Majolica: what is it? From antiquity to the present day

Brilliant glazed surface, bright colors - all this is majolica. What it is? The answer is found in the article.

Majolica - what is it?

Not all ceramics can be called majolica, but only manufactured by a certain technology.

The technique of majolica implies that forCeramic products use colored porous clay. The clay product is covered, or, as experts say, poured, with a special white enamel and painted with opaque paints. Therefore such production has one more name - facing ceramics.

Homeland of majolica

Although the name of the layered ceramics refers tothe island of Mallorca or Mallorca, in fact to create pottery with a glazed surface became much earlier - in ancient Egypt. Products made of porous colored clay were covered with paints containing various metal oxides, were burned. Bricks made of majolica were used to decorate palaces, but with the fall of the Egyptian kingdom, art was lost for ages.

The second birth of majolica

In the 11th-12th centuries, Spanish travelers,returning from Asia, brought a wonderful pottery, not similar to that produced at home. Bright colors, glossy surface attracted the eye. However, its flourishing majolica was only in the hands of Italian masters, which fell into the XI century.

The Italians called this kind of pottery in honor of the Spanish-Moorish island of Mallorca, with which the Genoese traded and fought.

The Spanish-Moorish ceramics did not resemble at allon the majolica that we know today. It was rude, made of dense clay, painted with careless smears of alkaline glaze of poor quality. It was Italy that became the real home of exquisite majolica products.

Italian products

The Italians did not immediately understand what it is - majolica.

First they did this:

• doused the clay object with a completely liquid white clay, adding tin oxide to it;
• burned;
• covered with a colorful pattern, using simple ornaments of crosses or stars.

This technology will later be called semi-majolica. The paint on the products made in this way was fragile, and the ceramics itself looked rude.

But already in the XIII-XIV centuries, the Italian majolicabecomes refined and elegant, reaching its heyday in the XVII century and spreading from the Apennine peninsula to all of Europe. In Italy ceramics of this type were produced in more than one hundred cities, including in Derut, Siena, Caltagir, Urbino, Faenza, Cafajolo, Castel durant. By the way, it was Faenza who gave a new word - faience.

Majolica - what is it in Renaissance Italy? Products were famous for their elegance and subtlety of work.

For ceramics, only soft colored clay was used. The finished product was covered with opaque white glaze, which included tin.

The pattern was applied in blue cobalt, so the majolica of the Renaissance is sustained in a blue-green range.

All the masters tried to find their own style,invented their image-imaging technologies. In the drawings, ornaments from heraldic symbols were used, portraits and figures of animals were painted, and oriental ornaments were often recreated.

The finished ceramic product was coated with a colorless transparent glaze containing an alkali, and burned. Thanks to this, the colors became softer, warmer, and the product itself is more durable.

Application

Majolica - what is it, what kind of ceramic products are made in this technique?

Another Italian master mastered plastic ceramic forms, creating sculptures and decorative compositions.

In this technique, tiles can be made for furnaces, furniture walls and decorations, platbands, facade decoration elements, dishes, panels, sculptures.

Majolica - characteristic differences

Ceramic products made in the technique of majolica always have a number of common features:

• the shapes of the product are smooth, rounded;
• background or white, or opaque;
• colors bright, contrasting;
• the main gamut is yellow-brown and blue-green;
• patterns are more often plant;
• glossy glazed surface.

Knowing the above signs, it's easy to understand what majolica is. This will distinguish it from other ceramics.

Technological process

What is majolica? It's not just a burned clay product. To answer the question, one must understand the subtleties of the technological process.

Initially, the Italians covered the moldedthe product was white paint, which included tin, and then applied a pattern of paints with the addition of lead. During firing, tin and lead were melted, forming a bright and strong surface.

Nowadays there are 2 types of production of majolica ceramic products:

1. First, the product is fired at a temperature of 750^about, then covered with white enamel, on top of which are applied glazed paints. Then follows another firing during the day already at a temperature of 1000^about.
2. An ancient method is also used, whenGlazed paints are applied to a raw clay product. When firing, the colors are baked, forming a glaze. The peculiarity and complexity of this type of majolica production - ceramics gets color only after roasting.

Features of the Russian majolica

On the domestic expanse of majolica appeared in the time of Peter I, when the Dutch and Italians brought samples of irrigated ceramic products.

Having acquired a foreign ability, they quickly learned majolica in Moscow, Gzhel and Yaroslavl, this was facilitated by the presence of large deposits of red clay in the vicinity of the city.

Russian masters had to experiment, achieving the strength and beauty of ceramic samples. The technological process took place in 2 stages:

1. From clay, the product is molded, painted, covered with the first layer of glaze with the addition of tin.
2. Then the product is burned again, before it is coated with glaze with lead to give the ceramic shine.

Already in the XVIII century, the majolicathe limits of Yaroslavl, reaching St. Petersburg. Majolica tiles adorn the facades of houses, facing stoves and doorways. Even the decoration of churches is used for ornamental ceramics. Almost every house has beautiful ceramic dishes, vases and figurines.

In the XIX century, the Art Nouveau style is inconceivable without exquisiteshades of glossy majolica. In the technique of majolica there were such outstanding Russian painters as V.M. Vasnetsov, M.A. Vrubel, S.V. Malyutin, who created unique examples of decorative and applied art. In St. Petersburg, preserved a lot of buildings, ornamented with tiles of majolica, including the Cathedral Mosque.

Ceramics in the workshops of Yaroslavl

The modern Yaroslavl majolica is represented by the works of many masters. Among them, the following creative workshops and companies stand out for quality, color and originality:

• Yaroslavl Art and Industrial Workshop.
• Workshop of author's ceramics "Living clay".
• "Dzhansaria", art workshop of majolica Kudzheva D.Kh.
• Creative workshop of ceramics.
• Workshop of majolica Pavlova and Shepelev.

The project of two artists - Natalia Pavlova and Yevgeny Shepelev - was recognized not only in Russia, but also abroad, where about half of all products go.

Souvenir pottery is made in the workshopmajolica Pavlova and Shepelev in old irrigation technique, in the assortment of more than 1000 samples of small figures and composite sculptural compositions, platbands, panels, vases.

Modern majolica - what is it? In Yaroslavl, it is a wonderful souvenir product, which tourists and guests of the city take with pleasure.