II.

Types, Procedures, and Techniques

Earthenware is porous pottery, usually fired at the lower kiln temperatures of c. 900°-1150° C (1652°-2102° F). Depending on the clay used, it turns buff, red, brown, or black when fired. To be made waterproof, it must be glazed. Nearly all ancient, medieval, Middle Eastern, and European painted ceramics are earthenware, as is much contemporary household dinnerware. Stoneware, water-resistant and much more durable, is fired at temperatures of 1200°-1300° C (2191°-2372° F). The clay turns white, buff, grey, or red and is glazed for aesthetic reasons. (Pottery fired at about 1150°-1200° C (2102°-2191° F) is sometimes called middle-fire ware; its earthenware or stoneware traits vary from clay to clay.) Stoneware was made by the Chinese in antiquity and became known in northern Europe after the Renaissance. Porcelain, first used by the Chinese, is also high-fired at 1280°-1300°C (2336°-2372° F) and becomes white, vitreous, and translucent.

A.

Preparing and Shaping the Clay

The potter can remove some of the coarse foreign matter natural to secondary clays, or it can be used in various quantities for different effects. A certain amount of coarse grain in the clay helps the vessel retain its shape during firing, and potters using fine-grained clays often “temper” the clay by adding coarser materials such as sand or grog (fired and pulverized clay) before kneading the clay into workable condition. The plasticity of clay allows pottery to be shaped in several traditional ways. The clay can be flattened and then shaped by being pressed against the inside or outside of a mould—a stone or basket, or a clay or plaster form. Liquid clay, known as casting slip, can be poured into plaster moulds. A pot can be coil built: clay is rolled between the palms of the hands and extended into long coils, a coil is formed into a ring, and the pot is built up by superimposed rings. Also, a ball of clay can be pinched into a desired shape. The most sophisticated pottery-making technique is wheel throwing.

The potter's wheel, invented in the 4th millennium bc, is a flat disc that revolves horizontally on a pivot. Both hands—one on the inside and the other on the outside of the clay—are free to shape the pot from a ball of clay that is placed at the centre of the rotating wheel head. Some wheels are set in motion by a stick that fits into a notch in the wheel (often activated by an assistant); called a handwheel, this is the classical wheel of Japanese potters. In 16th-century Europe, with the addition of a flywheel separate from the wheel head and mounted in a frame, the potter could control the wheel by kicking the flywheel. A kick bar, or foot treadle, was added in the 19th century. In the 20th century the electric wheel with a variable-speed motor allowed greater and more regulated rotating speed.

B.

Drying and Firing

To fire without breaking, the clay must first be air dried. If the clay is thoroughly dry, porous, relatively soft pottery can be baked directly in an open fire, at temperatures of 650°-750° C (1202°-1382° F); primitive pottery is still made in this way. The first kilns were used in the 6th millennium bc. Wood fuels—and, later, coal, gas, and electricity—have always required careful control to produce the desired effect in hardening the clay into earthenware or stoneware. Different effects are achieved by oxidizing the flames (giving them adequate ventilation, producing a great flame) or by reducing the oxygen by partially obstructing the entrance of air into the kiln. For example, a clay high in iron will typically turn red in an oxidizing fire, whereas in a reducing fire it will turn grey or black; in reduction firing the clay's red iron oxide (FeO₂, or with two molecules, Fe₂O₄) is chemically converted to black iron oxide (Fe ₂O₃) as the pot gives up an atom of oxygen to the oxygen-starved fire.

C.

Decoration

A pot can be decorated before or after firing. When the clay is half dry and somewhat stiffened (“leather hard”), bits of clay can be pressed into the pot; the body can be incised, stamped, or pressed with lines and other patterns; or clay can be cut out and the body pierced. The vessel walls can be smoothed by burnishing, or polishing, so that rough particles are driven inwards and the clay particles are aligned in such a way that the vessel surface is shiny and smooth. (Some clays can be polished after firing.) Slip (liquefied clay strained of coarse particles) may be used: the bone-dry (completely dry) or half-dry pot can be dipped into slip of creamy consistency (to which colour is sometimes added); or the slip can be brushed on or trailed on with a spouted can or a syringe. Designs can be drawn with a pointed tool that scratches through the slip to reveal the body, a technique known as sgraffito.

D.

Glazes

Historically, unglazed pottery has always been more common than glazed pottery. Glaze is a form of glass, consisting basically of glass-forming minerals (silica or boron) combined with stiffeners (such as clay, which contains alumina) and fluxes, which are melting agents (such as lead or soda). In raw form, glaze can be applied either to the unfired pot or after an initial unglazed, or biscuit, firing. The pot is then glaze fired; the glaze ingredients must melt and become glasslike at a temperature that is compatible to that required for the clay. Many kinds of glazes are used. Some heighten the colour of the body; others mask it. Alkaline glazes, popular in the Middle East, are shiny and frequently transparent. They are composed mostly of silica (such as sand) and a form of soda (such as nitre). Lead glazes are transparent, with traditional types made of sand fused with sulphide or lead oxide. They were used on earthenware by Roman, Chinese, and medieval European potters and are still employed on European earthenware. Tin glazes, opaque and white, were introduced by medieval Islamic potters and were used for Spanish lustreware, Italian maiolica, and European faience and delftware.

Metal oxides give colour to glazes. Copper will make a lead glaze turn green and an alkaline glaze turquoise; a reduction kiln will cause the copper to turn red. Iron can produce yellow, brown, grey-green, blue, or, with certain minerals, red. Feldspars (natural rocks of aluminosilicates) are used in stoneware and porcelain glazes because they fuse only at high temperatures. The effects of specific glazes on certain clay bodies depend both on the composition of each and on the potter's control of the glaze kiln.

E.

Underglaze and Overglaze Decoration

Pottery can also be painted before and after firing. In Neolithic times, ochres and other earth pigments were used on unglazed ware. Metal oxides used in or under glazes require somewhat higher temperatures in order to fix the colours to the glaze or body—they include copper green, cobalt blue, manganese purple, and antimony yellow. If enamels (fine-ground pigments applied over a fired glaze) are used, the pot must be refired in a muffle (covered, indirect-flame) kiln at low temperatures to fuse the enamel and glaze. Transfer prints (designs printed on paper with oxides and, while wet, transferred to the pot, the paper burning away in the firing) are often used to decorate commercially manufactured pottery. In the 18th century the print plate was hand engraved, but now lithography and photography are used.

Potters' marks were used to identify ware in China from the 15th century on, and in Europe from the 18th, and famous pottery marks have always been easily forged. Greek potters and painters signed their work, as is true of a few Islamic potters and most 20th-century potters.