Snails, Seahorses, and Modernist Pottery

Compared to the airy and bright spaces that surround it, Gallery 521 is a rather small and dark room. This setting would not work well for many types of art, but for the 61 ceramics featured in the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Making it Modern: European Ceramics from the Martin Eidelberg Collection, it’s the perfect venue. Against dark carpeted floors and in richly stained wooden cabinets, vases, plaques, plates, and dishes glow with intricate designs and imperfect layers of glaze, offering a glimpse into the fusion and innovation of European ceramicists during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. 

Making it Modern seeks to encapsulate the creative impulses of turn-of-the-century European ceramicists. During this period, ceramic artists especially sought ways to make their works “modern,” often experimenting with form, finishes, and technique in general. What sets these ceramic works apart is their integration of form with function; these vases go beyond simple plateware and become expressions of a budding modernism, primarily through Art Nouveau flourishes and Japonisme. 

“Plateelbakkerij Haga/Vase with seahorses” (ca. 1904-1907) is a bulbous, gourd-shaped vase, with sinewy swooping lines and flat planes of color that create a rhythmic design of seahorses and motifs resembling palm leaves and peacock feathers. It’s a classic example of Art Nouveau, the turn-of-the-century artistic and architectural style that primarily depicted natural and organic forms with elegant curving lines. When the style is applied to circular and cylindrical ceramics, it becomes a sort of 3D mandala, where the design loops back onto itself, depicting a vibrating pattern painted across the vessel. Additionally, there are ceramics where the Art Nouveau style appears not in the painted decoration, but in the structure of the work itself. In Emile Decouer’s “Vase” (ca. 1900-1904) and Edmond Lachenal’s “Vase” (1900), curving, symmetrical bodies, stout yet elegant bases, and floral mouths create the forms of Art Nouveau. 

There is also a selection of ceramics that takes inspiration from East Asian techniques and sensibilities, Japanese stoneware especially. Japanese stoneware utilizes non-uniform glazes, which leave some parts of the ceramics finished and other parts raw. These glazes emphasize the structural elements of the piece, as well as promoting the Japanese ideal of wabi-sabi (or an embrace of imbalance and imperfection). The influence is apparent in works like Atelier de Glatigny’s “Vase” (ca. 1898), which has a geometric Art Nouveau shape enhanced by a pockmarked deep-blue glaze that leaves the edges rough and unfinished. Sèvres Manufactory’s “Bottle-shaped vase” (1907) also follows this stylistic prescription, with splotches of multicolored pale glazes creeping and spreading up the sides of the vase like mold. Jean Coulon’s “La Nuit” (ca. 1894) incorporates the Japanese glazing style with more traditional European sculptural arts: baked into the side of the pitcher is the curled-up backside of a slumbering female figure, glazes crashing around her like a visual representation of the joining of two artistic traditions.  

Then there are the vases which don’t quite fit into either of the aforementioned categories. Royal Copenhagen’s four featured works don’t exhibit Art Nouveau flourishes, nor do they use glazes in ways new to Europe. Instead, they experiment with what the shape of the vase itself can represent. This is most notable in “Vase with snails” (ca. 1900), where three mollusks intersect with each other to form a twisting vase that seems to writhe. Such vases with integrated sculptures are a departure from traditional European styles; instead of decorative motifs and scenes being painted onto the surface of the vessel, the vessel itself becomes the image. 

Although the exhibit is, for the most part, expertly curated, it would be helpful to have examples of more traditional European ceramics on display—Delft tiles, rococo jugs, Baroque bowls. Without a readily-accessible baseline for viewers, these pieces can feel unmoored, and placing them on a timeline can be difficult. 

The 61 ceramics shown in Making it Modern encompass a diverse range of early modernist styles, painting a detailed picture of the artistic and technological innovations ceramic artists were using. The exhibition is not only a presentation of beautifully-made and visually-captivating sculptural artworks but also a broader exploration of how artists began to experiment with the structure of art itself, shifting the boundaries of form and forging new relationships to their craft. In the small and dark Gallery 521, a stunning exhibit of innovation, experimentation, and artistic expression is on display.