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Ceramic, Art and Civilisation: Art and Civilization

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In his major new history, Paul Greenhalgh tells the story of ceramics as a story of human civilisation, from the Ancient Greeks to the present day. As a core craft technology, pottery has underpinned domesticity, business, religion, recreation, architecture, and art for millenia. Indeed, the history of ceramics parallels the development of human society.

This fascinating and very human history traces the story of ceramic art and industry from the Ancient Greeks to the Romans and the medieval world; Islamic ceramic cultures and their influence on the Italian Renaissance; Chinese and European porcelain production; modernity and Art Nouveau; the rise of the studio potter, Art Deco, International Style and Mid-Century Modern, and finally, the contemporary explosion of ceramic making and the postmodern potter. Interwoven in this journey through time and place is the story of the pots themselves, the culture of the ceramics, and their character and meaning. Ceramics have had a presence in virtually every country and historical period, and have worked as a commodity servicing every social class. They are omnipresent: a ubiquitous art. Ceramic culture is a clear, unique, definable thing, and has an internal logic that holds it together through millennia. Hence ceramics is the most peculiar and extraordinary of all the arts. At once cheap, expensive, elite, plebian, high-tech, low-tech, exotic, eccentric, comic, tragic, spiritual, and secular, it has revealed itself to be as fluid as the mud it is made from.

Ceramics are the very stuff of how civilized life was, and is, led. This then is the story of human society's most surprising core causes and effects.

Review

"Greenhalgh describes the fluctuating status of pots and potters throughout history in connection with the technical development of ceramic as an industry and the emergence of the artist potter… [He] takes us from ancient Greece to the wilder shores of Conceptual Art, Post-Modernism and Californian Funk… Full of surprises [and] provocative" --Jane Rye, The Spectator

"Passionately written… At the end of his book, Greenhalgh writes that, ‘far more than religion, or war, or academic treatises, skill shaped civilisation’. So true, and there is no better example than ceramics. One closes this compendious history with a breathless feeling: what will potters come up with next?" --Glenn Adamson, Apollo

"This is an extraordinary accomplishment. It animates the history of world ceramics in a manner that has not been achieved before. It is full of remarkable insight and beautiful details and will reach a huge and appreciative audience." --Edmund de Waal, artist and writer, UK

From the Back Cover

In his major new history, Paul Greenhalgh tells the story of ceramics as a story of human civilisation, from the Ancient Greeks to the present day. As a core craft technology, pottery has underpinned domesticity, business, religion, recreation, architecture, and art for millenia. Indeed, the history of ceramics parallels the development of human society.

This fascinating and very human history traces the story of ceramic art and industry from the Ancient Greeks to the Romans and the medieval world; Islamic ceramic cultures and their influence on the Italian Renaissance; Chinese and European porcelain production; modernity and Art Nouveau; the rise of the studio potter, Art Deco, International Style and Mid-Century Modern, and finally, the contemporary explosion of ceramic making and the postmodern potter. Interwoven in this journey through time and place is the story of the pots themselves, the culture of the ceramics, and their character and meaning. Ceramics have had a presence in virtually every country and historical period, and have worked as a commodity servicing every social class. They are omnipresent: a ubiquitous art. Ceramic culture is a clear, unique, definable thing, and has an internal logic that holds it together through millennia. Hence ceramics is the most peculiar and extraordinary of all the arts. At once cheap, expensive, elite, plebian, high-tech, low-tech, exotic, eccentric, comic, tragic, spiritual, and secular, it has revealed itself to be as fluid as the mud it is made from.

Ceramics are the very stuff of how civilized life was, and is, led. This then is the story of human society's most surprising core causes and effects.

Review:

4.3 out of 5

86.00% of customers are satisfied

5.0 out of 5 stars Book

S.P. · 28 May 2022

Perfect, Thank you.

5.0 out of 5 stars A much needed book.

B. · 16 November 2021

This scholarly book succeeds in elevating ceramic to an art rather than ceramics as utility. A triumph.

5.0 out of 5 stars Inspirational read

S. · 29 June 2021

Fantastic reference book, provides very in-depth background and historical information about wider ceramic practice, context and contemporary positioning of the discipline. Highly recommend

4.0 out of 5 stars Informative and well written..but

C.1. · 1 August 2021

I enjoyed this book, informative and focussed as it is very much on China gives readers a non-western centric view of celadon and other wares. I would have given the book 5 stars - I didn't because the last part of the book which served as a showcase for modern ceramic artists felt out of place, and I might add was hard work to plod through. Shame because otherwise it was good, so good that it enthused me to buy other books on similar subjects

3.0 out of 5 stars Well illustrated but...

F.M.M. · 19 February 2022

It does what it says it will do but ...This was bought as a present for someone who has a more than casual interest in the subject and while she found the pictures and captions interesting I am afraid she found the body of the text a bit of a slog. This sadly is not unusual with books of this kind which, I suspect, usually end up being used for reference more than a good read.

1.0 out of 5 stars Damaged on the corners where box is flimsy

j. · 2 March 2023

Very flimsy packaging so the corners of the book were damaged as this was a present I now have the hassle of sending it back

5.0 out of 5 stars Comprehensive overview

G.F. · 28 April 2021

I have only managed a skim read but appears to provide a comprehensive overview of the history of ceramics

my potter friend loves this book

S. · 27 August 2021

My friend is a history buff and a wonderful potter. So this was the perfect present for him. He loves the book so much, he keeps it in his studio for reference and inspiration.

Entusiasmante e informativo

P.A. · 6 August 2023

Questo libro è il capolavoro di Paul Greenhalgh, che riassume i suoi anni di grande esperienza nella ricerca sulla ceramica di tutto il mondo. Molto ben illustrato e utile da avere, sia che siate specialisti o semplicemente interessati allo sviluppo della cultura attraverso i secoli.

Great gift for a lover of ceramic art

M.P. · 8 January 2023

Person I bought this book as a gift was delighted. Great gift for someone who is in ceramic art.

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Ceramic, Art and Civilisation: Art and Civilization

4.7

BHD24660

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Product origin: United Kingdom

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