The Journal of Australian Ceramics Vol 50 no 1 April 2011
You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles
YUMPU automatically turns print PDFs into web optimized ePapers that Google loves.
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