The Campanian potteries, improperly but commonly called the Etruscan, and the ancient Greek wares, belong to the class of soft and lustrous potteries which are no longer manufactured. The Etruscan vases are the most remarkable specimens of the ancient potter's art; pure, simple, and elegant in form, they cannot be surpassed by any efforts of the modern potter. The paste of which they are made is very fine and homogeneous, coated with a peculiar glassy lustre, which is thin but tenacious, red or black, and formed of silica rendered fusible by an alkali. They were baked at a low temperature. In this ware, which was in vogue between 500 and 320 B.C., the Aretine and Roman pottery originated. The former was manufactured at Arezzo or Arretium.
The knowledge of glazes, which was acquired by the Egyptians and Assyrians, seems to have been handed down to the Persians, Moors, and Arabs. Fayences, and enamelled bricks and plaques, were commonly used among them in the twelfth century, and among the Hindus in the fourteenth. The celebrated glazed tiles, or azulejos, which contribute so much to the beauty of the Alhambra, were introduced into Spain by the Moors about 711 A.D. In Italy, it is supposed, they were made known as early as the conquest of Majorca by the Pisans, in 1115 A.D. But Brongniart places their introduction three centuries later, or in 1415, and says this peculiar kind of ware was called Majolica, from Majorica or Majorca. This, however, seems to have been the Italian enamelled fayence, which was used for subjects in relief by the celebrated Florentine sculptor, Luca della Robbia.
Robbia had been bred to the trade of a goldsmith—in those days a trade of great distinction and opulence—but his artistic tastes could not be controlled, and he abandoned it to become a sculptor. A man of a singularly enthusiastic and ardent nature, he applied himself arduously to his new work. He worked all day with his chisel, and sat up, even through the night, to study. "Often," says Vasari, "when his feet were frozen with cold in the night time, he kept them in a basket of shavings to warm them, that he might not be compelled to discontinue his drawings." Such devotion could hardly fail to secure success. Luca was recognised as one of the first sculptors of the day, and executed a number of great works in bronze and marble. On the conclusion of some important commissions, he was struck with the disproportion between the payment he received and the time and labour he had expended; and, abandoning marble and bronze, resolved to work in clay. Before he could do that, however, it was necessary to discover some means of rendering durable the works which he executed in that material. Applying himself to the task with characteristic zeal and perseverance, he at length succeeded in discovering a mode of protecting such productions from the injuries of time, by means of a glaze or enamel, which conferred not only an almost eternal durability, but additional beauty on his works in terra cotta. At first this enamel was of a pure white, but he afterwards added the further invention of colouring it. The fame of these productions spread over Europe, and Luca found abundant and profitable employment during the rest of his days, the work being carried on, after his death, by brothers and descendants.
II.—BERNARD PALISSY.
The next great master in the art was Bernard Palissy,—a man distinguished not only for his artistic genius, but for his philosophical attainments, his noble, manly character, and zealous piety. Born of poor parents about the beginning of the sixteenth century, Bernard Palissy was taken as apprentice by a land-surveyor, who had been much struck with the boy's quickness and ingenuity. Land-surveying, of course, involved some knowledge of drawing; and thus a taste for painting was developed. From drawing lines and diagrams he went on to copy from the great masters. As this new talent became known he obtained employment in painting designs on glass. He received commissions in various parts of the country, and in his travels employed his mind in the study of natural objects. He examined the character of the soils and minerals upon his route, and the better to grapple with the subject, devoted his attention to chemistry. At length he settled and married at Staines, and for a time lived thriftily as a painter.
One day he was shown an elegant cup of Italian manufacture, beautifully enamelled. The art of enamelling was then entirely unknown in France, and Palissy was at once seized with the idea, that if he could but discover the secret it would enable him to place his wife and family in greater comfort. "So, therefore," he writes, "regardless of the fact that I had no knowledge of clays, I began to seek for these enamels as a man gropes in the dark. I reflected that God had gifted me with some knowledge of drawing, and I took courage in my heart, and besought him to give me wisdom and skill."
He lost no time in commencing his experiments. He bought a quantity of earthen pots, broke them into fragments, and covering them with various chemical compounds, baked them in a little furnace of his own construction, in the hope of discovering the white enamel, which he had been told was the key to all the rest. Again and again he varied the ingredients of the compositions, the proportions in which they were mixed, the quality of the clay on which they were spread, the heat of the furnace to which they were subjected; but the white enamel was still as great a mystery as ever. Instead of discouraging, each new defeat seemed to confirm his hope of ultimate success and to increase his perseverance. Painting and surveying he no longer practised, except when sheer necessity compelled him to resort to them to provide bread for his family. The discovery of the enamel had become the great mission of his life, and to that all other occupations must be sacrificed. "Thus having blundered several times at great expense and through much trouble, with sorrows and sighs, I was every day pounding and grinding new materials and constructing new furnaces, which cost much money, and consumed my wood and my time." Two years had passed now in fruitless effort. Food was becoming scarce in the little household, his wife worn and shrewish, the children thin and sickly. But then came the thought to cheer him,—when the enamel was found his fortune would be made, there would then be an end to all his privations, anxieties, and domestic unhappiness, Lisette would live at ease, and his children lack no comfort. No, the work must not be given up yet. His own furnace was clumsy and imperfect,—perhaps his compositions would turn out better in a regular kiln. So more pots were bought and broken into fragments, which, covered with chemical preparations, were fired at a pottery in the neighbourhood. Batch after batch was prepared and despatched to the kiln, but all proved disheartening failures. Still with "great cost, loss of time, confusion, and sorrow," he persevered, the wife growing more shrewish, the children more pinched and haggard. By good luck at this time came the royal commissioners to establish the gabelle or tax in the district of Saintonge, and Palissy was employed to survey the salt marshes. It was a very profitable job, and Palissy's affairs began to look more flourishing. But the work was no sooner concluded, than the "will o' the wisp," as his wife and neighbours held it, was dancing again before his eyes, and he was back, with redoubled energy, to his favourite occupation, "diving into the secret of enamels."
Two years of unremitting, anxious toil, of grinding and mixing, of innumerable visits to the kiln, sanguine of success, with ever new preparations; of invariable journeys home again, sad and weary, for the moment utterly discouraged; of domestic bickerings; of mockery and censure among neighbours, and still the enamel was a mystery,—still Palissy, seemingly as far from the end as ever, was eager to prosecute the search. He appeared to have an inward conviction that he would succeed; but meanwhile the remonstrances of his wife, the pale, thin faces of his bairns, warned him he must desist, and resume the employments that at least brought food and clothing. There should be one more trial on a grand scale,—if that failed, then there should be an end of his experiments. "God willed," he says, "that when I had begun to lose my courage, and was gone for the last time to a glass-furnace, having a man with me carrying more than three hundred pieces, there was one among those pieces which was melted within four hours after it had been placed in the furnace, which trial turned out white and polished, in a way that caused me such joy as made me think I was become a new creature." He rushed home, burst into his wife's chamber, shouting, "I have found it!"