+-------+-------------+-------------------------+--------------------+-------+ [B.M.F.A. = Bost. Mus. of Fine Arts] THE CERAMIC ART. INTRODUCTION. Advantages of the Study.--The Lost Origin of the Art.--Ascribed to the Gods.--Legends of China, Japan, Egypt, and Greece.--Keramos.--A Solution suggested.--How Pottery illustrates History.--How it explains the Customs of the Ancients.--Its Bearings upon Religion.--Examples from Egypt, Greece, and China.--The Art represented in Pottery.--Its Permanency.--As a Combination of Form with Drawing and Color.--Greek Art.--Its Merits and Defects.--The Orientals, and their Attention to Color.--Eastern Skill.--The Aim of Palissy.--The Highest Aim of the Ceramic Artist.--Painting on Porcelain.--Rules to be Observed in Decorating.--Where Color alone is a Worthy Object.--How the Art affords the Best Illustration of the Useful combined with the Beautiful.--Its Place in the Household. The history of ceramic art carries us back to ages of which it has furnished us with the only records. Beginning almost with the appearance of man upon the globe, it brings us down through the intricate paths of his migrations to the time in which we live. Historically, therefore, the study of the art is not only replete with interest, but promises much benefit to the student. The forms under which it appears are so varied, the circuitous route it has followed leads to so many lands and among so many peoples, and the customs it illustrates are so distinctive of widely separated nationalities, that its history is co-extensive with that of humanity. In many cases it supplies us with information regarding nations whose works in pottery are their only monuments. Were we, therefore, to attempt to find its origin, we might go back as far as written history could guide us, and then find proofs of its existence in a prehistoric age. It is curious to observe that, as we compare the earliest productions of different countries, we discover a similarity between the crude ideas to which they owe their origin. It is equally remarkable--and the fact is worthy of notice as pointing to the great antiquity of the practice of working in clay--that all nations of whose early religious ideas we have any knowledge ascribe its inception to the gods. Daily habit demonstrated its utility, and gratitude found a cover for ignorance, in bestowing upon the heavenly powers the credit of inspiring man with a knowledge of the capabilities of the plastic clay.