I have always been fascinated
by form, going back to my youth watching countless hours of cartoons to the
appreciation of form and function in the real world. It really doesn't matter
the material; clay, metal, glass, stone, form is king. Knowing this, a friend
sent me a catalogue, years ago called; FROM SILVER TO CERAMICS from the
Ashmolean Museum. The basic premise is the investigation of the relationship
(and origins) between ceramic and metal forms, around the globe. The idea
sprung from an exhibit in which ancient Greek pottery and metalwork where
examined and the questions of which came first were analyized. Some thought
that the ceramic forms sprung from metal and vice versa, the penultimate
example of the chicken and the egg. The catalogue takes up forms from Greece,
Rome, China, Japan and Islam and is a fascinating look at form in two
materials.
Illustrated is a
gin-chawan, a silver chawan, beaten from a thick sheet of silver with an applied foot ring (kodai). The
slightly waisted form is accentuated by a myriad of hand hammered marks, giving
the bowl a tremendous sensory appeal to the eye as well as the hand. Made in
the 20th century in the style of a classical raku chawan, silver and gold,
lacquer, wood and glass chawan can be seen all the way back to the early Edo
Period (1600-1868). In fact, there is a 12 piece tea set created at the
instruction of Tokugawa Ieyasu (the first Tokugawa Shogun) made out of pure
gold and used for entertaining very high ranking individuals. What ever the
case may have been in ancient Greece, it is safe to say, this silver chawan is
a copy of its ceramic antecedant, so we can say with some certainty, it is the
egg that comes first. I guess I have solved one of the great mysteries of the
universe!
"To be absolutely
certain of something, one must know everything or nothing about it." Olin
Miller
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