Terracotta, terra cotta or terra-cotta, a type of earthenware, is a clay-based unglazed or glazed ceramic, where the fired body is porous. Terracotta is the term normally used for sculpture made in earthenware, and also for various practical uses including vessels, water and waste water pipes, roofing tiles, bricks, and surface embellishment in building construction. The term is also used to refer to the natural brownish orange color of most terracotta, which varies considerably.
Earthenware is glazed or unglazed nonvitreous pottery that has normally been fired below 1200°C. Porcelain, bone china and stoneware, all fired at high enough temperatures to vitrify, are the main other important types of pottery.
Pottery and porcelain, is one of the oldest Japanese crafts and art forms, dating back to the Neolithic period. Kilns have produced earthenware, pottery, stoneware, glazed pottery, glazed stoneware, porcelain, and blue-and-white ware. Japan has an exceptionally long and successful history of ceramic production. Earthenwares were created as early as the Jōmon period, giving Japan one of the oldest ceramic traditions in the world. Japan is further distinguished by the unusual esteem that ceramics holds within its artistic tradition, owing to the enduring popularity of the tea ceremony.
The Etruria Works was a ceramics factory opened by Josiah Wedgwood in 1769 in a district of Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, England, which he named Etruria. The factory ran for 180 years.
Ancient Greek pottery, due to its relative durability, comprises a large part of the archaeological record of ancient Greece, and since there is so much of it, it has exerted a disproportionately large influence on our understanding of Greek society. The shards of pots discarded or buried in the 1st millennium BC are still the best guide available to understand the customary life and mind of the ancient Greeks. There were several vessels produced locally for everyday and kitchen use, yet finer pottery from regions such as Attica was imported by other civilizations throughout the Mediterranean, such as the Etruscans in Italy. There were various specific regional varieties, such as the South Italian ancient Greek pottery.
Black-figure pottery painting, also known as the black-figure style or black-figure ceramic is one of the styles of painting on antique Greek vases. It was especially common between the 7th and 5th centuries BC, although there are specimens dating as late as the 2nd century BC. Stylistically it can be distinguished from the preceding orientalizing period and the subsequent red-figure pottery style.
The Hamangia culture is a Late Neolithic archaeological culture of Dobruja between the Danube and the Black Sea and Muntenia in the south. It is named after the site of Baia-Hamangia, discovered in 1952 along Golovița Lake.
The Villanovan culture was the earliest Iron Age culture of Central Italy and Northern Italy, abruptly following the Bronze Age Terramare culture and giving way in the 7th century BC to an increasingly orientalizing culture influenced by Greek traders, which was followed without a severe break by the Etruscan civilization. The Villanovan culture and people branched from the Urnfield culture of Central Europe. The Villanovans introduced iron-working to the Italian Peninsula, and they practiced cremation and buried the ashes of their dead in pottery urns of distinctive double-cone shape. Villanovan culture is regarded as the oldest phase of Etruscan civilization.
Situla, from the Latin word for bucket or pail, is the term in archaeology and art history for a variety of elaborate bucket-shaped vessels from the Iron Age to the Middle Ages, usually with a handle at the top. All types may be highly decorated, most characteristically with reliefs in bands or friezes running round the vessel.
Geometric art is a phase of Greek art, characterized largely by geometric motifs in vase painting, that flourished towards the end of the Greek Dark Ages, circa 900 BC – 700 BC. Its center was in Athens, and from there the style spread among the trading cities of the Aegean. The Greek Dark Ages are also called the Geometric period in reference to this characteristic pottery style, although the historical period is much longer than the art-historical period, being circa 1100 – 800 BC. The vases had various uses or purposes within Greek society, including, but not limited to, funerary vases and symposium vases.
In the Archaic phase of ancient Greek art, the Orientalizing period is the cultural and art historical period which started during the later part of the 8th century BC, when there was a heavy influence from the more advanced art of the Eastern Mediterranean and Ancient Near East. The main sources were Syria and Assyria, and to a lesser extent also Phoenicia and Egypt.
The Nessos Painter, also known as Netos or Nettos Painter, was a pioneer of Attic black-figure vase painting. He is considered to be the first Athenian to adopt the Corinthian style who went on to develop his own style and introduced innovations. The Nessos Painter is often known to be one of the original painters of black-figure. He only worked in this style, which is shown on his name vase in the National Archaeological Museum in Athens. Most of the known Nessos Painter ceramics were found in funerary settings such as cemeteries and mortuaries.
Bucchero is a class of ceramics produced in central Italy by the region's pre-Roman Etruscan population. This Italian word is derived from the Latin poculum, a drinking-vessel, perhaps through the Spanish búcaro, or the Portuguese púcaro.
Etruscan art was produced by the Etruscan civilization in central Italy between the 9th and 2nd centuries BC. From around 600 BC it was heavily influenced by Greek art, which was imported by the Etruscans, but always retained distinct characteristics. Particularly strong in this tradition were figurative sculpture in terracotta, wall-painting and metalworking especially in bronze. Jewellery and engraved gems of high quality were produced.
Poggio Colla is an Etruscan archaeological site located near the town of Vicchio in Tuscany, Italy.
Chalcidian pottery is an important style of black-figure Greek vase painting.
The Mamarce Oinochoe is an Etruscan vessel of art historical significance which is dated to around 640/20 BC. Today the oinochoe is kept in Martin von Wagner Museum in Würzburg, where it has the inventory number H 5724.
Francesca Romana Serra Ridgway was a leading twentieth century scholar of Etruscan and Italic archaeology.
Ceramic art is art made from ceramic materials, including clay. It may take forms including artistic pottery, including tableware, tiles, figurines and other sculpture. Ceramic art is one of the arts, particularly the visual arts. Of these, it is one of the plastic arts. While some ceramics are considered fine art, as pottery or sculpture, some are considered to be decorative, industrial or applied art objects. Ceramics may also be considered artefacts in archaeology. Ceramic art can be made by one person or by a group of people. In a pottery or ceramic factory, a group of people design, manufacture and decorate the art ware. Products from a pottery are sometimes referred to as "art pottery". In a one-person pottery studio, ceramists or potters produce studio pottery.
