page_title: Ceramic art
section_title: The Americas
hierarchical_section_title: Ceramic art / History / The Americas
caption_attribution_description: English: Anasazi mugs. Original caption: “Prehistoric mugs with handles are found only in the immediate area of the Four Corners, especially in Southwest Colorado. The mugs are almost always black-on-white, and date between AD 1000 and 1280. Note the T-shaped cut-out designs on the left two mugs' handles. Ancestral Puebloan doorways often have this same shape, but its meaning is unknown. Some mugs have false bottoms with clay beads inside-- perhaps these noisemakers called attention to an empty mug during feasts.”
context_page_description: Ceramic art is art made from ceramic materials, including clay. It may take forms including artistic pottery, including tableware, tiles, figurines and other sculpture. As one of the plastic arts, ceramic art is one of the visual arts. While some ceramics are considered fine art, as pottery or sculpture, most are considered to be decorative, industrial or applied art objects. Ceramics may also be considered artefacts in archaeology. Ceramic art can be made by one person or by a group of people. In a pottery or ceramic factory, a group of people design, manufacture and decorate the art ware. Products from a pottery are sometimes referred to as "art pottery". In a one-person pottery studio, ceramists or potters produce studio pottery.
  The word "ceramics" comes from the Greek keramikos, meaning "pottery", which in turn comes from keramos meaning "potter's clay". Most traditional ceramic products were made from clay, shaped and subjected to heat, and tableware and decorative ceramics are generally still made this way. In modern ceramic engineering usage, ceramics is the art and science of making objects from inorganic, non-metallic materials by the action of heat.
caption: Anasazi mugs from the Four Corners area, Southwestern US. Note the T-shaped cut-out in the left mug's handle. Ancestral Puebloan doorways often have this same shape.
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