Lili Krakowski on sun 7 jan 07
One of my favorite quotes is from Thornton Wilder:
"Some Americans call it Rhine, and others call it Rhone!"
I think it is Paul Soldner who said that an engobe is a pretentious French
slip....
As to Majolica--I did not know the differences Snail mentioned, and did
think it all came from differing pronunciations, and/or, what the Island is
called in Spanish vs Italian.
Sort of like Antwerpen and Antwerp, not to mention Anvers.
However---can one escape the problem and speak of faience, or is faience
yet another variation on the basic tin-opacified, low fired, lead glazed
ware?
Lili Krakowski
Be of good courage
Vince Pitelka on sun 7 jan 07
Lili wrote:
> However---can one escape the problem and speak of faience, or is faience
> yet another variation on the basic tin-opacified, low fired, lead glazed
> ware?
Lili -
There's a good story behind that as well. As the maiolica technique passed
from Italy into Europe, a primary center of ceramics production and trading
in northern Italy was Faenza. Apparently the French were not inclined to
call the work or the technique maiolica, so instead they called it
"faience," their derivation of "Faenza."
Much of the misunderstanding of terminology comes about when art historians
or other scholars adopt terms or phrases incorrectly, and it becomes part of
the scholarly lexicon. That's what happened with "faience," which is now
used by art historians to refer to Egyptian ceramics, which isn't the
faience technique by any stretch of the imagination. Why can't they just
ask us potters?
- Vince
Vince Pitelka
Appalachian Center for Craft, Tennessee Technological University
Smithville TN 37166, 615/597-6801 x111
vpitelka@dtccom.net, wpitelka@tntech.edu
http://iweb.tntech.edu/wpitelka/
http://www.tntech.edu/craftcenter/
Marcia Selsor on mon 8 jan 07
But Snail,
Faience refers to Italian tin-glazed work most common from Faenza,
still manufacturing and where the International Ceramics Museum
holds an overwhelming collection of Italian Faience/tin-glaze from
the tin-glaze renaissance centers in Italy: Gubbio, Urbino, Faenza,
Deruta, Firenze,
Montepulo etc.
Marcia Selsor
http://marciaselsor.com
On Jan 8, 2007, at 10:42 AM, Snail Scott wrote:
> At 10:14 AM 1/7/2007 -0500, you wrote:
>> However---can one escape the problem and speak of faience, or is
>> faience
>> yet another variation on the basic tin-opacified, low fired, lead
>> glazed
>> ware?
>
>
> If only!!
>
> For ceramics folks, faience is
> indeed synonymous with maiolica,
> but for antiquarians, it means
> Egyptian paste!
>
> -Snail
Snail Scott on mon 8 jan 07
At 10:14 AM 1/7/2007 -0500, you wrote:
>However---can one escape the problem and speak of faience, or is faience
>yet another variation on the basic tin-opacified, low fired, lead glazed
>ware?
If only!!
For ceramics folks, faience is
indeed synonymous with maiolica,
but for antiquarians, it means
Egyptian paste!
-Snail
Lee Love on mon 8 jan 07
On 1/8/07, Lili Krakowski wrote:
> However---can one escape the problem and speak of faience, or is faience
> yet another variation on the basic tin-opacified, low fired, lead glazed
> ware?
I calls it jermolickers.
Below, from the V&A site (People thinking it comes from Majorca might
have it wrong and it is possible that Maiolica is specifically related
to luster ware and not necessarity faience. I always think the
questions are more interesting than the answers:
"The term 'maiolica' was used in 15th-century Italy for lustrewares
imported from Spain. It is usually said that the name derives from
Majorca, an island that played an important part in this trade. But it
has recently been argued that the name derives from 'obra de
Mallequa', the term for lustred made in Valencia under the influence
of Moorish craftsmen from Malaga. The name was soon adopted for
Italian-made lustre pottery copying Spanish examples, and during the
16th century its meaning shifted to include all tin-glazed
earthenware."
http://www.vam.ac.uk/collections/ceramics/ceramics_AZ/ceramics_m/index.html
--
Lee in Mashiko, Japan
Minneapolis, Minnesota USA
http://potters.blogspot.com/
"Let the beauty we love be what we do." - Rumi
"When we all do better. We ALL do better." -Paul Wellstone
Ingeborg on mon 8 jan 07
Much of the misunderstanding of terminology comes about when art historians
> or other scholars adopt terms or phrases incorrectly, and it becomes part
> of
> the scholarly lexicon. That's what happened with "faience," which is now
> used by art historians to refer to Egyptian ceramics, which isn't the
> faience technique by any stretch of the imagination. Why can't they just
> ask us potters?
Vince,
This discussion has been really enjoyable as well as enlightening. I have
always found the pronunciations somewhat confusing and conflicting. Now, I
can, pronounce the word without hesitation and I can actually back it up
with an explanation if need be.
Sincerely,
Ingeborg
3058 Stringfellow Road
P.O. Box 510
Saint James City, FL 33956
http://www.thepottersworkshop.com
Vince Pitelka on mon 8 jan 07
Lee quoted the V&A website as follows:
> "The term 'maiolica' was used in 15th-century Italy for lustrewares
> imported from Spain. It is usually said that the name derives from
> Majorca, an island that played an important part in this trade. But it
> has recently been argued that the name derives from 'obra de
> Mallequa', the term for lustred made in Valencia under the influence
> of Moorish craftsmen from Malaga. The name was soon adopted for
> Italian-made lustre pottery copying Spanish examples, and during the
> 16th century its meaning shifted to include all tin-glazed
> earthenware."
Lee -
That's interesting. All of the scholarly sources I have seen agree that the
tin-glazed earthenware technique came to Italy from Spain via the island of
Majorca. I had not heard that the term was first used in the 15th century
in reference to lustre wares, which of course were tin-glaze earthenware
with overglaze decoration applied to the raw glaze, fired once, and then
luster applied and the wares fired again to the lower luster temperature.
We always assume so much based on how the terminology is used now, and it's
fascinating to find out something about the etymology of a word like this.
Most scholarly sources identify the island of Majorca as the source of the
name Maiolica. When one hears an Italian person pronounce the island
Majorca, the source of the word maiolica seems obvious, regardless of any
confusion among the scholars at the V&A. Face it, art scholars are always
LOOKING for stuff to argue about, even when the arguement has long been
solved.
I love this stuff!
- Vince
Vince Pitelka
Appalachian Center for Craft, Tennessee Technological University
Smithville TN 37166, 615/597-6801 x111
vpitelka@dtccom.net, wpitelka@tntech.edu
http://iweb.tntech.edu/wpitelka/
http://www.tntech.edu/craftcenter/
Vince Pitelka on mon 8 jan 07
> For ceramics folks, faience is
> indeed synonymous with maiolica,
> but for antiquarians, it means
> Egyptian paste!
Snail -
The art historians and antiquarians seem to use it to refer to both Egyptian
paste, and alkaline glazed Egyptian wares, such as canoptic jars and
shawabti figurines (some of which are also Egyptian paste). I guess that
proves just how confused they are.
- Vince
Vince Pitelka
Appalachian Center for Craft, Tennessee Technological University
Smithville TN 37166, 615/597-6801 x111
vpitelka@dtccom.net, wpitelka@tntech.edu
http://iweb.tntech.edu/wpitelka/
http://www.tntech.edu/craftcenter/
Taylor Hendrix on tue 9 jan 07
Hehe Vince,
Who's to say they didn't, and it was an ignorant potter?
Let's all be poets and embrace a measure of ambiguity. I guess we
could be potters and throw us a couple of pounds of ambiguity.
Taylor, in Rockport TX, who tries at times to be as ambiguious as
possible, maybe.
On 1/7/07, Vince Pitelka wrote:
...
Why can't they just
> ask us potters?
...
Paul Lewing on tue 9 jan 07
And as long as we're going to get our terms right, let's stop talking
about dismembering small animals and get back to splitting hairs.
Paul Lewing
www.paullewingtile.com
Richard Aerni on tue 9 jan 07
On Mon, 8 Jan 2007 19:19:32 -0600, Marcia Selsor wrote:
>But Snail,
>Faience refers to Italian tin-glazed work most common from Faenza,
>still manufacturing and where the International Ceramics Museum
>holds an overwhelming collection of Italian Faience/tin-glaze from
>the tin-glaze renaissance centers in Italy: Gubbio, Urbino, Faenza,
>Deruta, Firenze,
>Montepulo etc.
>
>
Although....
When I visited a ceramics workshop in the south of France, in Moustiers Ste.
Marie, which was making tin glazed earthenware with colored pigments
appplied over that glaze, they called it Faience.
I just bring this up to emphasize the point that in this area, the waters
are so muddied I fear all the discussion in the world will do little to
clear it up. It's not just the artists we have to be concerned about, but
also the critics, the art historians, the aestetitians, plus the garden
variety misinformed media types as well.
All of this becomes a bit tedious after the first twenty or thirty posts...
Best,
Richard Aerni
Rochester, NY
Catherine on tue 9 jan 07
And, then there was my geography teacher who was appalled at the
pronunciations of Carribean and Himalayas. Care-uh-BEE-un and Him-AHL-u=
yun
were correct. The newer more popular pronunciations were dreadful
bastardizations.=0D
=0D
Catherine in Yuma=0D
=0D
-------Original Message-------=0D
Vince,=0D
=0D
This discussion has been really enjoyable as well as enlightening. I hav=
e=0D
always found the pronunciations somewhat confusing and conflicting. Now=
, I=0D
can, pronounce the word without hesitation and I can actually back it up=0D
with an explanation if need be.=0D
=0D
Ingeborg
May Luk on wed 10 jan 07
Hello;
I was in Majorca (next to Ibiza)for vacation this past
September. I didn't see much pottery. There were
leather jacket/shoe outlets, Euro-discos and topless
German beach goers. It didn't seem like they were
milking the pottery connection.
Regards
May
[...]All of the scholarly sources I have seen agree
that the tin-glazed earthenware technique came to
Italy from Spain via the island of
Majorca. [...]
- Vince
Snail Scott on wed 10 jan 07
At 07:19 PM 1/8/2007 -0600, Marcia wrote:
>But Snail,
>Faience refers to Italian tin-glazed work most common from Faenza,
>still manufacturing and where the International Ceramics Museum
>holds an overwhelming collection of Italian Faience/tin-glaze from
>the tin-glaze renaissance centers in Italy: Gubbio, Urbino, Faenza,
>Deruta, Firenze,
>Montepulo etc.
It also refers to things like the
ubiquitous blue Egyptian hippo of
Metropolitan Museum gift-shop fame;
I only wished to point out that like
'majolica', the word 'faience' means
something very different to the
antiquarian and collector trade.
-Snail
Ingeborg on wed 10 jan 07
For some reason this got lost in cyberspace so I'm posting again.
Vince,
>
> This discussion has been really enjoyable as well as enlightening. I have
> always found the pronunciations somewhat confusing and conflicting. Now,
> I can, pronounce the word without hesitation and I can actually back it up
> with an explanation if need be.
>
> Sincerely,
>
> Ingeborg
>
> 3058 Stringfellow Road
> P.O. Box 510
> Saint James City, FL 33956
>
> http://www.thepottersworkshop.com
>
Vince said:
> Much of the misunderstanding of terminology comes about when art
> historians
>> or other scholars adopt terms or phrases incorrectly, and it becomes part
>> of
>> the scholarly lexicon. That's what happened with "faience," which is now
>> used by art historians to refer to Egyptian ceramics, which isn't the
>> faience technique by any stretch of the imagination. Why can't they just
>> ask us potters?
>
>
>
>
| |
|
