CERAMIC, ART AND CIVILISATION
If you're after some excellent lockdown reading, Paul Greenhalgh's fascinating book could just fit the bill. With over 400 colour images, it 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.
Ceramic culture is a clear, unique, definable thing, and has an internal logic that holds it together through millennia. Ceramics is the most peculiar and extraordinary of all the arts. At once cheap, expensive, elite, plebeian, high-tech, low-tech, exotic, eccentric, comic,…
