More Art in Everyday Life: Ancient Greece

As I’ve mentioned before, I resist the western art historical tendency to consider the art of ancient Greece and Rome as the high points of artistic achievement, in a broad view of art around the planet. Don’t get me wrong, Greece and Rome were marvelous civilizations with impressive artistic achievements, the influence of which still affects aesthetics in the West. However, when looking at art from ancient Greece and Rome, I tend to focus on the miscellaneous arts. As we saw in my posting on May 26, the miscellaneous arts from classical antiquity are truly awe inspiring and fascinating, especially since so much aesthetic effort went into pieces meant for daily use. Such, I feel, is the case with ancient Greek ceramics. Many people believe that these beautifully decorated, elegantly shaped vessels were meant merely as decoration, but, the majority of the shapes were meant for everyday use around the house.

Ceramic arts in Greece and the Greek Islands date back to the Neolithic period, in coil- and slab-built forms. The potter’s wheel was introduced during the 18^th century BCE from the ancient Near East. From the 9^th to 8^th centuries BCE the majority of Greek ceramic shapes evolved into forms that endured into the first millennium CE. In Attica, the two main ceramic centers were Corinth and Athens. By 550 BCE Athens was the chief ceramic center of the Mediterranean, exporting wares to northern Africa, Asia Minor, Sicily, Italy, and even as far as France, Spain, and the Crimea. All ceramic shapes were made for actual use, and their form corresponded to their function.

The kantharos was a drinking vessel. It was associated with Dionysos, the god of wine and grape cultivation (referred to as Bacchus in Roman mythology). Dionysos supposedly always carried around a kantharos and it was never empty. The association with Dionysos makes the decoration of this kantharos very relevant: the exuberant satyrs were constant companions of Dionysos. The use of satyr decoration on these drinking vessels was particularly popular in the Greek colonies in Anatolia, one of the distant lands Dionysos was thought to have visited when he was a young adult. The high, looping handles of the cup – a traditional feature of the kantharos – form the pointed ears associated with the satyr’s physical make up.

Technically this cup is painted in one of the two chief styles: black-figure. This is the technique of depicting a figure (or face in this case) in black on the red ground of the vessel. The other style, red-figure, depicted figures in red on a painted black background. Despite the somewhat creepy features of the satyr, the form is elegant and symmetrical, especially in the graceful, looping handles.

The British Museum in London has many examples of Greek ceramics.

Featured Collection: Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Art in Everyday Life

While looking at images for the revision of one of our books, I came across an image of a metal pitcher from the 1930s. It had such clean, modern lines that it could easily be mistaken for a contemporary work. It got me to thinking about how there is extraordinary beauty in everyday objects used around the house. Indeed, many of these objects from the past end up in museums’ design collections as examples of beauty and utility. That goes especially for ceramic objects. Tableware ceramic objects can be found in the collections of most museums. Although this object is not exactly tableware, it is an example of a period style in American art that is one of my favorite stylistically: Art Moderne.

Art Moderne was the stylistic descendant from Art Deco, with which it is sometimes confused. Whereas Art Deco was all about surface ornament and fine craftsmanship of decoration, Art Moderne was more concerned with clean lines, curving and shiny surfaces, and an absence of ornament. It was inspired by modern American industrial society, airplanes, and automobiles. The style was perceived as a common person’s alternative to the more elaborate Art Deco. Art Moderne is characterized mostly in architecture and decorative arts.

The Hall China company introduced single-kiln firing of its wares as opposed to firing the body and the glaze separately. The process fused together the body and glaze at a temperature of 2400 degrees Fahrenheit, allowing the glaze to penetrate the body. The process created the first lead-free pottery glaze in the world, as lead compounds would not work in such high firing temperatures. Hall designed no fewer than 47 new colors for the single-fire process, producing bright colors never seen in American pottery before. In the 1930s, with the rise in use of refrigerators, Hall developed a line of refrigerator-wares, to which this pitcher belongs: pitchers, butter dishes, cheese dishes and leftover savers. The streamlined shape, horizontal banding, and rounded edges of this pitcher all mark it as firmly in the Art Moderne style.

J. Palin Thorley was a third-generation ceramic artist in England. He was trained at such prestigious ceramic factories as Wedgwood. He brought his talents to American industrial potters. In Williamsburg, Virginia, he created replicas of colonial ceramics from the Craft House Museum. In contrast, he also created avant-garde wares such as this pitcher in the Art Moderne style.

Northern Renaissance Engraver

I like showing you works from the Renaissance period in northern Europe. This is partly because my mother was Swiss and I wrote my master’s thesis about a Swiss Renaissance painter (yes, Switzerland, too, had a Renaissance period), and partly because northern artists emphasized often extreme realism as opposed to the blah-blah-blah perfection of antique classicism in Italian Renaissance art. Printmaking was an important medium during the Renaissance in the North, so much so that prints were collected in the same way paintings were. Some of the earliest museums established during the late 16^th century, as I’ve mentioned, were collections of graphic arts, and not simply copies of paintings. Nowhere was printmaking a more revered and highly developed art form than in Germany.

Engraving* is an example of intaglio printing. Intaglio printing is the opposite of relief printing. The image is cut or incised into a metal plate with various tools or acid. The wide variety of methods gives the medium a large range of possibilities of expression. In engraving, the image is incised onto the finely ground metal plate (most often copper) with very sharp tools such as needles, burnishers, and scrapers. An acid bath then eats into the incised lines from which the print will be pulled, after which ink is rolled across the plate, filling in the incised lines. The plate is then wiped clean, leaving ink only in the crevices. A sheet of damp paper is placed on the plate and the plate is run through a press which forces the paper into the inked crevices and transfers the image. Engraving was the first intaglio process to emerge, most likely from goldsmiths’ practice of incising designs on metal and then inking those designs, pressing them on paper for later reference. Scholars believe this happened in southern Germany in the 1430s.

Israhel van Meckenem was a very prolific printmaker. Son of a goldsmith-printmaker, he produced more than six hundred prints, although only about a quarter are original compositions. It was common during this period to appropriate the compositions of other masters. This print, however, is an original -- the first engraved portrait in the history of printmaking. Typical of northern European realism, he does not idealize his features or those of his wife/business partner. Engraving was a favorite medium for northern printmakers, because of the detailed nuances in shading possible with the sharp tools used to scratch out the image. This print is an excellent example of the use of crosshatching to create plasticity of the figures.

* Engraving is a technique that has endured in popularity through to the 21^st century. This link shows examples from different periods (ignoring of course Winslow Homer’s wood engravings).

Featured collection: Philadelphia Museum of Art

The Japan/North Carolina Connection

Ceramic traditions vary greatly around the world. In some cultures, the material is considered all-important, while in other cultures, the form or shape is the emphasis. Techniques for production of ceramics vary as well, though there are basic techniques such as coil-built, slab-built, or wheel thrown that are universal. What I always enjoy discovering is the sharing of ceramic traditions across cultures, and sometimes how easily they meld. This is the story of a traditionally trained Japanese ceramic artist who joined a rich historic ceramic tradition in the United States.

Native bands such as the Cherokee and Catawba in western North Carolina had ceramic traditions the extended well before the arrival of white settlers, primarily pit-fired wares. European potters began establishing kilns in the state in the early 1700s, the British in the eastern part of the state and the Moravians in the Winston-Salem area. The earliest wares were earthenware and stoneware produced from North Carolina clay. By 1850, Randolph County was the center of salt-glazed stoneware, while Lincoln County produced alkaline-glazed stoneware. The tradition of these native wares endures to the present day. North Carolina has become an important American center of ceramic art, with over 500 full-time ceramic artists living and producing in the state.

Hiroshi Sueyoshi, a native of Tokyo, was apprenticed as a ceramicist in 1968. He studied at Tokyo Aeronautical College and Ochanomizu Design Academy. He came to the US in 1971 to help design and build Humble Mill Pottery in Asheboro. He continued his studies and work in Virginia, returning to North Carolina in 1973. When he first returned to the state, he worked as a production ceramic artist, producing cups and saucers, bowls, and plates, being paid fifteen cents for every pound of clay made into the vessel. He worked for Seagrove Pottery and Teak’s Pottery as a production ceramicist, and later as a pottery instructor at Sampson Community College in Clinton. He now lives in Wilmington where he is the artist in residence at the Cameron Art Museum.

While he works with the native blue clays of southeastern North Carolina, he also produces pieces in the traditional Japanese medium of porcelain, like this work. While bowls and jars are still his main interest, he has branched out into figurative work as well. One of his sculptures is outdoors at the Airlie Gardens Minnie Evans Sculpture Garden. The tribute to the African-American artist who worked as a ticket-taker at Airlie Gardens contains a portrait of her. This jar was produced in the nerikomi technique, laminating colored clays into blocks with carefully controlled pattern developed through cutting, folding, and reforming the layers clays.

In 2006 Hiroshi was named a North Carolina Living Treasure.

American Pre-Raphaelite

I always like to examine artists who are not written about in a major way in art historical publications (maybe because I’m a painter who will NEVER be written about in ANY art history textbook). Many, many times one will discover a brilliant artist whose work is absolutely fantastic, but who never achieved the notoriety of someone like Winslow Homer or John Singer Sargent. Yes! I’m talking American art! For some reason, American art is often treated as the cousin thrice-removed from Western Art in many art history textbooks, almost like an afterthought, until, of course, we arrive at Abstract Expressionism. This is odd, because the history of American art reflects a consistent influence, naturally, of European art -- especially art from Britain. British influence waned after the Arts and Crafts Movement (flourished c1890-1920 in the US, also known as the Craftsman Movement). The Pre-Raphaelite movement began in Britain around 1848 and became influential in American art in the 1860s.

Realism was a major style in European art starting in the 1840s. It was a reaction to stuffy, academic Neoclassicism and the ridiculous exoticism of Romanticism, both movements of the first four decades of the nineteenth century. Interestingly, these two movements mirrored trends in art that occurred after the Renaissance, during the Baroque period (c1600-1750). It was exactly these “perversions” of Renaissance art – namely art after the High Renaissance and the time of Raphael (1483-1520) – to which the Pre-Raphaelites were reacting. The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood was a group of painters who formed around 1848 in Britain, determined to restore art to the abundant detail, bright color and intense naturalism of Renaissance art. They were influenced by the writings of John Ruskin (1819-1900), a British art critic who advised artists to emphasize the truth in nature rather than idealized or romanticized realism.

John William Hill, born in London, immigrated to the US with his family as a child, and spent most of his life in West Nyack, NY. He was apprenticed to his father, an engraver, at the age of 10. In 1833 he was elected to the National Academy of Design. Early in his artistic career he worked as a topographical artist for the state of New York, producing watercolors of American cities. Personally he produced many landscapes. In 1855 he read Ruskin’s Modern Art (1843) and came under the spell of Pre-Raphaelite thinking about producing art directly from nature. His subsequent turn to close-up views of nature represents his mature style. He painted most often in watercolor, using tiny brushes usually used in miniature painting, in order to achieve details from direct observation.

By 1870, American Pre-Raphaelite art (also called Realist or Naturist) had waned in public popularity, although artists like Hill continued to pursue Ruskin’s advice that “if you can paint a leaf you can paint the world.” Hill’s son, John Henry, continued to paint in his father’s style in the watercolor medium. John William Hill was one of the founders of the American Watercolor Society.

The Brooklyn Museum of Art has a fine collection of American Pre-Raphaelite works.

"Outsider" Art

I really don’t know what I think about the term “outsider art.” Wait, of course I know what I think! I always think it’s unfortunate when any art produced outside of the status quo obsession with ancient Greece and Rome, the Renaissance, and sales galleries is designated as somehow not quite as relevant. This also goes for the terms “primitive” and “naïve,” which I’ve discussed in other posts. When are we in the West going to accept that art is art no matter who produces it, if they are self-taught or not, if they’re of the “western tradition” or not, or if they’re aware of the current major trends in art?

The term “outsider art” was coined in the 1970s as an English translation of the term Art Brut, French modernist Jean Dubuffet’s (1901-1985) label for his huge personal collection of such art that he had starting in the 1930s. Much of the art in this category was produced by artists who were either mentally challenged or physically handicapped. Some of the artists did not even think of themselves as such, and created work purely for personal fulfillment, never intending to show in galleries or museums.

Another tendency in “outsider art” is that the work is usually created with little or no awareness or interest of other trends in art. The main difference between this art and so-called “naïve” or “primitive” art is that naïve or primitive artists remain in the mainstream of art, even if they fail to practice its style. They accept its subject, technique, and values because they hope for public recognition.

James Castle was born deaf in Idaho and never strayed very far from the three farms worked by his family. He chose to never read, write, speak, or sign, preferring to immerse himself in his personal imagery. He spent almost all of his waking time producing his art, and even set up shows in chicken coops or sheds, documenting these “shows” with yet other works of art. Despite the fact that he taught himself how to paint, and used uncommon materials such as spit and soot, many of his interiors are solidly modeled forms. He copied letters or words from books in many of his pieces. He achieved velvety chiaroscuro in the use of spit, and most of his works have an overall gray tonality. Unlike many outsider artists, Castle delighted in showing his work to visitors.

The strength of Castle’s work comes from his dedication to his art. I hesitate to compare his work to any artists in mainstream 20^th century art, except to point out that it compares favorably to works by artists such as Dubuffet, Kurt Schwitters (1887-1948), Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968) and some of the artists of the Arte Povera movement in Italy. I personally find his constructions to be some of his most interesting works, where he ingeniously manipulates scraps of cardboard to define form.

I think I prefer the term “visionary art” to describe outsider art. Here’s an excellent museum dedicated to the genre.

The Philadelphia Museum of Art has a large collection of Castle’s work on their website.

Featured Collection: Philadelphia Museum of Art

Bamboo Artist

Okay, so I’m having “holy cow” moments more often these days! I came across this fabulous sculpture while scanning new images from the Mint Museum of Art in Charlotte, NC. I never even realized such curvilinear shapes could be achieved with bamboo! What is fascinating is that work stems from the bamboo basket tradition in Japan. (I resisted the urge to use another exclamation point.) This reminds me of the work of the American artist Ed Rossbach who uses all sorts of materials to create vessels and baskets in an endless variety of techniques. Like Rossbach’s work, Ippo’s takes the basketry idiom way beyond utilitarian into sculpture-like pieces of art. Need I reiterate that this is not “craft” but fine art? Also, did you know that bamboo is a species of grass?

Japan has over 600 species of bamboo. Its tensile strength has been compared to steel, and it can be made into just about anything. Bamboo is also edible. The three major species of bamboo in Japan are moso, hotchiku, and madake. Bamboo basketry goes all the way back to the Jomon period in Japan (c3000-200 BCE). Bamboo baskets served a variety of functions in daily life. The appreciation for the aesthetics of woven bamboo textures is evidenced as early as the Yayoi period (c200 BCE-200 CE). Some Yayoi pots were decorated with impressions of bamboo basket patterns.

Over the centuries, the extraordinary craftsmanship and intricate patterns of bamboo basketry have made it a cherished part of such time-honored traditions as the tea ceremony and ikebana (flower arranging), both disciplines considered art forms by the Japanese. Some other uses for bamboo in Japan are archery bows, musical instruments such as shakuhachi (looks similar to a recorder) and flute, chopsticks, tea whisks, and a variety of utensils used in the tea ceremony, furniture, and pipes. In the past couple of decades, bamboo artists have taken the bamboo weaving tradition and extended it into the realm of sculpture.

Torii Ippo was the son of a basket maker. He learned bamboo weaving technique by copying baskets his father had made. The seminal event in his maturing as a bamboo artist was his viewing in a 1959 exhibition of a bamboo flower basket from the imperial court dating to 757 CE. He attributes the power and grace of the piece – which had remained perfectly intact for over 1200 years – as the determining factor to his career as a bamboo artist. While he still creates baskets out of bamboo, many of his pieces such as Lighting God are stand alone sculptures. Most of Ippo’s works combine bamboo and rattan (the stem of a type of palm).

View more works by Ippo in the Tai Gallery, New Mexico.

Another work at the Museum of Arts and Design, New York (and just because it’s an awesome museum).

See additional contemporary bamboo artists featured in the exhibit New Bamboo at the Japan Society Gallery in New York.

The Mint Museum has a fabulous collection. Check it out.