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The Journal of Australian Ceramics Vol 50 no 1 April 2011

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Focus: <strong>Ceramics</strong> + Body<br />

1 Sevres figures, c. 1780<br />

2 Terracotta Warrior Officer, Qin Dynasty<br />

excavated 1974, h.192cm<br />

Photo: courtesy Overseas Archeological<br />

Exhibition Corporation <strong>of</strong> the Peoples<br />

Republic <strong>of</strong> China<br />

3 Paul Greenaway, Che mentalite<br />

Photo: Grant Hancock<br />

Clay has been used to sculpt the human form and the figure <strong>of</strong>ten appears in decorations adorning<br />

ceramic vessels. Sometimes this gets very literal indeed, as in this ancient South American Ithyphallic<br />

water pot, or the South Italian Bell Krater held in the collection <strong>of</strong> the Nicholson Museum at the<br />

University <strong>of</strong> Sydney.<br />

Chinese Emperors constructed vast terra cotta armies to protect them in the after-life [Qin dynasty<br />

Chinese 'Terracotta warrior' figure <strong>of</strong> an Officer height 192cm,<br />

excavated 1974J. and, at the other end <strong>of</strong> the scale (in almost<br />

every way imaginable) innumerable figurines were produced by<br />

British and European factories, to f ill the mantles and the 'China<br />

cabinets' <strong>of</strong> a growing middle class.<br />

More recently, the figure has had somewhat <strong>of</strong> a revival in the<br />

hands <strong>of</strong> contemporary ceramicists. In Australia in the 1970s,<br />

many artists reconfigured the ceramic figurine as a campy political<br />

gesture, a protest vote by the most privileged artistic generation<br />

this country has ever seen .<br />

In literature and painting and even in film, the ceramic vessel<br />

has <strong>of</strong>ten been used as a metaphor for the body. Sometimes this<br />

resulted in fairly creepy work, as in the fashion for 'broken vessel '<br />

paintings. Although the best k<strong>no</strong>wn <strong>of</strong> these is the 1771 painting<br />

by Jean-Baptiste Greuze (1725-1805), which <strong>no</strong>w hangs in the<br />

Louvre Museum in Paris, the neo-classical master W illiam-Adolphe<br />

Bouguereau (1825- 1905) certainly expanded this oeuvre. Famous<br />

for both his depictions <strong>of</strong> religious subjects and young women, his<br />

own version <strong>of</strong> <strong>The</strong> Broken Pitcher - La (ruche (asse - <strong>no</strong>w<br />

THE JOURNAL OF AUSTRALIAN CERAMICS APRIL <strong>2011</strong> 37

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