INTRODUCTION TO

CERAMICS
WHY DID PEOPLE MAKE
CERAMICS?
OLDEST WORK OF ART EVER

Venus of Willendorf
MORE INFO

28,000 - 25,000 BC

Archeologists studied the

oldest object and
determined it was from the
paleolithic period - the old
stone age

It is small in size and is

believed to be a fertility
object, and to be held in a
hand and portable.
HISTORY OF
CERAMICS

Although early people were using

crude stone tools in East Africa in
the early Paleolithic period, as
long as 2.6 million years ago,
most of human cultural
development has occurred much
more recently, since the
beginning of the Neolithic period
after 10,000 B.C.
M E S O P O TA M I A N
AND MIDDLE EAST
HISTORY OF
CERAMICS

Ancient Egyptians created

pottery so that they could tell
stories, decorate funerals and
sarcophaguses and for
functioning purposes.
!
Ancient Egyptians believed that
everything was carried into the
afterlife so they would create
ceramic vessels to house body
parts of the dead.
THE FIRST
POTTERY

Neolithic families gathered wild

and cultivated seeds and stored
them in tightly woven baskets.
Often the baskets were coated on
the inside with clay to form a more
effective container. Because the
oldest posts in most Neolithic
cultures have a basket-like or
corded texture, many scholars have
speculated that pottery making was
first discovered by the accidental
burning of a basket and the
subsequent hardening of its clay
lining.
HISTORY OF
CERAMICS

The Far East has long ceramic

tradition, dominated by China.
The oldest known pottery,
Japanese Jamon ware, dates
prior to 10,000 B.C. Ware
discovered in north Thailand is
thought to have been made as
early as 7000 B.C. In China itself
the earliest known pottery
fragments date from before 4500
B.C.
 CHINESE DYNASTIES

Zhou Dynasty 1046 BC - 206 BC

Shang Dynasty 1600 BC - 1046 BC

TA N G D Y N A S T Y

They invented porcelain,

underglaze painted dcor,
phosphatic glazes, perfected
high-fired celadon, and
experimented with cobalt blue
glazes. 618 AD - 907 AD
J A PA N E S E

Haniwa
3rd and 6th
Century AD
M AYA N , O L M E C , A Z T E C ( M E X I C O )
2000 BC 250 AD 1600 - 1500 BC
 ANCIENT GREECE

Over 100,000 pieces of pottery

found in ancient Greece.
!
8th and 9th Century BC Minoan
and Mycenean Periods
!
Characterized by a black figure
and red figures.
!
Used to tell stories of Gods and
Godesses and War.
African Ceramics
Renaissance Ceramics
K L A R A K R I S TA L O V A
KIKI SMITH
AI WEI WEI
LIVIA MARIN
D AV I D H I C K S
Project 2 Semester 2

What is home?
PROJECT DESCRIPTION

I want you to make a structure that speaks on the

subject of home.

It can be your own home from childhood, a vision of

home in your dream, a fantastical home, a home from
a movie or video game.

I want you to be able to add elements with meaning -

I will ask you why you made what you make.
CERAMIC KEY TERMS
Wedge or Wedging - Mixing and de-airing clay by cutting it diagonally and slamming the pieces together.

!
Slip - A suspension of clay or glaze materials in water.

!
Glaze - A glass-like coating fusion bonded to a ceramic surface by heat.

!
Coil - Rope-like roll of clay used in hand building.

!
Bisque - Clay which has been fired once, unglazed.

!
!
!
!
Clay derives from the disintegration of feldspathic minerals commonly found in granite. Feldspars are made up
of alkaline elements in molecular combination with alumina and silica. As these rocks decompose they are
broken down into smaller combinations of alumina and silica particles as the alkalies in the rock are slowly
leached from the stone.
!
The firing temperatures of naturally occurring clays have lead to the descriptive term low-fire (for earthenware
temperature clay and glazes) and high-fire (for stoneware and porcelain clays and their glazes). Kaolin is a very
pure form of clay that is white in color and vitrifies (becomes nonporous and glass-like) ony at very high
temperatures.