Ceramics
The Pennsylvania Dutch were virtually the only people in America in Colonial days who had a strong, imaginative feeling for color and design; for creative art in their households, and even on such earthy objects as their barns, fences, wagons and weather-vanes. Our knowledge of Pennsylvania-Dutch pottery is based on museums, publications, and artifacts. Southeastern Pennsylvania has much red shale and red clay giving the Dutch potters their opportunity, very soon after they had settled on their farms and cleared the land. It was a practical because they needed crocks, pots, baking dishes, and such, for their food manufacturing activities, also tile for roofs. Very soon the Pennsylvania-Dutch potters were making platters, crocks, jugs, and pots for utilitarian reasons. Early history of ceramics reveals the existence of a number o
Artistically considered, the ornamented earthenware of the Dutch potteries follows the lines of earliest known European potteries, and its "slip-decoration" or "sgraffito" which was developed in Southern Europe, particularly in England and in Italy. Pie plates are common with the Pennsylvania-Dutch potter. Clays were dug from local river banks. The plug mill was powered by a horse. The slabs were then rolled with a rolling pin until they were smooth and to a particular thickness (Powell Pennsylvania German Pottery Tools & Processes 20). Early potters created wares almost entirely from products found in their local area. The end result is the clay is burned and is extraordinarily fresh and attractive (Guilland Early American Folk Pottery 12, 30, 120, 141, 270). f small family-type enterprises (Smith, Pottery A Utilitarian Folk Craft 1). The pie plate was the most general article of sgraffito work, and the most widely distributed. The Pennsylvania-Dutch tulip design has been found on about 35 different objects of decoration, beginning with barn designs, and continuing on to pottery (Cooper Ten Thousand Years of Pottery 214-225). The tulip motif appears positively everywhere in Dutch art--even on the barn designs and on the walls. The wares were made for and by "common" folk. Horse drawn wagons carried the clay to the potters shed, where it was ground by a plug mill. This is the how the potter would shape the clay into balls of an appropriate size and slap these flat with an instrument called a batter or pounder.
Common topics in this essay:
Nearly Pennsylvania-Dutch,
Folk Pottery,
Southeastern Pennsylvania,
Tools Processes,
England Italy,
America Colonial,
Pennsylvania Dutch,
Southern Europe,
Thousand Pottery,
Folk Craft,
red clay,
pie plate,
plug mill,
barn designs,
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Acceptance Essays
