| abstract
| - CERAMICS, or KERAMICS (Gr. "κεραμικός", earthenware), a general term for the study of the art of pottery. It is adopted for this purpose both in French (céramique) and in German (Keramik), and thus has its convenience in English as representing an international form of description for a study which owes much to the art experts of all nations, though “ ceramic ” and “ ceramics ” do not appear in English as technical terms till the middle of the 19th century. The word “ pottery ” (Fr. poterie) in its widest sense includes all objects fashioned from clay and then hardened by fire, though there is a growing tendency to restrict the word to the commoner articles of this great class and to apply the word “porcelain” to all the finer varieties. This tendency is to be deprecated, as it is founded on a misconception; the word “ porcelain ” should only be applied to certain well-marked varieties of pottery. The very existence of pottery is dependent on two important natural properties of that great and widespread group of rocky or earthy substances known as clays, viz. the property of plasticity (the power of being readily kneaded or moulded while moist), and the property of being converted when fired into one of the most indestructible of ordinary things. The clays form such an important group of mineral substances that the reader must refer to the article CLAY for an account of their occurrence, composition and properties. In this article we shall only deal with the various clays as they have affected the problems of the potter throughout the ages. The clays found on or close to the earth's surface are so varied in composition and properties that we may see in them one of the vital factors that has determined the nature of the pottery of different countries and different peoples. They vary in plasticity, and in the hardness, colour and texture of the fired product, through an astonishingly wide range. To-day the fine, plastic, white-burning clays of the south of England are carried all over Europe and America for the fabrication of modern wares, but that is a state of affairs which has only been attained in recent times. Even down to the 18th century, the potters of every country could only use on an extensive scale the clays of their own immediate district, and the influence of this controlling factor on the pottery of bygone centuries has never yet received the attention it deserves. Ceramics Ceramics Ceramics Categoría:EB1911:Cerámica
* 15px|Colabora en Wikisource. Wikisource contiene el original de o sobre 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Ceramics/Ceramics. En el cual se ha basado este artículo.
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