The Figure and the Figurine: Representations of the Human Form

Paul Mathieu, The Art of the Future: 14 essays on ceramics Chapter Twelve The Figure and the Figurine: Representations of the Human Form In most creation myths, worldwide, the deity creates the first human with earth, or dust, or clay. All are equivalents as primary materials from which creation happens. A great example of this can be found in Genesis, in the Bible, with the story of God modeling the first man, Adam, from clay. Clay plays an important role in numerous such creation myths, but clay is also recurring elsewhere in religious beliefs and in mythologies. Many people have suggested that I should consider including religion as one of my themes in this book, for that very reason. I considered this option seriously, but decided to reject it. The relation of ceramics and pottery to religions and to mythologies, is covered specifically elsewhere, under most esthetics and most themes, and notably in the “Death” chapter which follows later, where that connection is most relevant, appropriate and efficient. Above all, a direct connection to religion is found mostly, almost exclusively, in relation to clay as a basic material, and clay alone, and not to ceramics, per se. As I have stated in the introduction and repeatedly since, I am not interested here in clay, by itself. Clay is just a material, nothing more. I am interested in what can be done with it, instead. What happens when it is transformed, by various processes and by heat and fire. And that is what we call ceramics, which is, in my opinion, much more interesting than clay. Clay is of little to no interest to me. I am interested in the transformation that occurs in ceramics and the meaning(s) of that transformation. I am interested in ceramics not so much for its materiality as a physical material but for its particular potential as a cultural one. In fact, I 1 would argue that there is way too much “clay” in ceramics right now, and that is a large part of the problem with the art form today, as I see it. This being said, there are numerous and fascinating references to clay, to potter’s fields, to pottery and to vessels of various types, in the Bible, among other religious texts, for example. I would refer the curious reader to this book itself, or to other such books, obviously. All these very interesting references in the Bible can be easily located by consulting the index. I will single out here a brief passage from the Noah story. After the Flood has receded, Noah supervised the land and declared: “I looked at the face of the world and there was silence. All mankind was turned to clay.” Humanity had returned to its original, primal and formless material, ready to be reborn, cleansed and purified. In its relation to time and eternity, ceramics is like an instant fossil. Any ceramic object holds a record that will be preserved, even in geological terms. Fossils themselves are similar to ceramics, since they are silica accretions, formed under pressure and heat over time, when organic materials, usually bones, but not exclusively, since other parts of organisms can also be fossilized, are replaced by silica crystals that then reconstruct the original structure, which then preserves it, as a fossil. This geological process is in fact related to the formation of ceramic materials, in reverse, with the rock becoming clay and earth, then becoming plant, animal or human and all other life forms. Another transcendent aspect with spiritual overtones is manifested formally in the very shapes of ceramic forms and specifically the hollow forms of pottery. Pottery making implies a clear ascendancy of the elements, earth, water, air and fire, toward the above. Pottery forms are materialized through such a process of ascendency and this transformation has mystical overtones. This superior aspect, this rising and reaching toward heaven, is signified within the form itself by the opening at the top. In numerous myths as well, the sky is perceived as an upside down bowl and the stars are holes in its wall, and God above is light and the creator of permanent things, of which ceramics is a particularly good example. A tomb painting from 300 BCE in Egypt shows the god Khum sitting at the potter’s wheel with a newly made person emerging from the spinning clay. In Christian apocrypha, Jesus is said to have made model birds from clay, which he would then make to sing, flap their wings and fly, after he had pronounced the correct words. There is also a clear connection between the power of creation and the power to 2 enunciate words, connecting making and language together, again, as we have seen in the preceding chapter. This relation to creation and language is also found in the Jewish apocrypha, and the medieval story of the Golem, a creature shaped with clay that could be given life. The recipe to make such a Golem (at the origins of the Frankenstein fiction) can be found in the Sepher Yetzirah or “Book of Creation”: “Start with the necessary quantity of untouched mountain soil. Knead this clay with fresh spring water and form into a human image. Then recite over each of its limb the appropriate formula and walk around it clockwise seven times and the Golem will breathe; reverse your walk for seven rotations again and the Golem will then glow bright red as a vessel in a kiln fire and it will rise and live.” In order to revert the creature to clay, its maker would simply reverse the direction of the rotations around the figure. Like humanity in the Noah story who went from clay (Adam), to flesh, to clay again after the Flood, likewise could the Golem be controlled and used, made for clay and returned to clay. If a real, actual bionic human is ever achieved, important parts and elements will certainly have to be made of ceramic materials. As well, in the Koran, we read: “So Allah shaped Adam into a human being, but he remained a figure for 40 years. The angels went past him. They were paralyzed with fear by what they saw…and the figure of Adam would make a sound like pottery. Allah said: He created man (Adam) from sounding clay, like the clay of potters.” The name Adam actually means red earth or clay. In an African Dogon myth, the male god throws a ball of clay, which then splats as a square to the four cardinal points, and it becomes a woman, Mother Earth. In pre- Columbian America, a very modern looking stir-up vessel from the early Chavin culture of Peru, also represents Mother Earth. The volume of the container is shaped from four connected breast-like forms, representing the four directions of space (east, west, north, south). The stir-up handle is itself very phallic, with two little balls at the base of the erect spout, uniting the female and male principles. The overall effect is so stylistically refined that it would have made Constantin Brancusi proud as if its maker, yet it is close to 3000 years old. 3 Clay may play such a significant part in creation myths worldwide since, like fire technology, pottery making differentiates humans from animals. Like gods, humans literally transform the earth when we model and fire clay to create new forms. Which brings us to other figures made with clay. Ceramic figures. It may be logical to presume that the oldest ceramic objects would be pots since pots are, after all, the most common type of objects made in ceramics. But that is not actually true. Before making pots, long before actually, humans modeled human representations, small figures in clay and they also fired these before any clay pot, fired or otherwise, was ever made. The figurative tradition in ceramics is the oldest by far and representations of the human form in clay precede pottery containers by millennia. The oldest, earliest figurative works in ceramic (in fired clay) are found in what is today Czechoslovakia at the Neolithic archeological site of Dolni Vestovice and they date from as early as 25,000 years ago, possibly more. Other objects made with raw clay may have preceded the fired clay figures that were preserved through time by the permanency conferred by the ceramic process of firing, but as with other objects made with less permanent materials, we will never know since no evidence remains for us to interpret. Objects made with other organic materials like wood, plants, fibers, leather, etc., quickly became biodegradable food for bacteria and for rodents. Ceramic vessels, pots and containers will first appear much later, and the oldest known to us so far were made by the Jomon culture of Japan, 12,000 year ago, probably and possibly preceded by Neolithic pots made by cave dwelling groups in China, upward to 18,000 years ago. These first pots were hand-made and we will have to wait 4000 more years to about 6000 BCE for the earliest examples of wheel thrown or simple cast forms (like bricks) to be made. Interestingly enough, this precedence in history of the ceramic figure has been largely ignored by the vast literature on ceramics and pottery that tends to focus, at times exclusively, on vessels and containers. Figurative work will more often be classified under archeology or even sculpture, as if the material (fired clay) was incidental to the meaning of the object. Architectural applications of ceramics likewise tend to be included in the 4 literature on architecture, but then they tend to be seen and understood for their structural properties (and decorative qualities) instead of their importance and seminal role in defining large spaces for containment that are informed by the qualities and properties of ceramics as a specific material.

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