Overview

Selected by Choice magazine as an Outstanding Academic Book for 2000 The history of ceramics is extraordinarily diverse, ranging from crude clay utensils to highly decorative pieces of immense beauty and craftsmanship. Robin Hildyard draws on the Victoria & Albert Museum's extensive collection to trace the story of European ceramics, in its rich diversity from the end of the Middle Ages to the present day. Highlighting key developments, techniques, discoveries, and styles-from earthenware, stoneware, and tin glaze to the invention of porcelain and the impact of industrialization-the narrative is interspersed with thematic spreads that explore the techniques and astonishing capabilities of this most universal of materials. Events such as the Great Exhibition and its successors sought to resolve the conflict between mass production and good design, illustrated here by a wide range of pieces. Looking at the complicated twentieth-century relationship among designer, manufacturer, and artist, the book also explores the modernism of the Bauhaus style, the opposing influence of Art Deco, and the explosion of new design following the Second World War. Including works made as recently as 1998, and featuring specially commissioned photography supported by related engravings and pattern-books, European Ceramics is not only an authoritative and indispensable reference work for students and collectors but a wide-ranging and richly illustrated volume-over two hundred illustrations, the majority in color-for all decorative art lovers to treasure.

Full Product Details

9780812235050

Table of Contents

Reviews

A delight! -Choice This elegant, remarkable, and sumptuous book is both aesthetically rich (filled with more than 200 quality color illustrations) and an excellent scholarly narrative. Hildyard's erudite insights in the six chapters describe essentially the story and history of European ceramics from the end of the medieval period to the most recent present... For anyone who is curious or inquisitive about the changing iconographic meanings of ceramic objects and/or searches for the simple and perfect match between form, material, and function, this extraordinary book will be a delight!: -Choice An authoritative and comprehensive reference work for ... all who enjoy the art and craft of this remarkable medium. -Reviewer's Bookwatch

A delight! --Choice This elegant, remarkable, and sumptuous book is both aesthetically rich (filled with more than 200 quality color illustrations) and an excellent scholarly narrative. Hildyard's erudite insights in the six chapters describe essentially the story and history of European ceramics from the end of the medieval period to the most recent present... For anyone who is curious or inquisitive about the changing iconographic meanings of ceramic objects and/or searches for the simple and perfect match between form, material, and function, this extraordinary book will be a delight!: --Choice An authoritative and comprehensive reference work for ... all who enjoy the art and craft of this remarkable medium. --Reviewer's Bookwatch

Author Information

Robin Hildyard joined the VandA's Ceramics and Glass Department in 1968, and has specialized in English pottery, German stoneware, and early English glass. His publications include the VandA exhibition catalogue Browne Muggs, English Brown Stoneware, 1670-1900 (with Adrian Ostwald and R.G. Hughes), and contributions to David Gaimster's German Stoneware and Glass, edited by Reino Liefkes. He is currently working on a catalogue of Staffordshire pottery.

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