But our muttons need tending. Broadly speaking, all decoration falls under three heads: Glaze; Relief; Painting;—subdivided into many combinations of these three classes.
The application of glaze has already been described. A pot possessing a noble form and glaze is obviously in no need of decoration; no artist would attempt it. The Chinese and Japanese are safe guides here. Their rich glazes and fine forms are set off in the simplest and most effective manner. This is potting, pure and simple.
Under relief, we group all modelling,—raised or sunk, embossments, flutings, mouldings, feet, handles, or applied figures. At one extreme come the earliest attempts at decoration in slip or clay, highly developed in the Gallo- and Egypto-Roman and Romano-British wares. The matured slip must be applied fairly thick to the still moist pot and then dried slowly. Any work applied to dry shapes is liable to crack in drying or leave in firing. Probably the most effective use of slip is seen in the old tygs and dishes of Toft and others of his time.
The simple spotting and surfacing has been carried to perfection by the Martin Brothers, who have drawn largely upon the vegetable world for their inspiration. Roman Aretine ware shows finely executed reliefs of foliage and figures. The enrichment was probably worked on the original shape, a mould
was then taken, and the vessel pressed. (See chapter on Casting.)
Wedgwood carried this method still further (too far, maybe) and used different coloured bodies. The reliefs, so finely modelled by Flaxman, were fired, and from them moulds of a very refractory clay were made, called pitcher moulds. The reliefs were then pressed and affixed to the vase, and the whole touched up by a skilled craftsman. A naïve and unpretentious form of this decoration is seen in the stoneware and salt-glazed pottery of the eighteenth-century English potters and the jolly Bellarmines of earlier times. Small dies were used in the Orion ware, the pattern being stamped into the clay. German stoneware and the Grés of Flanders show sunk and relief patterns. Between the two extremes lies a rare choice of style.
This method of using patterns lends itself particularly to fine commercial work when used with the restraint seen in the best of the above-mentioned styles. To the craftsman it offers a welcome chance to enlarge his production, but he must be well equipped. It is easy to acquire the mere mechanism of commerce without its splendid technique. Finally, the further the relief is developed the less will be the appeal of form and the less the possibilities of glaze.
The next division is painting.
It is in this branch of ceramic decoration that the
widest choice lies. The scale ascends from the simple earthy colourants applied to the unglazed pot in the manner of the American Indian up to the splendid enamels of China and the sumptuous but sterile wonders of—shall we say—Sèvres or Worcester. Much of the modern eighteenth- and nineteenth-century work is such a technical tour de force that one hesitates to criticise it. But careful scrutiny will often show that the artistic difficulties have been undermined rather than overcome. Thus the frank frontal attack of the Persians on their absorbent ground or of the potters of Delft on their unfired tin glaze is never attempted, and probably never can be attempted in the factory of to-day.