Vol. V, No. 5 
SYRACUSE NEW YORK 
September 1903 
HERE is little doubt that the field 
of artistic pottery is one of the best 
fields in this country to-day, and 
we may safel^y predict that Mr. 
Doat's articles will be of immense 
value to the independent artists 
who in the coming j'ears will yield 
to the fascination of the potter's 
art. These articles are simple and 
practical, and it will be a satisfac- 
tion to see that modern exponents of the potter's art no longer 
follow the old and sterile poHcy of secrets jealously kept. Of 
what use were the marvelous discoveries of Bernard Palissy, 
which died with him. Of what use the absurd precautions 
taken at Meissen to prevent the secret of the manufacture of 
hard porcelain from leaking out, and the same secretiveness 
observed everywhere during the last hundred j^ears, with as 
result, a complete decadence of the potter's art. The present 
renaissance of the art can be directly traced to the liberal policy 
adopted at Sevres in the last twenty years or so. This new 
pohcy has made possible the wonderful movement of indi- 
vidual clay working in France, it probably also has made 
Royal Copenliagen porcelain what it is. The modern artist 
potter seems more and more to follow the liberal and fruitful 
policj'- of sharing all technical information freety, and depend- 
ing on artistic ability alone to hold preeminence in his craft. 
" Secrets of the trade " belong onty to commercial manufactures 
that have no artistic inspiration to back them. Of course 
everjr artistic worker is liable to have some individual way of 
getting a result which is his own property, but even if he shares 
all teclinical information, others will not get the same results 
unless they have the same artistic abilitj^, which never happens. 
No one can have a mortgage on information gained from 
others. 
Students in potterv should guard against the probably 
vain hope of making wonderful discoveries, of finding new 
bodies, new glazes, etc. There is much to discover yet, but 
much has been found in the great laboratories already, and 
researches are the work of laboratories not of artists, who will 
soon find them a waste of time and money. Far better is it to 
be satisfied with a good body and glaze which suit one's work, 
even if of a well-known formula, and rely for reputation upon 
one's manipulation of the medium until the student stage is past. 
This seems to be the idea which prevails in France, where 
the new bodies and glazes discovered at Sevres are offered to 
the public by reUable merchants, all ready to use. Mr. Doat 
gives in his articles the addresses of these merchants. One 
can buy at the same i^lace as Sevres and import the porcelain 
or gres body prepared according to the Sevres formulae, with 
the glaze which fits this body. Of course it is to be hoped that 
equivalent bodies will be found in this country and that before 
long the cost and trouble of importing them can be dispensed 
with. There are immense untouched deposits of kaolin in the 
United States, and any amount of stoneware or gres. But 
the artist has no time to waste on experimenting with clays. 
The finding of the proper gres and porcelain materials from 
the American soil shovdd be left to laboratories and schools. 
«^ 
We begin in this number the publication of the technical 
articles by Taxile Doat, on Grand Feu Ceramics. There will 
be eleven articles as follows: 
Preparation of pastes — Gres and porcelain. 
Manipulation of clays, pressing, throwing, etc. 
Casting. 
(ilazing. 
The kilns. 
Packing of saggers and kilns. 
Oxidising and reducing fires. 
Unpacking of kilns. 
Grand feu colors — Colored bodies. 
Grand feu colors — ^Mat and crystalline glazes. 
«^ 
The "Principles of Design," by Flugo Froehlich, "Clay in 
the Studio," bj' Chas. F. Binns, and article on "Simple Furni- 
ture," by Mrs. Elizabeth Saugstad, will be continued in the 
October number. They were unavoidably left out of this 
number. 
i^ 
By a singular oversight the Catalpa tree was printed 
Catawba several times in the article on that subject in the 
August Keramic Studio. 
GRAND FEU CERAMICS 
IV. PREPARATION OF CERAMIC BODIES— GRES AND 
PORCELAIN 
Taxile Doat 
IN the introduction to these articles, I said that I would write 
for isolated artists, fond of the arts of the fire, having 
onlj^ moderate means, but anxious to do useful work and 
to leave some mark of their passage on earth. Left to his own 
resources, the ceramist needs great energy to face without 
discouragement the many failures which his efforts to sub- 
jugate the claj^ are bound to meet. 
During my life, I have met a number of artists, who 
frightened and disconcerted by prospect of failure, unfamiliar 
with the chemistry of colors and their difficult preparation, 
gave up the fight, without realizing their dreams, saying: "I 
also, could have made ceramics. " As to myself I had the good 
fortune not to know the disappointments of the beginning, the 
only ones to be feared, because this art is so attractive that when 
one has tasted it, one cannot escape its fascination. 
I will consider that my object has been reached, if 1 can 
avoid for newcomers in this charming craft these times of 
lassitude and discouragement, the thorns on the path, at the 
end of which they will find the reward of their work. 
With a view to this result and in order to simplify and make 
eas3^ the initiation to and understanding of the grands feux, I 
have purposel}^ neglected in this series of articles, everything 
which refers to the fabrication of large pieces, and to mechanical 
and industrial production. I simply relate how I have suc- 
ceeded in the practice of my art, the means and tools I use. 
The reader will then constantly find, aside from general pro- 
cesses of fabrication used ever3'-where, in Europe as well as 
China, processes which, being my own, have given to mj^ pro- 
duction its special quality and variety. 
They will see besides that I have tried to describe the var- 
ious processes of the rich grand feu decoration, in a practical 
