Ceramics and Glass Circle of Australia

WILLOWS AND WINDMILLS

CURATORIAL TEAM

Patricia Begg
John Scarce
Harry Blackburn
Kan Wong

Published by the Ceramics and Glass Circle of Australia Inc.
P.O. Box 243 Hawksburn 3142

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

Editor: Chris Begg
Photography: Patricia Begg
Cover design: Paul Rosenberg

WILLOWS AND WINDMILLS

This exhibition sets out to look at the blue and white domestic decorated wares over eight hundred years and their popularity. Today, blue and white is as popular as ever, both for the collector and purchaser of new ceramics. The exhibition starts with the Islamic use of cobalt eight hundred years ago and finishes with an Australian modern potter working in both porcelain and stoneware.

The three main ceramic bodies in the exhibition are earthen ware stoneware and porcelain, both hard and soft paste. The tin-glazed earthen wares developed in the region of Mesopotamia in the eighth century with their soft opacified lead glaze emulating Chinese white stoneware and painted in-glaze with cobalt are the catalyst for the wares of Spain, Italy, France, Holland and England. The manufacture of tin-glazed earthen wares spread across Europe from the thirteenth century and is still practiced today. The exhibition includes Italian Maiolica, French and German Faience, Dutch Delft and English Delft ware.

The stonewares represented come from China and Indochina (Annam or Vietnam). The Chinese in early Minq Dynasty invaded Indochina bringing with them their white stonewares and porcelain decorated with blue. The influence spread into the domestic wares and we show a small group of cosmetic pots within this category.

The third and the largest group is porcelain first showing the lovely Chinese wares made in the late Ming, Transitional and Kangxi periods, wares made for the scholar's desk, the home and a small group of export. The Japanese porcelain represented is from the middle of the eighteenth through to the early twentieth century and shows the respect and love of blue and white within that culture.

A small group of early French soft paste porcelain shows the delicate blue patterns that the French favoured and the lovely porcelain that they were painting. We then move across the channel to England where a group of wonderful pieces show the diversity of shape and decoration on eighteenth century porcelain made specifically for home use. Some designed to be prepared and then served from at the table.

The nineteenth century English production is represented with a group of earthen wares printed with the very popular Oriental Willow pattems and romantic landscapes.

The exhibition has some wonderful and unique pieces in it, things of great beauty, utilitarian and some that are just plain fun. The Willows represent the Orient and the Windmills the Dutch and English.

I would like to express my appreciation to the other members of the curatorial team, John Scarce, Harry Blackburn and Kan Wong. Without their hard work this exhibition would not have had the depth of research that greatly assists in its enjoyment. I would also like to express my appreciation to Lesley Kehoe, Margaret Cone and Marjorie Ho for their assistance in researching the Oriental material.

Patricia Begg
Chairman Exhibitions Committee

COBALT - BLUE

The first use of cobalt as a colouring agent is in blue glass made at Eridu near Ur in Mesopotamia in 2000 BC. The Egyptians used cobalt on their turquoise glazed ceramics in the last five hundred years before Christ.

The raw material was made and refined in Persia and exported to Egypt. The refining process is in two parts, the first being to frit calcine cobalt with sand thus forming Zaffra which is very dark and tends to run and leach and was very suitable for dying fabric as well as for ceramic use. Fine definition was not possible as the powder was too coarse which led to the need for the second part of the process. This was to fuse Zaffra with potassium carbonate to form a dark blue glass which was then ground to powder of various qualities, the finer the powder the more expensive the material.

In 750 the Arabian empire was invaded by China and by ~751 the Chinese were defeated with enormous loss of life on both sides. A Chinese prisoner of war, Tu Huan, who later became a free man, is credited with introducing the art of fine textiles, gold wares, painting, and fine ceramics into the Mesopotamian area. By the ninth century cobalt blue was being used on white tin-glazed pots in this region. The trade by land (the silk route) and by sea between China and the Arab lands carded influences in both directions affecting design of fabric, metal ware and particularly ceramics. It was in the YUan Dynasty that cobalt blue was first used on porcelain in China and subsequently it was extensively used in Ming Dynasty.

The Chinese imported most of their cobalt from Persia but in the late Ming they started to produce their own which was of a lesser quality. The Japanese traded with Persia and purchased cobalt directly.

The next major supplier of cobalt was the Augustus the Duke of Saxony, he controlled the trade by only allowing the refined Zaffra and Smalt to be exported, thus keeping the price up and the demand high. In England in 1603 to 1625 Abraham Bake was granted a patent to make Smalt which was of a medium quality, then in 1744 cobalt was mined in Cornwall producing a medium quality Zaffra and a high quality Smalt. In 1764 Nicholas Crisp, a founding member of the Royal Society. was awarded a prize for making Zaffra and Smalt. This mad England less reliant on imported material.

Patricia Begg

ENGLISH BLUE AND WHITE PORCELAIN

The desire for Eastern riches in the form of spices, silks and porcelain led to the formation in 1600 of the British East India Company, to be soon followed by the East India Companies of other European nations. The English passion for tea drinking caused the importation of huge amounts of porcelain tea services from China. The Directors of the British East India Company instructed their agents in 1724 for example that "the China ware must all be of useful sorts most blue and white". The trade with China grew to the extent that in the 1751-52 trading season, it was estimated that it blue and white wares exhibiting the whole range of "Mohammedan Blue", perhaps best described by the Chinese themselves as "blue as the sky after rain". The fewer firings porcelain has to undergo the cheaper and faster it is to produce. Under-glaze colours are thus advantageous and the varying shades of blue, produced from cobalt oxide of various degrees of purity, could withstand the heat of the glazing kiln, a factor understood by the Chinese since the seventh century.

When English porcelain manufacturing began in the mid-1740's, the struggle involved not only how to make this magical substance, but also how to decorate it. Many early china painters came from delft-ware potteries in Liverpool, Lambeth and Bristol and brought their stock designs and patterns with them, thus allowing the public greater acceptance of the new ware, decorated in the fashion they were used to. To compete against the Chinese blue and white imports, as well as the delft-ware manufacturers, the fledgling English porcelain industry had to imitate them, and blue and white porcelain production, which was cheaper and simpler than polychrome production, and whose decoration required less skill, quickly became the "bread and butter" output of manufacturers such as Bow and Worcester, who even styled themselves as "New Canton" and "Worcester Tonquin Manufactory".

The reduced number of firings when compared to polychrome decoration, the use of low paid semi-skilled painters for the repetitive patterns, as well as the fact that expensive gilding was not used, all served to reinforce the role of blue and white porcelain as the backbone of the new English factories, especially as they, unlike their European counterparts, did not have the financial backing of Royal or aristocratic proprietors. The monies made from the manufacture of blue and white porcelain were important in establishing the polychrome decoration at a later date.

The tones of blue depended upon the purity of the cobalt oxide and the degrees of purity lead to early English blue and white wares ranging in colour from indigo to violet. Small quantities of manganese gave the later Caughley porcelains a purple tone, whilst larger quantities of manganese gave to Worcester pieces a greyer appearance. Lowestoft produced blue and white wares imitating Worcester, copying both Worcester patterns as well as the Worcester marks. The Liverpool manufacturers however freely used Worcester blue and white patterns but rarely copied the Worcester factory marks. The wares produced at Liverpool were domestic items decorated with rather simple designs, either at the factory or by an outside decorator.

The Chelsea factory produced little blue and white, concentrating instead on the more luxurious end of the market. Longton Hall did not succeed in producing blue and white wares on a large scale, whilst Derby blue and white production was limited to mainly sauce boats and ornamental wares.

In addition to copying the delft-ware styles, for example the many pieces of Lowestoft bearing initials and dates and Bristol delft-ware and porcelain having identical patterns, the English painters were inspired by the Chinese decorative elements. These included ceremonial and mythological subjects, as well as fruit, flowers, landscapes and various domestic scenes. Many patterns were given English names such as "The Eloping Bride" "Image" and "The Jumping Boy". Apart from the usual cobalt blue grounds, English factories such as Bow, Worcester, Lowestoft and Caughley also used another Chinese ground colour, "powder blue", where the blue pigment was blown through a gauze or tube creating a soft stippled effect usually with fan-shaped reserves painted with Chinoiseries or flowers.

Many Oriental themes however were treated with an unmistakable English flavour as the painters struggled to come to terms with decorative elements they did not understand and the resultant "Chinoiseries" are often somewhat crude and comic. Another element was "root ornament" wher0y an irregularly shaped blob was pierced with several holes out of which grew branches of flowering shrubs. These designs often continued over to the reverse side of a ceramic article as were many of the Chinese original designs.

A demand for a cheap ware similar to the Chinese "Blue Nankin" ware was satisfied by the invention of under-glaze blue printing from line engravings, a technique which provided another staple for factories such as Worcester, Lowestoft, Liverpool and Caughley. This technique reduced costs further and lead to a decline in the quality of painted blue and white decoration, which became more regimented and lost the free, spontaneous charm of the early wares.

By the early 1770's the Oriental influence had waned and an English style of decoration had developed using English fruit and flowers, English landscapes were peopled with milkmaids and haymakers and blue sporting prints of hunters and fishermen were very popular. Meissen style flower painting was also copied, sometimes enlivened with insects and birds, and when Thomas Turner of Caughley visited France in 1780 he introduced the "Chantilly Sprig" whose scattered com flowers quickly became an Important decorative element in blue and white porcelain.

The borders of the English blue and white wares were composed of a myriad of designs incorporating cells, diapers and loops, and ranged from those wares which had no borders at all to those whose borders were of a most complex geometric or floral design.

The legacy of the early blue and white porcelains with their simple but strong and effective designs, is an enduring one. Today a visit to any department store will show a Wide range of contemporary wares decorated with the ubiquitous "Willow Pattern" or reproductions of the early blue and white prints of Spode. The story of the early wares is still evolving, as witnessed by the exciting revelations in 1998 of the blue and white porcelains of the Isleworth factory which may see a re-attribution of many blue and White wares previously thought to have been of Derby manufacture.

John Scarce

SCHOLAR’S ACCOUTREMENTS

China was and still is a vast country, both in terms of geographical size and population. First unified in 221 BC. by the First Emperor, Qin Shi-Huang, China was able to keep its identity as one nation for most of the next 2,000 years. How was it possible for a land larger and more populated than Europe, with myriad different dialect groups, to stay as one nation for so long? Not merely by military subjugation.

What kept the country as one were a common written language and scholars, for while military power was needed to topple dynasties, once a new dynasty was established, a vast network of civil servants was needed to run the empire.

Civil servants were selected from the general populace via competitive examinations run by the government from as early as the sixth century. While there were multiple tiers of examinations, progressively from provincial level to the highest level held in the capital, success at any meant, for both the candidate as well as his family, stepping on to a path of status and eventual, if not immediate, wealth. This was, in effect, one legitimate path available to all Chinese to escape poverty and hardship. Hence, providing a good education to one's children has always been paramount to Chinese parents. And through centuries of inculcation, the Chinese have cultivated a deep reverence for all forms of scholastic pursuits, to the extent that Chinese calligraphy enjoys a status as high if not higher than painting.

The reverence and love of literature, poetry and calligraphy are extended to the various paraphernalia and materials connected with writing. The most important of these are ink (in the form of ink sticks), ink slab, brush and paper collectively known as the Four Treasures of a Scholar's Studio. There are, however, a number of other items used besides these Four Treasures and although they serve a practical purpose, they are also beautifully made as shown by some of the scholar's accoutrements included in the exhibition.

Oriental calligraphy is written with a brush and with ink prepared on the spot by manually grinding an ink stick with a little water on an ink slab (a flat surface). The thickness of the ink is crucial and hence water droppers were designed to enable water to be added a drop at a time. Water droppers always come with two holes, one from which the drop emerges and the other the air hole to control the drops. The exhibition includes a number of beautiful water droppers (exhibits 12 to 15) from Korea and Japan both of which share the same inheritance for calligraphy.

Water plays a number of important roles in a scholar's studio. It is needed to prepare ink as already explained, It is used to clean brushes as well as to make tea (exhibit 107). Thus, water pots of various sizes would also be found in a scholar's studio. The exhibition includes a small water pot (exhibit 21) decorated with a figure in landscape. A water pot of this size would be used for cleaning small brushes. Larger brushes are washed in shallow bowls which often come in artistic shapes.

Brushes come in many sizes and makes and a scholar would have a range of brushes to use for different styles of calligraphy, different sizes of writing and for painting. Brushes are either hung on a brush rack usually made of wood, or kept in a brush holder which is a cylindrical container made either of wood or bamboo, plain or carved, or of ceramic. Exhibit 18 is a porcelain brush holder with an exceptionally fine painting of a convivial gathering of scholars enjoying each other's company. The scene is from the Chinese legend of the Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove.

In addition to the artist's signature, a piece of calligraphy or painting would also be marked by one or more seal-stamps, almost always in vermilion red. Often, more than one seal-stamp can be found. The artist-scholar may choose to use more than one seal and, to complicate matters, collectors of important works would often add on their own seal-stamps thereby marking a provenance trail.

The piece of calligraphy in the exhibition, loosely translated as "to go with the flow", is marked with two seal stamps, both of the calligrapher. Both seals are displayed and are made of stone with the seal-marks carved at the bottom. Seal carving is another revered art form in the Far East as seals are used not just by the Chinese but by the Koreans and Japanese as well. Seals are Inked" for stamping by being pressed onto an oil and vermilion paste, which is usually stored in a covered porcelain container.

The exhibition includes an example of a seal paste box (exhibit 20), with the cover decorated with a figure in landscape design.

Scholars, in common with other Chinese, would have a love of nature and, unless he or she is inclined towards Buddhism which discourages keeping life forms in captivity, there would be one or more cages of small singing birds in their studios. Exhibit 32 are ceramic bird feeders.

Many other objects are also found in a scholar's studio, although not all of them are made of ceramic. Brush-rests are required when more than one brush is used and could be made of ceramic or of other materials such as stone or even jade. There would be paper weights, incense burners, arm rests and so on. There would be vases of different sizes for different flowers. The vases in the exhibition would fit comfortably on a scholar's desk or shelves.

Poh Kan Wong

KOREAN CERAMICS

Wars and invasions had a disastrous effect on Korea in general and in particular the ceramic industry. However new shapes in the eighteenth century included lively original forms for the dispensable tools of the scholars. Objects such as water droppers shaped like plants and animals were a source of inspiration.

Margaret Cone

CONTEMPORARY AUSTRALIAN BLUE AND WHITE CERAMICS

Modern potters and ceramic artists are fortunate in that they have at their disposal the widest repertoire of ceramic technology and knowledge ever available to potters in human history. Furthermore, in a country like Australia where there is no ceramic heritage, Australian potters are not bound by any tradition (as say a Chinese potter in Jingdezhen or YiXing would, or a Japanese potter in Hagi or Satsuma). They are therefore free to draw their inspiration from any where in the world and from any historical period.

They are not hampered by being dependent on local sources for clay as day can now be obtained from any part of the world, restricted only by cost. Science and technology have reduced glazes as well as kiln operations to recipes, again freely accessible. For form and decoration, modem potters can refer to all known ceramic traditions as well as other art disciplines, as modem distribution of images through photographs, books, magazines, videos, internet etc effectively wipe out boundaries of space and time.

This is not to say that there is no room for the human factor in contemporary craftsmanship. While the wherewithal's are more accessible and in greater range than ever before, the success of any creation is still, as always, a combination of the technical prowess and artistic expression of the potter.

Blue and white ceramic would now be one of many ceramic expressions available to contemporary potters and there is hardly any one potter who would restrict himself/herself to this medium exclusively. All modern potters experiment with clay and glazes and techniques. Nevertheless, blue and white ceramics still challenge and appeal to modern potters. As an illustration, the exhibition includes a number of contemporary Australian pieces.

The large platter is high fired stoneware. The design is very much the potter's own response to Cotoneaster leaves and berries found in his garden. The decoration is put on by a latex resist method over a background of underglaze cobalt blue. All these elements are combined into a bold striking piece of work.

In contrast, the tea pot, small tea bowl and shallow bowl are elegant by virtue of their simplicity and delicacy. They are made of hard paste porcelain. Their forms speak of oriental influence but their decoration is not picture painting which has been the long tradition of blue and white porcelain. Their delicacy is enhanced by the restrained decoration of a band of soft blue watercolour wash, achieved through the use of cobalt chloride underneath a clear glaze. The pieces have a modern yet timeless feel about them.

The centre of the shallow bowl is decorated with chatter-marks - a modern personal application of a traditional Japanese technique known as tobiganna.

Poh Kan Wong