I will stipulate that these require skill to make, and that there is a pleasing randomness to them. I don't see the beauty in randomness of that kind, but I can see that the effect might be analogous to the random distortions in wood grain.
Still, the works annoy me. I should figure out why.
They are called cups, but they can't be easily used as cups. How do you know they're clean? When the first impression I have is of permanent uncleanliness the cups appear to have failed their function.(*)
The tree grew the grain as best it could for the environment it had. But I expect a little more precision from human art--this seems careless, not organic, as though the potter couldn't be bothered to use a ruler. I know that glazes are extremely hard to control, so I'm probably just displaying a sad ignorance of the art. But the deliberately coarse appearance annoys me. It doesn't have the excuse of primitive tools or having to make lots of pots in a hurry for the village.
There are bigger problems in the world. Or maybe this is a piece of a bigger one.
(*) Look at the color of the upper glaze. Old milk?
That cup looks like it would tip and spill pretty easily. There's one problem. Old designs are sometimes from an era which predate knowledge of hygienic practices. They looked fine then, and we can make allowances now by being scrupulous about correcting for what they did not know.
ReplyDeleteYet these designs seem to treat what we have learned about microorganisms as unimportant. That is different from not knowing, and troubling. What else about their customers' safety and pleasure did they not bother about?
This does relate to the art question. Redefining beauty in terms of earlier understandings is reasonable. Declaring truth and beauty as unreal for purely modern ideals is just silly and offensive. Things can change - a swastika is an interesting pattern that has some beauty in a pre-Nazi context. But to use it now is to pretend not to know the obvious, and dishonest.