ing technique known as under-glazing— that is, the painting of pottery decorations before the glaze is fired.After being re­moved from the kiln, the designs could be seen in radiant hues, glowing through the transparent glaze.

Vases, tiles, oil lamps and ceremonial plates, shaped in good plastic clay, were covered with a white silicous coating, fit to receive glazes of this kind, giving the best possible ground for the painted colors then known.

While Middle East ceramists were pro­ducing their beautiful masterpieces, other cultures throughout the world were also experimenting, creating new and wondrous works of art from clay and fire.Just as the potter's wheel was discovered inde­pendently by many races, so was the use of molds and liquefied clay, known today as slip.

First to make extensive use of molds were the Greeks, who also developed the use of naturalistic painted decoration.In the Golden Age of Greece, the art of the ceramic painter was so far separated from that of the potter that each was able to put his signature on his portion of the work.The best examples of early Greek pottery often bear the marks of two master crafts­men.

At about 1000 B.C., there was a tremen­dous upheaval in Greek art.The geo­metric style of linear decoration—crowded ornamentation with repeated rows of figures, triangles, lozenges, circles and zig­zags—characterize Grecian ceramics of this period.Many of the designs were entirely local.The most elaborate were those of Athens, called Diplynware after the ceme­tery at the city gate, where the largest vases have been found.There are huge sepulchral jars which bear among the geo­metric patterns, panels filled with pictures of funerals, corpses surrounded by mourn­ers, and processions of chariots.The styl­ized human and animal figures were drawn in stark, dramatic, black silhouette.

The next significant developments took place in Italy, after Greece fell to the in­vading legions of Rome.In the centuries that followed, Greek influence was ex­tremely potent in all Roman art because so many workmen were imported either as colonists or slaves.Much early Italian pottery can be distinguished from the Greek only by a slight difference in the clay.

Two-headed horse is Cypriote terra-cotta piece from early Iron Age.stands 5% inches high

New Year’s bottle in Egyptian fience of Saite period, between the years 663 and 525 B.C.

Terra-cotta statuettes of woman or goddess and of woman baking cakes in oven date back to the 6th and 4 7th century B.C.; both are Greek (Boeotian).

Graceful Mesopotamian jug and vases date back to 11th to 13th centuries.lug is unglazed, the vase at right is lustered faience.

But Rome was to develop its own ceramic art.

The first pure Italian pottery was created from a bright red clay still found in the south of the peninsula.When ornamented, the works were molded with reliefs.Their almost dazzling luster was produced with a thin alkaline glaze which gave an ex­traordinary depth and richness to the clay colors.The earliest decoration—predom­inantly floral patterns, masks, dances, feasts, battles and other episodes of life— was copied heavily from the embossed silverware looted and brought back from Alexandria by Roman soldiers.

Almost from the start, Roman potters cast their works in clay molds, which were prepared mechanically by means of sepa­rate stamps.The final artistic effect was therefore dependent upon the potter's imagination and skill.

At about 100 A.D., the Italian art was suddenly eclipsed by the delicate ceramic pieces made in France.Rome still pro­duced its own coarse pottery for ordinary domestic use, unglazed and undecorated, which formed the bulk of ancient ceramics of all periods.But the wealthy class, for whom all fine pottery was manufactured, was won over by the superior craftsman­ship and quality offered by the Gallic potters.The colors were more vivid and the clay-paste itself was harder and more durable.Examples of this pottery, called Sigillata, are still excavated all over the Roman world, but most abundantly in central France.

An important technical development of the 2nd century was relief applied in barbotine, slip laid on by piping, which seems to have been a German innovation.(Today this technique is known as slip-trailing.) It was also about this time that lead glazes came into widespread use.

Until the 15th century, there was little advancement in ceramic technique throughout Europe.The Dark Ages were particularly dim in connection with pot­tery-making.Vessels were made for use and not for show.They were clumsily fashioned of any local clay, and if glazed at all then only with coarse lead glazes colored dull yellow or green.In no case was the workmanship above the level of the itinerant brick- or tile-maker.The best work of this 1300-year drought is found in the Gothic tile pavements of France, Germany and England.

As early as the 12th century, however, the superior artistic pottery of the Moslem nations attracted the notice of Europeans as an article of luxury for the rich.Saracen potters were often imported and patronized by wealthy connoisseurs in Italy and France.

Italian maiolica bowl from 15th century is deep, with vertical collar and flaring rim, and on foot.

Nearly foo.-nigh Italian maiolica cup was made in Faenza in the late 15th or early 16th century.

When the Moors crossed from North Africa into Spain in the 11th century, they brought with them the know-how which was to make the Iberian Peninsula the ce­ramic center of the western world.Ref­erences are found in the writings of the next three centuries to the "golden pot­tery" of Aragon and Granada.This refers to the lustrous tin-enameled earthenware, painted in metallic colors derived from silver and copper, which is the most famous of the Moorish-Spanish pottery.

In later times the site of manufacture passed to Valencia, from where in the 15th century gorgeous ceramic articles were exported to such distant places as London, Cairo and the Crimea.Potters from every kingdom in Europe pilgrimaged to Spain to learn the secrets introduced by the Moors.

Those who learned best, perhaps, were the Italians.The Renaissance was blos­soming forth; all forms of Italian art were progressed—painting, sculpture and archi­tecture as well as ceramics.And the Italian pottery of the early Renaissance repre­sented the highest achievement of the pot­ter's art in Europe.

These fine Italian wares are mostly of the type known as maiolica—earthenware coated with an opaque tin glaze or enamel as a ground for painted decoration.The name comes from the island of Majorca and was originally a misnomer.

All the beautiful and highly valued Spanish ceramics imported into Italy ar­rived on Majorcan trading ships.The Italians mistakenly supposed that the pot­tery was manufactured in Majorca, when actually it was made on the Spanish main­land.They named it accordingly.When local imitations sprang up in Italy, they were also called maiolica.The name stuck to the new tin-enamel ware which was in­troduced at the dawn of the Renaissance.

In spite of its beauty, maiolica was soon surpassed in popularity by still another new kind of ceramic ware.If ever there was a revolution in the history of ceramics it was late in the 15th century, after Marco Polo pioneered the first trading route to China and the Far East.Europe was agog over the wondrous commodities arriving on merchants ships from the Orient—silks and spices and exotic new fragrances.And a remarkable, smooth, glistening, translu­cent form of pottery.

This most exquisite of man-made ceram­ics was named by some unknown Italian shell worker in the early 1600's, who stood on a wharf in Venice watching the sailors unload a cargo of Chinese wares.Ad­miring the fine workmanship evidenced by the vases and statuettes, he likened the shape of one lustrous variety to a little pig, which in Italian is translated into porzel-lana.Today we call it porcelain.

Stamped terracotta tile is Chinese piece from Han Dynasty, dating from 206 B.C.to 220 A.D.

The history of Oriental pottery-making, for the most part, is much like that of the rest of the world.Improvements were made gradually over thousands of years, although the Japanese and Chinese appar­ently got a head-start in the field.

As early as 3000 B.C., Chinese ceramists were shaping some of the most artistic pottery in the annals of man, Europe at this date was still the home of roving bands of barbarians, who knew little more about making pottery than their earliest fore­bears.

Probably the most august age of Chinese ceramics was during the Sung Dynasty, which lasted from 960-1279 A.D.It was in this period that porcelain was first de­veloped.The earliest known examples of porcelain are of the ying ch'ing type—a soft-looking, bubbly glaze, white in color but with a faint tinge of iridescent green or blue.

Chinese artisans jealously guarded their individual techniques for producing porce­lain.The clay had to be properly aged, in many cases for centuries.Succeeding generations of potters inherited the family's supply of clay, which was buried in the ground to be dug up more than 100 years later by a potter's son or grandson.

Chinese pilgrim bottle of white clay stands 15 inches high; from T'ang dynasty, 618-906 A.D.

Head of Kuan Yin is porcelain, 7 inches high, dat­ing to Yuan dynasty in China, years 1280 to 1368.

German drinking vessel in form of owl bears Hohenzollern arms, is I6V2 inches high; dates 1550-1600.Center, ewer of Chinese porcelain from Wan Li period (1575-1619) was decorated with English mounts.Delft faience vase by Van Eenhoorn, about 1700, is one of pair, has polychrome decoration on white.

When Oriental porcelain was introduced into Europe in the 15th century, it made even the most beautiful of western pottery look shabby by comparison.European ceramists regarded the Chinese—and later, Japanese—wares with awe and envy.Am­bitious efforts were made to imitate the imported porcelain, which was in heavy demand among wealthy collectors.When Italian potters took to coating their earthenwares with white enamel, which gave a superficial porcelain look, it was only the first of a long list of dismal failures.

The problem soon attracted the attention of Italian majolists and alchemists.The first reasonable imitation of porcelain was made at Florence in 1585 by a team of alchemists and potters working under the patronage of Francesco de Medici.

This Florentine "porcelain" was the fore­runner of many European wares made in avowed imitation of true Oriental porce­lain.They form a link between pottery and glass, for they may be considered either as pottery rendered translucent or as glass rendered opaque by shaping and firing a mixture containing a large percentage of glass with small amounts of clay.

But the search for the secret of true porcelain manufacture was excitedly con­tinued by European ceramists for genera­tions.The imitations ran the gamut of invention and ingenuity.By the mid-17th century, the research was considered so important that the experimenters, backed by such patrons as the Elector of Saxony and Madame de Pompadour, were more interested in solving the riddle of porcelain than they were in the transmutation of base metals into gold.

Although many of the imitations re­sembled porcelain at first glance, all of them were made of soft-paste clays.It re­mained for a German named Johannes Boettger to turn out the first true European porcelain in the year 1709.

By experiments with the fusing of clays, Boettger discovered the secret of making a high-fired mixture of fusible and non-fusible silicates of alumina, called by the Chinese petuntse and kaolin, and in Eng­lish china-stone and china-clay.

Boettger was first to realize that Chinese porcelain could be made with potter's ma­terial alone.Because of its translucence, other experimenters were certain the Chinese had mixed glass with clay.In effect, as Boettger proved, they did.The Orientals, however, instead of fusing finished glass with clay, fused the raw in­gredients.

From Boettger's factory at Meissen sprang others making hard-paste porcelain comparable with the Chinese and Japanese.

Another Delit faience piece of about 1700.plate above bears Japanese Irnari decoration in colors and gold on white ground; made by P.Adriaensz.

Slipware plate of red earthenware is an American piece probably made by Henry Roudeburth.Mont­gomery County, Pennsylvania; signed date: 1793.

The spread of European porcelain-making, though, was relatively slow, since the man­ufacturers attempted to monopolize the secrets of their trade.Competing potters were not above hiring spies in each other's potteries to snoop for secrets.We are told, for example, that the brothers Elers in England employed none but deaf mutes at the Staffordshire plant, to prevent their techniques from leaking out to competitors.

Both by spying and by independent dis­covery, the secret of making genuine porcelain was known in virtually every European country by the end of the 19th century.It was the dawn of a new golden age in European ceramics.Names like Wedgwood, Spode, Delft, Minton, Irish Beleek and Meissen became synonymous with fine china.These famed manufac­tories are a fascinating study in themselves.

Modern science has removed the aura of secrecy which once surrounded ceramics.Today the tyro ceramists, in their own kitchen, can produce the most beautiful ob­jects with little difficulty.More and more people are indulging their desire for self-expression through this medium.They are finding how easy it is to make fine pottery inexpensively and enjoyably.Save for the hobbyist's own imagination, there is virtually no limit to what can be done— by you.•

Mexican maiolica lavatory of about 1830 was made for Franciscan church in Puebla.is 8 feet long.

Brown glaze pottery jug is 19th century American (probably from Ohio); its height is 75/s inches.

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