368 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1946 
tivity and vitality of form often esthetically more appealing than the 
frozen perfection of the Greeks. The Greeks attained great heights 
of mechanical or mathematical precision or accuracy, but the result 
was often cold and impersonal. Their perfection missed certain 
qualities of great esthetic importance: namely, sensitivity and vitality, 
two qualities inherent in, and essential to, any work of art. These 
qualities the Palestinian potter realized in his best work, and this 
spontaneous quality makes his work more akin to the Chinese than 
to the Greek. 
The skillful craftsmanship of the Palestinian potter was such that 
one may surmise that in a Greek environment, such a craftsman would 
have successfully contended with the Greek potter in skillful work- 
manship. These potters were always skillful craftsmen and at best 
were artists with sufficient plastic appreciation to avoid the error or 
temptation to exalt craftsmanship above expressive sensibility. 
While the Palestinian potter was not attempting to achieve an object 
of luxury and was concerned only with making a useful pot, neverthe- 
less he also made a beautiful pot. The artistic qualities he attained 
were the direct outcome of his rapid method of production which gave 
a spontaneity and vitality to his forms and contours. He refrained 
from overdoing perfection or attempts to “gild the lily.” He was 
content to let “well enough alone,” perhaps because he was not making 
a luxury item, but a pot to serve the needs of his patrons. In this 
objective he was admirably successful. 
DECORATION OF POTTERY VESSELS 
Both the Canaanite and the Israelite potters, however, had one 
major shortcoming! They did not employ glaze. This indictment 
against the Palestinian potter is the more serious, for even before 
Abraham’s time they had used a slip which was very close to a true 
glaze. Although they did not follow up this lead and produce a true 
glaze, it is the only major ceramic process which they did not master. 
In the field of ceramic decoration their major methods were the use 
of slip, burnishing, and painting. The use of slip in ceramics is 
related to the use of plating in metallurgy. Just as we put a thin 
coating of silver over a cheap metal base and thus get a finish which 
looks like solid silver, so the potter can put a thin coating of a superior 
clay upon a cheaper ceramic body and then the fired ware will look 
as if the piece were made of superior clay throughout. In practice, 
however, slip was usually employed only on that part of the ware 
which was easily seen. Slip also permitted color variations and this 
was important since most Palestinian clays were ordinary red clay. 
The cheapest form of “ceramic veneer” is called wash. This is applied 
