Ceramic, Art and Civilisation

Zusatztext Since the earliest of times, across myriad civilisations that have come and gone, ceramics endure. Each sherd tells us of the discipline's discreet history, but also so much more. Ceramics form the fabric of societies and their anthropological connections to individuals and societies paint detailed and intimate pictures. Paul Greenhalgh takes the reader across the centuries citing links and dialogues between the modern and the ancient. To be able to step back and take in the panoply of this vast subject and select appropriate and relevant examples is an affirming indicator of a deep, specialist and eloquent knowledge. There are very few people qualified to take on a task such as this. Greenhalgh is one of a few and probably the best equipped to do so. Informationen zum Autor Paul Greenhalgh is Director of the Sainsbury Centre and Professor of Art History and Museum Strategy at the University of East Anglia, UK. He was previously Head of Research at the V&A Museum, London, and is the author of books including The Persistence of Craft (2002) and Art Nouveau (2000). Klappentext "Full of surprises [and] evocative." The Spectator "Passionately written." Apollo "An extraordinary accomplishment." Edmund de Waal "Monumental." Times Literary Supplement "An epic reshaping of ceramic art." Crafts "An important book." The Arts Society Magazine In his major new history, Paul Greenhalgh tells the story of ceramics as a story of human civilisation, from the Ancient Greeks to the present day. As a core craft technology, pottery has underpinned domesticity, business, religion, recreation, architecture, and art for millennia. Indeed, the history of ceramics parallels the development of human society.This fascinating and very human history traces the story of ceramic art and industry from the Ancient Greeks to the Romans and the medieval world; Islamic ceramic cultures and their influence on the Italian Renaissance; Chinese and European porcelain production; modernity and Art Nouveau; the rise of the studio potter, Art Deco, International Style and Mid-Century Modern, and finally, the contemporary explosion of ceramic making and the postmodern potter. Interwoven in this journey through time and place is the story of the pots themselves, the culture of the ceramics, and their character and meaning. Ceramics have had a presence in virtually every country and historical period, and have worked as a commodity servicing every social class. They are omnipresent: a ubiquitous art. Ceramic culture is a clear, unique, definable thing, and has an internal logic that holds it together through millennia. Hence ceramics is the most peculiar and extraordinary of all the arts. At once cheap, expensive, elite, plebeian, high-tech, low-tech, exotic, eccentric, comic, tragic, spiritual, and secular, it has revealed itself to be as fluid as the mud it is made from.Ceramics are the very stuff of how civilized life was, and is, led. This then is the story of human society's most surprising core causes and effects.A groundbreaking history of ceramics from 3000 BC to the present day, tracing the relationship between ceramics and civilisation, the culture of ceramics through history, and the social importance of ceramics. Zusammenfassung "Full of surprises [and] evocative." The Spectator "Passionately written." Apollo "An extraordinary accomplishment." Edmund de Waal "Monumental." Times Literary Supplement "An epic reshaping of ceramic art." Crafts "An important book." The Arts Society Magazine In his major new history, Paul Greenhalgh tells the story of ceramics as a story of human civilisation, from the Ancient Greeks to the present day. As a core craft technology, pottery has underpinned domesticity, business, religion...

Préface
A groundbreaking history of ceramics from 3000 BC to the present day, tracing the relationship between ceramics and civilisation, the culture of ceramics through history, and the social importance of ceramics.

Auteur
Paul Greenhalgh is Director of the Sainsbury Centre and Professor of Art History and Museum Strategy at the University of East Anglia, UK. He was previously Head of Research at the V&A Museum, London, and is the author of books including The Persistence of Craft (2002) and Art Nouveau (2000).

Texte du rabat

"Full of surprises [and] evocative." The Spectator "Passionately written." Apollo "An extraordinary accomplishment." Edmund de Waal "Monumental." Times Literary Supplement "An epic reshaping of ceramic art." Crafts "An important book." The Arts Society Magazine In his major new history, Paul Greenhalgh tells the story of ceramics as a story of human civilisation, from the Ancient Greeks to the present day. As a core craft technology, pottery has underpinned domesticity, business, religion, recreation, architecture, and art for millennia. Indeed, the history of ceramics parallels the development of human society. This fascinating and very human history traces the story of ceramic art and industry from the Ancient Greeks to the Romans and the medieval world; Islamic ceramic cultures and their influence on the Italian Renaissance; Chinese and European porcelain production; modernity and Art Nouveau; the rise of the studio potter, Art Deco, International Style and Mid-Century Modern, and finally, the contemporary explosion of ceramic making and the postmodern potter. Interwoven in this journey through time and place is the story of the pots themselves, the culture of the ceramics, and their character and meaning. Ceramics have had a presence in virtually every country and historical period, and have worked as a commodity servicing every social class. They are omnipresent: a ubiquitous art. Ceramic culture is a clear, unique, definable thing, and has an internal logic that holds it together through millennia. Hence ceramics is the most peculiar and extraordinary of all the arts. At once cheap, expensive, elite, plebeian, high-tech, low-tech, exotic, eccentric, comic, tragic, spiritual, and secular, it has revealed itself to be as fluid as the mud it is made from. Ceramics are the very stuff of how civilized life was, and is, led. This then is the story of human society's most surprising core causes and effects.

Contenu
Acknowledgements Prologue: A History in Shards CHAPTER 1. WHAT CERAMIC IS 1. Fundamentals 2. Stuff of the Earth 3. The Art of Heat 4. The Potter 5. Nomenclature and Culture 6. The Ceramic Continuum 7. Transformers: Classicism, Islam, China, and the Modern 8. The Discipline 9. Industry and the Levels of Production 10. Ubiquity: The Plastic of the Ancient World 11. Telling Stories 12. Civilisation, Power, and Domestic Life 13. Conclusion: Western Ceramic CHAPTER 2: THE VALUE OF THE GREEK POTTER 1. The World in Black and Red 2. Positioning the Pots 3. The Earlier Greek World 4. Reducing Iron and Oxygen 5. Who Were These People? 6. Secular Life 7. Anachronism, the Value, and the Price of Things 8. The Value and the Price of Things 9. Conclusion: The Spread of Red and Black CHAPTER 3: ROME AND THE ARRIVAL OF THE MEDIEVAL WORLD 1. The Feel of Roman Pots 2. Red Gloss 3. The Pots of Empire 4. Greece, Rome, and the Classical Idea 5. Standardisation 6. Dark, Light, an End and a Beginning 7. Europe: The Coarse and the Local 8. Revivalism and the Vernacular 9. Conclusion: The Classical Heritage CHAPTER 4: RENAISSANCES OF TIN 1. The Chemistry of Islam 2. Islam and Ceramic History 3. The Pottery Revolution 4. Islam in Europe 5. Renaissance Pots 6. Colour, Line and Life 7. Secular Life 8. Pottery and Painting 9. Quantity, Quality, and Status 10. The Arrival of the Meal 11. Sculptural Form 12. Italian Potters and Potteries 13. Renaissances 14. Conclusion: a European Ethos CHAPTER 5: THE ENLIGHTENED REIGN OF WHITE 1. Chinese Pots 2. Technology, Style, Confidence 3. Porcelain City 4. China in Europe 5. The Quest for a Europe…