DECORATED POTTERY....

DECORATED POTTERY....

At a basic level painted pottery consists of items fashioned out of clay, hardened through a firing process, and then decorated with color pigments. However, this process can be as simple or as complicated as the potter sees fit. Different types of clay may be blended, pottery can be a multitude of shapes and sizes, various firing techniques may be used, and the ways in which pottery can de decorated are innumerable.
Painted pottery has existed for several thousand years. In fact, shards of painted pottery have been excavated from the remains of some of earth's oldest civilizations. From these remains, anthropologists have ascertained that pottery has been considered to be both useful as well as decorative since its inception.

Tere are a number of Biblical references to clay and pottery wherein humankind is compared to clay and God is equated with the potter who creates and molds complex beings from a simple lump of earth. "Yet, Lord, thou art our Father; we are the clay, and thou art our potter" (Isaiah 64:8). Today, painted pottery is still used in many different ways. Pottery can be found in the kitchen as a receptacle for food and liquid or in other areas of the home as a form decoration akin to sculpture.
The fact that throughout history pottery has been both useful and decorative leads to a discussion concerning pottery's inherent value as an art form. In other words, at the most basic level, can all painted and fired clay be considered art, or should some pottery forms be thought of as well developed craft? If, in fact, some painted pottery may be considered art, whereas other forms of painted pottery are craft, then what specific characteristics or qualities must exist in order for painted pottery to be seen as art? The answer to this question may lie in the permutations the potter creates in the clay, the firing, or decorations of the art or craft. "Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for beauty and other for menial use?" (Romans 9:21)

sourcehttp://www.arthistory.sbc.edu/artartists/decpot.html

What Is Art...? What Is An Artist..?

INTRODUCTION

ART has not always been what we think it is today. An object regarded as Art today may not have been perceived as such when it was first made, nor was the person who made it necessarily regarded as an artist. Both the notion of "art" and the idea of the "artist" are relatively modern terms.

Many of the objects we identify as art today -- Greek painted pottery, medieval manuscript illuminations, and so on -- were made in times and places when people had no concept of "art" as we understand the term. These objects may have been appreciated in various ways and often admired, but not as "art" in the current sense.

ART lacks a satisfactory definition. It is easier to describe it as the way something is done -- "the use of skill and imagination in the creation of aesthetic objects, environments, or experiences that can be shared with others" (Britannica Online) -- rather than what it is.

The idea of an object being a "work of art" emerges, together with the concept of the Artist, in the 15th and 16th centuries in Italy.

During the Renaissance, the word Art emerges as a collective term encompassing Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture, a grouping given currency by the Italian artist and biographer Giorgio Vasari in the 16th century. Subsequently, this grouping was expanded to include Music and Poetry which became known in the 18th century as the 'Fine Arts'. These five Arts have formed an irreducible nucleus from which have been generally excluded the 'decorative arts' and 'crafts', such as as pottery, weaving, metalworking, and furniture making, all of which have utility as an end.
But how did Art become distinguished from the decorative arts and crafts? How and why is an artist different from a craftsperson?

Art & Artists in the Ancient World and Middle Ages Professor Christopher L. C. E. Witcombe

The term for ART in Greek (tekhne) and Latin (ars) does not specifically denote the 'fine arts' in the modern sense, but was applied to all kinds of human activities.
Art was characterized by Aristotle as a kind of activity based on knowledge and governed by rules. An individual became a painter or a sculptor, or a shoemaker, by learning the rules of the trade.
The Greeks applied rules as a means of bringing order to the perceived chaos of nature and the world around them. They consciously sought order, clarity, balance, and harmony in their works. Rules provided a measure of control, and through control a form of comprehension. To maintain order it is necessary to apply rules, and the tradition that supports them. This is the nature of the "classical" which is perforce traditional and conservative.

In this situation, painters and sculptors differed merely in their competence or capability in applying the rules of their trade. They were admired for how well they mastered the rules, for their technique and skills.
Neither the painter nor the sculptor, however, could be "inspired" or work according instinct or follow intuition. In Ancient Greece, painting and sculpture were distinguished from Poetry and Music, which were the products of divine inspiration and stood outside the rules governing mundane activity. Poetry and Music were both highly respected in the Ancient World. It is indicative of their relative status that Poetry and Music are assigned Muses, but not painting and sculpture.
The Greek word for a painter of a sculptor was banausos, meaning literally a mechanic. The term reflects the low social standing of the painter and sculptor in ancient society, which was based on the ancient contempt for manual work. This ancient Greek prejudice against those who work with their hands and who serve utilitarian interests still informs to some degree the distinction between the Fine Arts and the crafts.

The system of the so-called liberal arts was organized in the late antique period, after the time of Plato and Aristotle. Its early development is unclear, but a Martianus Capella seems to have been the first to list the seven liberal arts that later gained recognition: Grammar, Rhetoric, Dialectic, Arithmetic, Geometry, Astronomy, and Music. Of the Fine Arts, only Music is included.

Although attempts were made at one time or another to include painting and architecture among the liberal arts (by Pliny, Galen, Vitruvius, and Varro), the visual arts were generally ignored. Seneca explicitly denies a place for painting among the liberal arts.
The Greeks and the Romans recognized no system for the "fine arts", and regarded placed the visual arts among the manual crafts.

The early Middle Ages inherited from late antiquity the view of art as a "teachable" activity. It was during this time that the term artista was coined but which indicated not an "artist" in the modern sense, but either a craftsman or a student of the liberal arts.

Throughout the Middle Ages, painters and sculptors were afforded little status and remained largely anonymous. As in antiquity, delight was taken in their work, but it was admired in terms of workmanship, or for the use of colour or precious materials (gold, gems). Painters and sculptors were judged on their skill and technique.
The Middle Ages also inherited from antiquity the scheme of the seven liberal arts which served not only for a comprehensive classification of humanknowledge, but also for the curriculum of monastic schools down to the 12th century. The liberal arts were by then divided into the Trivium (Grammar, Rhetoric, Dialectic) and the Quadrivium (Arithmetic, Geometry, Astronomy, and Music).

By the 12th and 13th centuries, the liberal arts had become an inadequate system for classifying knowledge, and with the rise of the universities other subject areas were established such as philosophy, medicine, jurisprudence, and theology.
At this time was formulated the seven mechanical arts (corresponding to the seven liberal arts): lanificium, armatura, navigatio, agricultura, venatio, medicina, and theatrica.

However, even within this scheme, painting and sculpture are listed in the company of several other crafts as subdivisions of armatura, and thus continued to occupy a subordinate position even among the mechanical arts.
The visual arts were confined to the artisans' guilds. Because they ground their colours, and had the same patron saint (St. Luke), painters belonged to the guild of apothecaries and physicians. Sculptors joined the goldsmiths' guild, while architects were associated with masons and carpenters.

sourcehttp://www.arthistory.sbc.edu/artartists/artartists.html