Again we have the eternal lesson of simplicity and
fitness. Again it will be borne in upon the student that originality does not mean weirdness, but rather a fresh spontaneous treatment of simple, well-known natural forms, with, above all, a fine appreciation of good line and space. No sincere student can fail to develop here a respect and veneration of a craft and of craftsmen capable of producing such glorious works.
From this teeming home the craft spread to Arabia and west across the Mediterranean to Spain. Here in the twelfth century the Moors were producing their famous Hispano-Mooresque lustred wares. Their large plaques offer a wonderful variety of pure brushwork ornament with spirited heraldic additions. Sometimes the backs of these dishes are as beautifully lustred as the fronts.
For a proper appreciation of their purely geometric decoration and its possibilities in pottery we must turn to the Alcazzar at Madrid. Here the use of opaque tin glaze permitted the extensive use of a coarse body for tiles and bricks. The Moors, however, first introduced glazes with a lead base and from that time we begin to lose the fresh wet colour always associated with the alkaline glazes of the Persians. Analysis shows that they used lead, but only occasionally and in small quantities, to aid their lustres. The lustred wares of Spain declined late in the thirteenth century, but not before
its exportation to Italy by way of Majorca had stimulated the production of Italian Majolica. Della Robbia, about 1415, succeeded in colouring his tin glazes, and his finely modelled but somewhat crudely coloured reliefs usher in the era of Italian Faience. Patronized by the nobles the craft quickly took root and was blossoming profusely at Urbino, Gubbio, Pesaro, Faenza and other cities at the end of the fifteenth century.
Here we break ground and leave the chaste simplicity of the golden age to riot a blaze of exuberant decoration. Scraffito, slip, inlaid, applied, incised, raised, embossed and modelled and painted embellishments; all are here. This era is chiefly notable for its splendid ruby lustres and the remarkable power and freedom, amounting to absolute abandon, of the brushwork and drawing shown by its artists. They used their lustres to heighten the effects of their painting and the results are in keeping with that romantic age. Alongside of it our best modern work is apt to look spiritless and dull.
Much splendid work was produced in Italy at this period, but in such a wide field there are naturally some places that exhibit technique rather than art. The student must go into it with appreciative faculties alert lest mere splendour should sweep him off his feet.
The wares and the potters of Italy penetrated
north into Europe, to France, the Holy Roman Empire and Britain, starting or stimulating what was to prove an overwhelming flood of production. In Europe in pre-Roman times, a coarse, unglazed, built-up ware was general, it being of simple, somewhat clumsy but vigorous form, low-fired and friable. It was used chiefly for cinerary purposes, the Germanic peoples having a decided preference for vessels of horn, wood, or metal.
The Romans introduced the wheel and produced a far higher class of ware. Their importation of the fine red Samian pottery resulted in the fabrication of the vigorous Gallo-Roman and Romano-British pottery. This was good in shape and paste and characteristically decorated with slip, bosses, dots, and indentations. The later Gaulish work shows applied figures and highly finished scroll work. After the decline of Rome, Saxon and Germanic work shows a distinctly retrograde tendency. It is often built up, strapped, banded, and bossed in imitation of the Romano-British. Though coarse and lacking in finish, it is full of freshness and character.