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Books > Arts & Architecture > Art forms, treatments & subjects > Prints & printmaking
From the introduction of woodblock printing in China to the
development of copper-plate engraving in Europe, the print medium
has been used around the world to circulate knowledge. Ceramic
artists across time and cultures have adapted these graphic sources
as painted or transfer-printed images applied onto glazed or
unglazed surfaces to express political and social issues including
propaganda, self-promotion, piety, gender, national and regional
identities. Long before photography, printers also included pots in
engravings or other two-dimensional techniques which have broadened
scholarship and encouraged debate. Pots, Prints and Politics
examines how European and Asian ceramics traditionally associated
with the domestic sphere have been used by potters to challenge
convention and tackle serious issues from the 14th to the 20th
century. Using the British Museum's world-renowned ceramics and
prints collections as a base, the authors have challenged and
interrogated a variety of ceramic objects - from teapots to chamber
pots - to discover new meanings that are as relevant today as they
were when they were first conceived.
In "Peasants, Warriors, and Wives," Keith Moxey examines woodcut
images from the German Reformation that have often been ignored as
a crude and inferior form of artistic production. In this richly
illustrated study, Moxey argues that while they may not satisfy
received notions of "art," they nevertheless constitute an
important dimension of the visual culture of the period. Far from
being manifestations of universal public opinion, as a cursory
acquaintance with their subject matter might suggest, such prints
were the means by which the reformed attitudes of the middle and
upper classes were disseminated to a broad popular audience.
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