Pottery


All you need to know about the acient art

black-woman-painting-pot

Pottery is made up of ceramic materials and encompasses major types of pottery wares such as earthenware, stoneware and porcelain. To be considered pottery, a piece must be a fired ceramic ware that contains clay when formed.
To create a piece of pottery, the potter must form a ceramic/clay body into a specific object, whether by hand built or wheel thrown techniques, and then heat it at a high temperature in a kiln to remove water from the clay. This allows for changes in the molded object, increasing its strength and durability while permanently setting its shape.

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Main types

Earthenware
The earliest forms of pottery were made from clays that were fired at low temperatures, initially in pit-fires or in open bonfires. They were hand formed and undecorated.Earthenware can be fired as low as 600 °C, and is normally fired below 1200 °C.[8] Because unglazed biscuit earthenware is porous, it has limited utility for the storage of liquids or as tableware. However, earthenware has had a continuous history from the Neolithic period to today. It can be made from a wide variety of clays, some of which fire to a buff, brown or black colour, with iron in the constituent minerals resulting in a reddish-brown. Reddish coloured varieties are called terracotta, especially when unglazed or used for sculpture. The development of ceramic glaze made impermeable pottery possible, improving the popularity and practicality of pottery vessels. The addition of decoration has evolved throughout its history.

Stoneware
Stoneware is pottery that has been fired in a kiln at a relatively high temperature, from about 1,100 °C to 1,200 °C, and is stronger and non-porous to liquids.[9] The Chinese, who developed stoneware very early on, classify this together with porcelain as high-fired wares. In contrast, stoneware could only be produced in Europe from the late Middle Ages, as European kilns were less efficient, and the right type of clay less common. It remained a speciality of Germany until the Renaissance.[10] Stoneware is very tough and practical, and much of it has always been utilitarian, for the kitchen or storage rather than the table. But "fine" stoneware has been important in China, Japan and the West, and continues to be made. Many utilitarian types have also come to be appreciated as art.

Porcelain
Porcelain is made by heating materials, generally including kaolin, in a kiln to temperatures between 1,200 and 1,400 °C (2,200 and 2,600 °F). This is higher than used for the other types, and achieving these temperatures was a long struggle, as well as realizing what materials were needed. The toughness, strength and translucence of porcelain, relative to other types of pottery, arises mainly from vitrification and the formation of the mineral mullite within the body at these high temperatures.