SYNOPSIS OF A LECTURE ON POTTERY, PORCELAIN 

 AND KERAMIC ART. 



Delivered before the Hamilton Association, March, i88g. 



BY. S. JOHN IRELAND, 



Principal of the Hamilton Art and Technical School. 



Introduction [Ancient) — Among the early nations of antiquity, 

 before the art of writing had come into general use, tradition was 

 the only mode of preserving and spreading a knowledge of remark- 

 able events. Hieroglyphic writing followed, and from the 

 hieroglyphs of ancient Egypt, in the most remote period of that 

 country's history, we see reference to the potter's art. Later we have 

 the picture writing on the vases of the old Greeks. 



Many circumstances contributed to give the early traditions a 

 fabulous character — the love of the marvellous, a natural tendency 

 of the mind to employ symbolical and allegorical images to express 

 ideas for which no definite words had been appropriated, and a dis- 

 position to eulogize and exaggerate the exploits of ancestors, all con- 

 spired to load history and fact with a mass of fiction, so that it be- 

 came impossible for later enquirers to distinguish accurately between 

 the true and false. One thing with regard to Egyptian art, not of 

 Pottery only, but of every other section, we find it at the highest 

 stage of development then known ; no incubative period, few gourd 

 and vegetable shapes, for the potter's wheel was known ; not so with 

 the Mexicans, the Hindoos and other races considered by ethnolo- 

 gists as belonging to the pre-historic period. 



Introduction [Modern]-— The singular interest displayed and 

 excited in late years on the subject of pottery, is at this time bearing 

 remarkable fruit, in the shape of a widespread effort to produce forms 

 and surface decoration on forms that shall rival those done in such 

 old times as are regarded as being peculiarly rich in artistic light and 

 insight. The rivals of the ancient works are seen daily in increasing 

 numbers, in varying beauty, and of diverse colors and characters. 

 Scarcely a month passes now without some addition being made to 

 the number of vases decorated by new methods, which take the im- 



