Ceramics and Pottery Arts and Resources

 

René Michel Slodtz (Michel-Ange Slodtz) – Chrysès  – Manufacture de Sèvres

Chryses praying to Apollo

Musée du Louvre

 

Bustie or Bust 

 

Greek sculpture reached its peak for quality and quantity around the mid 5th century BC. This was the era when the Athenians were completing the Parthenon, which featured a lot of elaborately carved sculptures as temple decorations and Myron was also completing his famous sculpture, ‘The Discus Thrower’. The essential characteristic of classical Greek art and its sculptures were mostly of a heroic realism. They always attempted to reveal the human body, in movement or repose, exactly as it appeared to the eye. From this time on there were many experienced sculptors available for public and private works. The use of sculpture to adorn a community’s central building went on to become a powerful European tradition – seen particularly in the church sculpture of the Middle Ages.

The classical Greek sculpture had a strong influence on the Roman empire. From the first century AD, the Romans created more stylized busts and depicted their emperors with an emphasis on certain aspects to legitimize their authority or align themselves with revered predecessors. Mythology, military prowess, youth and beauty were still common themes and public officials also began to commission portrait busts of themselves. They went on to become popular with the wealthy classes as a decorative option and for the smaller villas they were a more pragmatic choice due to their compact size.

 

Terracotta Head, ancient Ife, Nigeria

Photo © Herbert List – Magnum Photos

 

Up to around one hundred years ago, portrait busts were not at all uncommon. Although sculptors were not represented among artists by anywhere near the same ratio as today, portrait busts were, in fact, the most common stock in trade of any working sculptor. There was less demand for carved marble or cast bronze statues compared to head and shoulder busts and the style was predominantly realist.
During the first half of the twentieth century, realist portrait busts began to decline in popularity as their style was aligned with the classical busts, which had fallen out of favor during the emergence of Art Deco, Futurism and other modernist trends. Also some of the sculptors themselves chose to abandon its demanding exactitude in favour of simpler, much more expressive forms of three-dimensional work in line with what their counterparts were doing in painting and other areas of art.
The most recent developments has seen an interface connected to a 3d printer for creating 3d busts from selfies, which I think  should be called ‘Busties’. A logical development for the Age of Vanity. Most of the contemporary busts presented here are non realist, non portrait creations.

 

Christophe Charbonnel

 

 

Christophe Betmalle from his Multiples series

Galerie accroTerre

–2014–

Everything in his work revolves around the larger question: who am I? Who is the other? And it raises the question, endlessly, thus achieving a kind of diary reflecting his various emotions, questions, doubts, evoking love, abandonment, chills, memories. With maturity and experience, the faces are multiplying and widening the surface of paper, revealing the richness of his personality.

 

Monica van den Berg, ZA

Photographer  Lisa Hnatowicz

 

 

Medusa bust by Javier Marin, Mexico

 

 

South African Anton Smit sculpture ‘Head With Triangles’

 

 

Ceramic Rebirth Sculpture by jonislittledolls on Etsy

 

 

Rob Van Bergen

 

 

Dominique Allain Raku sculpture bust

France

 

 

 

Philippe Faraut sculpture bust

 

 

 

Ceramic bust of a lady holding a cat by Teresa Girones

 

 

Gerald Lilliard

 

 

‘Inner Voice’ – Mary Ann prack

 

 

 

‘Moon Figure Door’  –  Kenneth Armitage, 1948

 

 

 

‘Buste de jeune fille’ – Ossip Zadkine

– 1914 –

Zadkine Research Center

 

 

Pair of American Hollywood Regency Metallic Finished Plaster Male & Female Busts

Decollect

 

 

Rogier Ruys – ‘Prima Donna’

 

 

 

Youthful figure of Lady Precious Green, Chalchihuitlicue, who was a fertility goddess and consort to Tlaloc, the rain god.Mexico

Werner Foreman Archive

 

 

Anna Plonka

 

 

Amanda Shelsher – ‘Bloom’

2009

 

 

Art Nouveau mantle clock  by Arthur Waagen

 

 

 

Irina Zaytceva face motif vase

 

 

 

Tribal African Female Sculpture by Artist Fred Press

Kent Home Decorative Objects – Chappaqua, NY 10514 – 1stdibs

 

 

Melanie Bourget, via Flickr

2012

 

 

 

Bust in brown patina bronze, représenting a queen ‘ Renaissance ‘ by Vincent Désiré Fauré de Broussé

Leda Decors

 

 

Marni Gable

 

 

 

Charlene Doiron Reinhart

 

 

 

China China Bust #81 – Ah Xian

 

 

 

 ‘Queen Califia’ by Susan Shelton

The state of California was named after the mythical Black Queen Califia.

 

 

Chris Riccardo – ‘b & e’

2009

JF GALLERY, West Palm Beach Fl

 

 

 

Debra Fritts

 

 

‘E.V. Female bust 1’ by Mark Newman

 

 

 

Austin Productions black ceramic torso, NY

 

 

 

Art Deco sculpture bust – Chana Orloff

She was born in Russia and lived in Israel

 

 

‘Mela’ by Melanie Bourget

 

 

 

Ife Terracotta Head, Nigeria, 12th–15th century

Minneapolis Institute of Arts

 

 

‘Mujer Feliz’, 2013 Willy Ramos

Odon Wagner Gallery

 

 

Elizabeth Ostrander

 

 

 

 

Mami Gable

 

 

 

Dutch sculptor Fons Bemelman

 

 

 

African Woman – Franz Hagenauer, Vienna

1930s, Patinated Bronze

Fuchs Interiors Berlin

 

 

 

Gene Pearson. Jamaica

 

 

 

Gil Bruvel – ‘Flowing, Unknown’

OCTAVIA ART GALLERY,  New Orleans

 

 

Grey raku bust – Marika Baumler

 

 

 

Harris Diamant – Head 07

2014 – Slete Gallery

 

 

 

‘I become what I love’ – Dreama Kattenbraker

 

 

 

Polish sculptor Igor Mitoraj

Madrid

 

 

Polish sculptor Igor Mitoraj

Madrid

 

 

Polish sculptor Igor Mitoraj

Madrid

 

 

 

Lady with an Ermine by Altaluna

 

 

 

Bust of Louis XIV is a marble portrait by the Italian artist Gian Lorenzo Bernini

1655

 

 

Veronique Didier Laurenta

 

 

 

Terracotta memorial head from the Akan people of Ghana

17th – 19th century

 

 

‘Mourning Dove’ by Peter Harskamp

 

 

 

‘Pronte Tsarina Xaviera’, Museum Geelvinck Amsterdam (photo Roland Bacon)

 

 

 

Gretel Boose

 

 

‘White Soul ‘- Livio Scarpella, Italy

 

 

 

‘Pronte Tsarina Anahita’  bust – Nadjezjda van Ittersum

Open Garden, Estate Castle Heemstede ceramic

 

 

 

‘Twin Spirits’ – Nagomi Mashaya

2008

 

 

‘Slice of Life’ vase head – Patti Warashina

25 inches height

 

 

 

‘Savannah’ – Wayne Salge, Colorado

 29 inches height

Denver Galleries

 

 

‘Influence’ -Sergei Isupov

 

 

 

Philippe Faraut

 

 

Christy Keeney, Ireland

 

 

 

Teotihuacan, Mexico – Mask from an Incense Burner Portraying the Old Deity of Fire

 

 

 

Woodrow Nash

 

 

 

‘Yemanya, Star of the Sea’. Ceramic figure sculpture. M.A.Bach Art

 

 

 

‘Yrneh’ –  sculpture by Chukes

 

 

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