The production and use of ceramic artifacts are ancient practices, known for millennia in the numerous territories conquered by Islam, areas that previously belonged to other great cultural spheres and where Islamic civilization brought a notable innovative impulse, both in the technique and in decoration.
A bowl with relief manganese brown decorationsCollezione Fondazione Cariparma
Islamic ceramics developed a synthetic and imaginatively abstract style, such as the decoration linked to the Kufic script, containing messages of peace, prosperity and often an invocation to God.
A bowl with red, green, white and black colored clay decorations depicting a feathered bird within a circle of flowersCollezione Fondazione Cariparma
The encounter with the precious Chinese porcelain, which traveled west on the Silk Road, stimulates research and experimentation, leading to results of great excellence.
A basin with a stylized leaves decorationCollezione Fondazione Cariparma
Trying to imitate the whiteness of Chinese porcelain, the skilled Arab majolica makers created a perfect pictorial basis for lively decorations, which imaginatively interpreted the animal and plant world.
A bowl decorated with colored clays - red, green, black and white - with a fantastic animal and an animal headCollezione Fondazione Cariparma
These ceramics represent a point of contact and contamination between the eastern and western cultures, which met on the trade routes between Persia and China.
Therefore, the dragon, losing the original meaning linked to the Chinese emperor, can become a purely ornamental motif in an Islamic ceramic.
A bowl decorated with red ribbons dotted in whiteCollezione Fondazione Cariparma
Typical of eastern Persian majolica is the decorative ribbon system, which forms an infinite knot around the small swastika, an ancient emblem of life and well-being, linked to solar symbolism.
A vase decorated in black on green paintCollezione Fondazione Cariparma
On this refined glazed vase, the elegant calligraphic style for Arabic writing called naskhi becomes a lively decoration linked to nature, the main reference of the ornaments.
This style, rounder and more curvilinear than the more archaic Kufic, unfolds freely until it becomes a plant motif with leaves and racemes.
A mug with a geometric decorationCollezione Fondazione Cariparma
Thanks to the progress made by the technique at the time, Persian ceramics is enriched with new contributions and experiments, including the metallic luster, which will subsequently arrive in Spain and then in Italy.
The copper and silver oxides, through a third smoke-saturated firing, return to the metallic state and create colored and iridescences similar to gold.
A bowl with a decoration depicting berriesCollezione Fondazione Cariparma
Islamic potters were also masters in the use of cobalt, from which they obtained their wonderful blue, which varied in intensity and hue, from a pure and deep blue to shades of green.
These utensils, used in everyday life to contain food and drinks, always have beautiful and well-kept shapes and a sure aesthetic effect, entrusted to creativity, harmony and rich chromatism.
Texts by Fondazione Cariparma and Artificio Società Cooperativa
