Department of Art History  |  Sweet Briar College



















Back to Introduction








EXHIBITION CATEGORIES




DECORATED POTTERY




Illustration




Prints




Drawing




Photography




Sculpture




Painting






















   


 
What is Art .... ?
                     .... What is an Artist ?
  






An exhibition exploring the perception of ART     

and the identity of the ARTIST     

through HISTORY     
 
and in CONTEMPORARY SOCIETY     
























DECORATED POTTERY....

essays by
 
Allison Gerber and Emily Pegues











PRE-COLUMBIAN POT

Chirique, Panama

Sweet Briar College Art Collection

click here for a LARGE image


(Sweet Briar College Art Collection)





               While the modern world may consider this clay pot a lovely example of pre-Columbian art and place it in a museum, it probably was originally intended as a simple household object made more attractive for the owner by decorative painting. Geometric designs in red and black circle the rim and body of the small, hand-sized pot, and the base color is the natural reddish-brown of the clay.


               Little is known about the role and importance of the artist in Pre-Columbian Panama.  Pottery, sometimes classified as "Art" and sometimes as "Craft," was a highly developed form of creative expression in South and Central America by the fourteenth century.  Well-preserved examples of vessels, ceramic statuettes, and ceremonial pieces exist today along with more modest pieces like this one.  The probable function of the small pot was temporary storage in a household setting; the rounded bottom might have prevented spillable liquids from being stored in it.





  Decorated Pottery












The objects and material in this exhibition were gathered together, researched and largely written about by students in the seminar "Art and Artists" conducted in the Fall semester, 1997, by Christopher L. C. E. Witcombe, Professor of Art History in the Department of Art History at Sweet Briar College in Virginia, 24595 USA. Invaluable assistance was provided by Rebecca Massie Lane, Director of Galleries and the Arts Management Program, who in turn was assisted by Dana Lee Bordvick '98.