Friday, July 2, 2010

WARES NOT WAR!


I DID NOT MAKE THIS POT

This piece was fired somewhere around 750 A.D. made in the Sancai tradition during the Tang Dynasty. Over the last two years I've found myself coming back to this image over and over again. Visually, it has everything I'm drawn to in piece. Rich and luscious polychromatic surfaces pushed up against sharp voluminous forms.
The Sancai pottery of the Tang Dynasty is a perfect example of aesthetic diffusion in ceramics. The form itself is influenced by the Hellenistic style while the pattern is indicative of Iranian Luster Ware originating around the same time. Sancai influenced Luster Ware and Luster Ware in turn influenced Sancai.
This excites me. Ceramics is a history of culture: a history of cultural diffusion.

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