Pot Black

Tournament information
Venue	Sheffield City Hall
Location	Sheffield
Country	England
Established	1969
Organisation(s)	World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association
Format	Non-ranking event
Final Year	2007
Final champion(s)	Ken Doherty

Pot Black was a British series of snooker tournaments televised by BBC, which didn't carry any ranking points, but played a large part in the popularization of the modern game, from 1969 to 1986. The event was revived in the form of several one-off tournaments throughout the 1990s and up to 2007. Pot Black helped transform snooker from a minority sport with just a handful of professionals into one of the most popular sports in the United Kingdom.^[1] Mark Williams holds the events' highest break record of 119.

History[link]

The first Pot Black was held in 1969 at the BBC Studios in Birmingham. BBC began broadcasting in colour, and were looking for programmes that could exploit this new technology.^[1][2] The programme first aired on 23 July 1969, on BBC2.^[2] The event continued until 1986, at which time more and more televised snooker events were held and the Pot Black format was out dated. It returned in 1990, but it was discontinued after the 1993 event.^[1]

A one-day Pot Black tournament was held on 29 October 2005, and broadcast on the BBC's Grandstand. The invitational event featured eight players, namely Ronnie O'Sullivan, Stephen Hendry, Stephen Maguire, Matthew Stevens, Paul Hunter, John Higgins, Jimmy White and Shaun Murphy, with Stevens beating Murphy in the final.^[2][3] The 2006 edition of Pot Black took place at the Royal Automobile Club in London on 2 September 2006. Mark Williams beat John Higgins and achieved the highest break in the history of the tournament with a 119 clearance in the final.^[4] The 2007 edition, the final Pot Black to date, was aired on Saturday 6 October 2007 on BBC One.^[2][5] It was won by Ken Doherty, who beat Shaun Murphy 71–36, making him the first Irishman to win the competition.^[6]

There have only been six century breaks in the history of Pot Black. Eddie Charlton notched the first-ever century in 1973, and his 110 break stood as the event record for many years until eclipsed by Shaun Murphy's 111 against Jimmy White in 2005. The Pot Black highest break record is currently held by Mark Williams, with his 119 in 2006.^[4]

Format[link]

In the history of Pot Black the tournament used many formats. In the first year eight players participated, but the number of players varied between six and sixteen. It was originally played as a knock-out tournament, but later employed a round robin format.^[1] A player's total number of points scored could often become crucial. Therefore matches always ended with the potting of the black ball.^[2]

All matches were played over one frame, except the final, which use many different formats. Initially it was played just over one frame, but in 1974 an aggregate score of two frames was tried. This was however abandoned and the single frame final returned in 1975. From 1978 to 1986 and in 1991 the final was decided over three frames.^[1] In 1991 a "time-frame" format was added, which limited the time each player could spend at the table.^[1]

Other versions[link]

A junior version, called Junior Pot Black, ran from 1981 to 1983 and that was also revived in 1991, for a single year. It was won by Dean Reynolds, John Parrott (twice) and Ronnie O'Sullivan. The event was revived as a side event to the World Snooker Championship, with the final played on the main match table.^[1] The event remained there until 2009. A senior version, called Seniors Pot Black was held in 1997, featuring players who were over 40 at the time. Joe Johnson won the series.^[2]

A Celebrity Pot Black was held on 15 July 2006 in aid of Sport Relief. It was contested between the team of Ronnie O'Sullivan and Bradley Walsh and the team of Steve Davis and Vernon Kay. Davis and Kay were the winners.^[2] It was presented by Dermot O'Leary, commentated by John Parrott and refereed by Michaela Tabb.^[7]

Production[link]

The events was recorded in a single day at the Pebble Mill Studios in Birmingham, but the matches were shown in half hour programs over the winter. The press co-operated and didn't reveal the scores until a match had been transmitted. Between 2005 and 2006 the whole tournament was broadcasted over one day.^[1] Pot Black's theme tune was the ragtime classic Black and White Rag, composed by George Botsford and performed by Winifred Atwell.^[2]

Pot Black was originally hosted by Alan Weeks. In the 1980s David Icke took over and hosted the event until 1986. Eamonn Holmes hosted the event in 1991 and 1992, but was replaced with David Vine for 1993. Vine also hosted Senior Pot Black in 1997. The latest revival of the event was hosted by Hazel Irvine.^[2] Pot Black is credited with producing one of the most memorable British sports quotes. Legendary commentator Ted Lowe, aware that not all viewers had colour televisions, said "and for those of you who are watching in black and white, the pink is next to the green."^[8]

Winners[link]

^[1][9]

Pot Black[link]

Year	Winner	Runner-up	Final score (frames)	Final score (points)
1969	Ray Reardon	John Spencer	1–0	88–29
1970	John Spencer	Ray Reardon	1–0	88–27
1971	John Spencer	Fred Davis	1–0	61–40
1972	Eddie Charlton	Ray Reardon	1–0	75–43
1973	Eddie Charlton	Rex Williams	1–0	93–33
1974	Graham Miles	John Spencer	2–0	77–37, 70–49
1975	Graham Miles	Dennis Taylor	1–0	81–27
1976	John Spencer	Dennis Taylor	1–0	69–42
1977	Perrie Mans	Doug Mountjoy	1–0	90–21
1978	Doug Mountjoy	Graham Miles	2–1	43–55, 97–23, 111–16
1979	Ray Reardon	Doug Mountjoy	2–1	79–51, 25–82, 84–41
1980	Eddie Charlton	Ray Reardon	2–1	16–74, 85–30, 68–54
1981	Cliff Thorburn	Jim Wych	2–0	68–39, 85–50
1982	Steve Davis	Eddie Charlton	2–0
1983	Steve Davis	Ray Reardon	2–0
1984	Terry Griffiths	John Spencer	2–1
1985	Doug Mountjoy	Jimmy White	2–0
1986	Jimmy White	Kirk Stevens	2–0
1991	Steve Davis	Stephen Hendry	2–1
1992	Neal Foulds	James Wattana
1993	Steve Davis	Mike Hallett
2005	Matthew Stevens	Shaun Murphy	1–0	53–27
2006	Mark Williams	John Higgins	1–0	119–13
2007	Ken Doherty	Shaun Murphy	1–0	71–36

Junior Pot Black[link]

Year	Winner	Runner-up	Final score (frames)	Final score (points)
1981	Dean Reynolds	Dene O'Kane		151–79[n 1]
1982	John Parrott	John Keers		169–70[n 1]
1983	John Parrott	Steve Ventham
1991	Ronnie O'Sullivan	Declan Murphy
2006	Stuart Carrington	Anthony McGill	1–0	58–46
2007	Mitchell Mann	Jack Lisowski	1–0	76–23
2008	Jason Devaney	Duane Jones	1–0	61–28
2009 [10]	Ross Muir	Jak Jones	1–0	24–13[n 2]
2010 [11]	Jamie Clarke	Tom Rees	1–0	43–30[n 2]

Seniors Pot Black[link]

Year	Winner	Runner-up	Final score (frames)	Final score (points)
1997	Joe Johnson	Terry Griffiths

Celebrity Pot Black[link]

Year	Winner	Runner-up	Final score (frames)	Final score (points)
2006	Steve Davis Vernon Kay	Ronnie O'Sullivan Bradley Walsh

Notes[link]

References[link]

Unfired "green ware" pottery on a traditional drying rack at Conner Prairie living history museum

Traditional Pottery workshop reconstruction in the Museum of traditional crafts and applied arts, Troyan, Bulgaria

Pottery is the material from which the potteryware is made,^[1] of which major types include earthenware, stoneware and porcelain. The place where such wares are made is also called a pottery (plural "potteries"). Pottery also refers to the art or craft of the potter or the manufacture of pottery. ^{[2] [3]}

The definition of pottery used by ASTM is "all fired ceramic wares that contain clay when formed, except technical, structural, and refractory products."^[4] Some archaeologists use a different understanding by excluding ceramic objects such as figurines which are made by similar processes, materials and the same people but are not vessels.^[5]

Background[link]

Pottery is made by forming a clay body into objects of a required shape and heating them to high temperatures in a kiln which removes all water from the clay, which induces reactions that lead to permanent changes including increasing their strength and hardening and setting their shape. A clay body can be decorated before or after firing. Prior to some shaping processes, clay must be prepared. kneading helps to ensure an even moisture content throughout the body. Air trapped within the clay body needs to be removed. This is called de-airing and can be accomplished by a machine called a vacuum pug or manually by wedging. Wedging can also help produce an even moisture content. Once a clay body has been kneaded and de-aired or wedged, it is shaped by a variety of techniques. After shaping it is dried and then fired.

Physical stages of clay[link]

Clay ware takes on varying physical characteristics during the making of pottery.

• Greenware refers to unfired objects. Clay bodies at this stage are in their most plastic form. They are soft and malleable. Hence they can be easily deformed by handling.
• Leather-hard refers to a clay body that has been dried partially. At this stage the clay object has approximately 15% moisture content. Clay bodies at this stage are very firm and only slightly pliable. Trimming and handle attachment often occurs at the leather-hard state.
• Bone-dry refers to clay bodies when they reach a moisture content at or near 0%. This will occur after glaze firing, when that is done, or after biscuit firing in the case of once-fired pottery.
• Biscuit ^[6][7] refers to the clay after the object is shaped to the desired form and fired in the kiln for the first time, known as "biscuit fired". This firing changes the clay body in in several ways. Mineral components of the clay body will undergo chemical changes that will change the colour of the clay.
• Glost fired is the final stage of some pottery making. A glaze may be applied to the biscuit form and the object can be decorated in several ways. After this the object is "glost fired", which causes the glaze material to melt, then adhere to the object. The glaze firing may also harden the body still more as chemical processes can continue to occur in the body.

Clays and mineral contents[link]

There are several materials that are referred to as clay. The properties of the clays differ in: Plasticity, the malleability of the body; porosity, the degree to which the fired pottery will absorb water; and shrinkage, the degree of reduction in size of a body as water is removed. The various clays also differ in the way in which they respond to different degrees of heat when fired in the kiln. Each of these different clays are composed of different types and amounts of minerals that determine the resulting pottery. There are wide regional variations in the properties of raw materials used for the production of pottery, and this can lead to wares that are unique in character to a locality. It is common for clays and other materials to be mixed to produce clay bodies suited to specific purposes. The two essential components of clay are Silica and Alumina which combine to form Aluminium silicate, also known as Kaolinite. Other mineral compounds in the clay may act as Fluxes to lower the melting point of the silica during firing. Following is a list of different types of clay used for pottery that are available in different regions of the world.^[8]

• Kaolin, is sometimes referred to as China clay because it was first identified in China.
• Ball clay An extremely plastic, fine grained sedimentary clay, which may contain some organic matter. It is usually added to porcelain to increase plasticity.
• Fire clay A clay having a slightly higher percentage of fluxes than Kaolin, but usually quite plastic. It is highly heat resistant form of clay which can be combined with other clays to increase the firing temperature and may be used as an ingredient to make stoneware type bodies.
• Stoneware clay Suitable for creating Stoneware. This clay has many of the characteristics between fire clay and ball clay, having finer grain, like ball clay but more heat resistant like fire clays.
• Common red clay and Shale clay have vegetable and Ferric oxide impurities which make them useful for bricks, but are generally unsatisfactory for pottery except under special conditions of a particular deposit.^[9]
• Bentonite An extremely plastic clay which can be added in small quantities to short clay to make it more plastic.

Methods of shaping[link]

A man shapes pottery as it turns on a wheel. (Cappadocia, Turkey)

Pottery can be shaped by a range of methods that include:

Handwork pottery in Kathmandu, Nepal

Hand building. This is the earliest forming method. Wares can be constructed by hand from coils of clay, combining flat slabs of clay, or pinching solid balls of clay or some combination of these. Parts of hand-built vessels are often joined together with the aid of slip, an aqueous suspension of clay body and water. Hand-building is slower than wheel-throwing, but it offers the potter a high degree of control over the size and shape of wares. The speed and repetitiveness of other techniques is more suitable for making precisely matched sets of wares such as tablewares although some studio potters find hand-building more conducive to create one-of-a-kind works of art.

A potter shapes a piece of pottery on an electric-powered potter's wheel

Classic potter's kick wheel in Erfurt, Germany

The potter's wheel. In a process called "throwing" (coming from the Old English word thrawan which means to twist or turn,^[10] a ball of clay is placed in the centre of a turntable, called the wheel-head, which the potter rotates with a stick, with foot power or with a variable-speed electric motor.

During the process of throwing, the wheel rotates rapidly while the solid ball of soft clay is pressed, squeezed and pulled gently upwards and outwards into a hollow shape. The first step of pressing the rough ball of clay downward and inward into perfect rotational symmetry is called centring the clay--a most important skill to master before the next steps: opening (making a centred hollow into the solid ball of clay), flooring (making the flat or rounded bottom inside the pot), throwing or pulling (drawing up and shaping the walls to an even thickness), and trimming or turning (removing excess clay to refine the shape or to create a foot).

Considerable skill and experience are required to throw pots of an acceptable standard and, while the ware may have high artistic merit, the reproducibility of the method is poor.^[11] Because of its inherent limitations, throwing can only be used to create wares with radial symmetry on a vertical axis. These can then be altered by impressing, bulging, carving, fluting, and incising. In addition to the potter's hands these techniques can use tools, including paddles, anvils & ribs, and those specifically for cutting or piercing such as knives, fluting tools and wires. Thrown pieces can be further modified by the attachment of handles, lids, feet and spouts.

Granulate pressing: As the name suggests, this is the operation of shaping pottery by pressing clay in a semi-dry and granulated condition in a mould. The clay is pressed into the mould by a porous die through which water is pumped at high pressure. The granulated clay is prepared by spray-drying to produce a fine and free-flowing material having a moisture content of between about 5 and 6 per cent. Granulate pressing, also known as dust pressing, is widely used in the manufacture of ceramic tiles and, increasingly, of plates.

Injection moulding: is a shape-forming process adapted for the tableware industry from the method long established for the forming of thermoplastic and some metal components.^[12] It has been called Porcelain Injection Moulding, or PIM.^[13] Suited to the mass production of complex-shaped articles, one significant advantage of the technique is that it allows the production of a cup, including the handle, in a single process, and thereby eliminates the handle-fixing operation and produces a stronger bond between cup and handle.^[14] The feed to the mould die is a mix of approximately 50 to 60 percent unfired body in powder form, together with 40 to 50 percent organic additives composed of binders, lubricants and plasticisers.^[13] The technique is not as widely used as other shaping methods.^[15]

Jiggering and jolleying: These operations are carried out on the potter's wheel and allow the time taken to bring wares to a standardized form to be reduced. Jiggering is the operation of bringing a shaped tool into contact with the plastic clay of a piece under construction, the piece itself being set on a rotating plaster mould on the wheel. The jigger tool shapes one face while the mould shapes the other. Jiggering is used only in the production of flat wares, such as plates, but a similar operation, jolleying, is used in the production of hollow-wares such as cups. Jiggering and jolleying have been used in the production of pottery since at least the 18th century. In large-scale factory production, jiggering and jolleying are usually automated, which allows the operations to be carried out by semi-skilled labour.

Shaping on a potter's kick wheel; Gülşehir, Turkey

Roller-head machine: This machine is for shaping wares on a rotating mould, as in jiggering and jolleying, but with a rotary shaping tool replacing the fixed profile. The rotary shaping tool is a shallow cone having the same diameter as the ware being formed and shaped to the desired form of the back of the article being made. Wares may in this way be shaped, using relatively unskilled labour, in one operation at a rate of about twelve pieces per minute, though this varies with the size of the articles being produced. Developed in the U.K. just after World War II by the company Service Engineers, roller-heads were quickly adopted by manufacturers around the world; they remain the dominant method for producing flatware.^[16]

Pressure casting – specially developed polymeric materials allow a mould to be subject to application external pressures of up to 4.0 MPa–so much higher than slip casting in plaster moulds where the capillary forces correspond to a pressure of around 0.1 - 0.2 MPa. The high pressure leads to much faster casting rates and, hence, faster production cycles. Furthermore, the application of high pressure air through the polymeric moulds upon demoulding the cast means a new casting cycle can be started immediately in the same mould, unlike plaster moulds which require lengthy drying times. The polymeric materials have much greater durability than plaster and, therefore, it is possible to achieve shaped products with better dimensional tolerances and much longer mould life. Pressure casting was developed in the 1970s for the production of sanitaryware although, more recently, it has been applied to tableware.^{[17][18][19][20]}

RAM pressing: A factory process for shaping table wares and decorative ware by pressing a bat of prepared clay body into a required shape between two porous moulding plates. After pressing, compressed air is blown through the porous mould plates to release the shaped wares.

Slipcasting: is often used in the mass production of ceramics and is ideally suited to the making of wares that cannot be formed by other methods of shaping. A slip, made by mixing clay body with water, is poured into a highly absorbent plaster mould. Water from the slip is absorbed into the mould leaving a layer of clay body covering its internal surfaces and taking its internal shape. Excess slip is poured out of the mould, which is then split open and the moulded object removed. Slipcasting is widely used in the production of sanitary wares and is also used for making smaller articles, such as intricately detailed figurines.

Decorating and glazing[link]

Contemporary pottery from Okinawa, Japan

This is an Italian red earthenware vase covered with a mottled pale blue glaze. It has large blue and gold-coated flowers and a scalloped gold-coated rim.

Pottery may be decorated in a number of ways including:

• In the clay body, for example, by incising patterns on its surface.
• Underglaze decoration (in the manner of many blue and white wares).

Underglaze may be applied by brush strokes, air brush, or by pouring the underglaze into the mold, covering the inside, creating a swirling effect, then the mold is filled with slip.

• In-glaze decoration
• On-glaze decoration
• Enamel

Pots in Punjab, Pakistan

Additives can be worked into the clay body prior to forming, to produce desired effects in the fired wares. Coarse additives such as sand and grog (fired clay which has been finely ground) are sometimes used to give the final product a required texture. Contrasting coloured clays and grogs are sometimes used to produce patterns in the finished wares. Colourants, usually metal oxides and carbonates, are added singly or in combination to achieve a desired colour. Combustible particles can be mixed with the body or pressed into the surface to produce texture.

Agateware: Named after its resemblance to the quartz mineral agate which has bands or layers of colour that are blended together, agatewares are made by blending clays of differing colours together but not mixing them to the extent that they lose their individual identities. The wares have a distinctive veined or mottled appearance. The term "agateware" is used to describe such wares in the United Kingdom; in Japan the term "neriage" is used and in China, where such things have been made since at least the Tang Dynasty, they are called "marbled" wares. Great care is required in the selection of clays to be used for making agatewares as the clays used must have matching thermal movement characteristics.

Banding: This is the application by hand or by machine of a band of colour to the edge of a plate or cup. Also known as "lining", this operation is often carried out on a potter's wheel.

Burnishing: The surface of pottery wares may be burnished prior to firing by rubbing with a suitable instrument of wood, steel or stone to produce a polished finish that survives firing. It is possible to produce very highly polished wares when fine clays are used or when the polishing is carried out on wares that have been partially dried and contain little water, though wares in this condition are extremely fragile and the risk of breakage is high.

An ancient Armenian urn

Engobe: This is a clay slip, that is used to coat the surface of pottery, usually before firing. Its purpose is often decorative though it can also be used to mask undesirable features in the clay to which it is applied. Engobe slip may be applied by painting or by dipping to provide a uniform, smooth, coating. Engobe has been used by potters from pre-historic times until the present day and is sometimes combined with sgraffito decoration, where a layer of engobe is scratched through to reveal the colour of the underlying clay. With care it is possible to apply a second coat of engobe of a different colour to the first and to incise decoration through the second coat to expose the colour of the underlying coat. Engobes used in this way often contain substantial amounts of silica, sometimes approaching the composition of a glaze.

Litho: This is a commonly used abbreviation for lithography, although the alternative names of transfer print or "decal" are also common. These are used to apply designs to articles. The litho comprises three layers: the colour, or image, layer which comprises the decorative design; the cover coat, a clear protective layer, which may incorporate a low-melting glass; and the backing paper on which the design is printed by screen printing or lithography. There are various methods of transferring the design while removing the backing-paper, some of which are suited to machine application.

Gold: Decoration with gold is used on some high quality ware. Different methods exist for its application, including:

• Best gold - a suspension of gold powder in essential oils mixed with a flux and a mercury salt extended. This can be applied by a painting technique. From the kiln, the decoration is dull and requires burnishing to reveal the full colour
• Acid Gold – a form of gold decoration developed in the early 1860s at the English factory of Mintons Ltd, Stoke-on-Trent. The glazed surface is etched with diluted hydrofluoric acid prior to application of the gold. The process demands great skill and is used for the decoration only of ware of the highest class.
• Bright Gold – consists of a solution of gold sulphoresinate together with other metal resonates and a flux. The name derives from the appearance of the decoration immediately after removal from the kiln as it requires no burnishing
• Mussel Gold – an old method of gold decoration. It was made by rubbing together gold leaf, sugar and salt, followed by washing to remove solubles

Glazing[link]

Glaze is a glassy coating on pottery, the primary purposes of which are decoration and protection. One important use of glaze is to render porous pottery vessels impermeable to water and other liquids. Glaze may be applied by dusting the unfired composition over the ware or by spraying, dipping, trailing or brushing on a thin slurry composed of the unfired glaze and water. The colour of a glaze before it has been fired may be significantly different than afterwards. To prevent glazed wares sticking to kiln furniture during firing, either a small part of the object being fired (for example, the foot) is left unglazed or, alternatively, special refractory "spurs" are used as supports. These are removed and discarded after the firing.

Some specialised glazing techniques include:

• Salt-glazing, where common salt is introduced to the kiln during the firing process. The high temperatures cause the salt to volatize, depositing it on the surface of the ware to react with the body to form a sodium aluminosilicate glaze. In the 17th and 18th centuries, salt-glazing was used in the manufacture of domestic pottery. Now, except for use by some studio potters, the process is obsolete. The last large-scale application before its demise in the face of environmental clean air restrictions was in the production of salt-glazed sewer-pipes.^[21][22]
• Ash glazing - ash from the combustion of plant matter has been used as the flux component of glazes. The source of the ash was generally the combustion waste from the fuelling of kilns although the potential of ash derived from arable crop wastes has been investigated.^[23] Ash glazes are of historical interest in the Far East although there are reports of small-scale use in other locations such as the Catawba Valley Pottery in the United States. They are now limited to small numbers of studio potters who value the unpredictability arising from the variable nature of the raw material.^[24]

Firing[link]

Firing produces irreversible changes in the body. It is only after firing that the article or material is pottery. In lower-fired pottery, the changes include sintering, the fusing together of coarser particles in the body at their points of contact with each other. In the case of porcelain, where different materials and higher firing-temperatures are used, the physical, chemical and mineralogical properties of the constituents in the body are greatly altered. In all cases, the object of firing is to permanently harden the wares and the firing regime must be appropriate to the materials used to make them. As a rough guide, earthenwares are normally fired at temperatures in the range of about 1,000°C (1,830 °F) to 1,200 °C (2,190 °F); stonewares at between about 1,100 °C (2,010 °F) to 1,300 °C (2,370 °F); and porcelains at between about 1,200 °C (2,190 °F) to 1,400 °C (2,550 °F). However, the way that ceramics mature in the kiln is influenced not only by the peak temperature achieved but also by the duration of the period of firing. Thus, the maximum temperature within a kiln is often held constant for a period of time to soak the wares to produce the maturity required in the body of the wares.

The atmosphere within a kiln during firing can affect the appearance of the finished wares. An oxidising atmosphere, produced by allowing air to enter the kiln, can cause the oxidation of clays and glazes. A reducing atmosphere, produced by limiting the flow of air into the kiln, can strip oxygen from the surface of clays and glazes. This can affect the appearance of the wares being fired and, for example, some glazes containing iron fire brown in an oxidising atmosphere, but green in a reducing atmosphere. The atmosphere within a kiln can be adjusted to produce complex effects in glaze.

Kilns may be heated by burning wood, coal and gas or by electricity. When used as fuels, coal and wood can introduce smoke, soot and ash into the kiln which can affect the appearance of unprotected wares. For this reason, wares fired in wood- or coal-fired kilns are often placed in the kiln in "saggars", lidded ceramic boxes, to protect them. Modern kilns powered by gas or electricity are cleaner and more easily controlled than older wood- or coal-fired kilns and often allow shorter firing times to be used. In a Western adaptation of traditional Japanese Raku ware firing, wares are removed from the kiln while hot and smothered in ashes, paper or woodchips which produces a distinctive carbonised appearance. This technique is also used in Malaysia in creating traditional labu sayung.^[25][26]

History[link]

A great part of the history of pottery is prehistoric, part of past pre-literate cultures. Therefore, much of this history can only be found among the artefacts of archaeology. Because pottery is so durable, pottery and sherds from pottery survive from millennia at archaeological sites.

Before pottery becomes part of a culture, several conditions must generally be met.

• First, there must be usable clay available. Archaeological sites where the earliest pottery was found were near deposits of readily available clay that could be properly shaped and fired. China has large deposits of a variety of clays, which gave them an advantage in early development of fine pottery. Many countries have large deposits of a variety of clays.
• Second, it must be possible to heat the pottery to temperatures that will achieve the transformation from raw clay to ceramic. Humans did not develop methods to control fire until late in the development of cultures. Methods to reliably create fires hot enough to fire pottery came even later.
• Third, the potter must have time available to prepare, shape and fire the clay into pottery. Even after control of fire was achieved, humans did not seem to develop pottery until a sedentary life was achieved. It has been hypothesized that pottery was developed only after humans established agriculture, which led to permanent settlements.
• Fourth, there must be a sufficient need for pottery in order to justify the resources required for its production.^[27]

Earliest known ceramics are the Gravettian figurines that date to 29,000 to 25,000 BC

Cupisnique pottery. Stirrup spout bottle with a feline-human representation. Larco Museum Collection. Lima-Peru

An Incipient Jōmon pottery vessel reconstructed from fragments (10,000-8,000 BCE), Tokyo National Museum, Japan

Early pottery[link]

Methods of forming: Hand-shaping was the earliest method used to form vessels. This included the combination of pinching and coiling.

Firing: The earliest method for firing pottery wares was the use of bonfires Pit fired pottery. Firing times were short but the peak-temperatures achieved in the fire could be high, perhaps in the region of 900 °C (1,650 °F), and were reached very quickly.^[28]

Clay: Early potters used whatever clay was available to them in their geographic vicinity. However, the lowest quality common red clay was adequate for low-temperature fires used for the earliest pots. Clays tempered with sand, grit, crushed shell or crushed pottery were often used to make bonfire-fired ceramics because they provided an open-body texture that allowed water. The coarser particles in the clay also acted to restrain shrinkage during drying, and hence reduce the risk of cracking.

Form: In the main, early bonfire-fired wares were made with rounded bottoms to avoid sharp angles that might be susceptible to cracking.

Glazing: the earliest pots were not glazed.

The potter's wheel was invented in Mesopotamia sometime between 6,000 and 4,000 BCE (Ubaid period) and revolutionised pottery production.

Biscuit moulds were used to a limited extent as early as the 5th and 6th century BCE by the Etruscans ^[29] and more extensively by the Romans ^[30].

Slipcasting, a popular method for shaping irregular shaped articles. It was first practised, to a limited extent, in China as early as the T'ang dynasty ^[31]

Transition to kilns: The earliest intentionally constructed were pit-kilns or trench-kilns—holes dug in the ground and covered with fuel. Holes in the ground provided insulation and resulted in better control over firing. ^[32]

kilns: Pit fire methods were adequate for creating earthenware, but higher-fired stoneware and porcelain required more sophisticated methods of firing using high-fire kilns (see below kilns).

History of pottery types[link]

Earthenware[link]

The earliest forms of pottery were made from clays that were fired at low temperatures in pit-fires or in open bonfires. They were hand formed and undecorated. Because the biscuit form of earthenware is porous, it has limited utility for storage of liquids. However, earthenware has a continuous history from the Neolithic period to today. It can be made from a wide variety of clays. The development of ceramic glaze which makes it impermeable makes it a popular and practical form of pottery making. The addition of decoration has evolved throughout its history.

Stoneware[link]

Glazed Stoneware was being created as early as the 15th century BCE in China. This achievement coincided with kilns that could be fired at higher temperatures. ^[33]

Porcelain[link]

Porcelain was first made in China during the Tang Dynasty (618-906 CE). Porcelain was also made in Korea and Japan around the 16th and 17th century AD after suitable kaolin was located in those countries. It was not created outside of the area until the 18th century.^[34]

History by region[link]

The earliest-known pottery objects are Gravettian figurines such as those discovered at Dolní Věstonice in the modern-day Czech Republic. The Venus of Dolní Věstonice (Věstonická Venuše in Czech) is a Venus figurine, a statuette of a nude female figure dated to 29,000–25,000 BCE (Gravettian industry).^[35] The earliest pottery vessels found include those excavated from the Yuchanyan Cave in southern China, dated from 16,000 BCE,^[36] and those found in the Amur River basin in the Russian Far East, dated from 14,000 BCE.^[37][38]

Other early pottery vessels include those made by the Incipient Jōmon people of Japan from around 10,500 BCE have also been found.^[39][40] The term "Jōmon" means "cord-marked" in Japanese. This refers to the markings made on the vessels and figures using sticks with cords during their production.

It appears that pottery was independently developed in Sub-Saharan Africa during the 11,000-10,000 BCE^[41] and in South America during the 10,000 BCE^[42]

Far East Asia[link]

Sherds have been found in China and Japan from a period between 12,000 and perhaps as long as 16,000 years ago.^[36][43] In Japan, the Jōmon period has a long history of development of Jōmon Pottery which was characterized by impressions of rope on the surface of the pottery created by pressing rope into the clay before firing. Glazed Stoneware was being created as early as the 15th century BCE in China. Porcelain became a renowned Chinese export during the Tang Dynasty (618-906 CE) and subsequent dynasties.^[44] Korean potters produced porcelain as early as the 14th century CE.^[45] Koreans brought the art of porcelain to Japan in the 17th century CE.^[46]

The secret of making such porcelain was sought in the Islamic world and later in Europe when examples were imported from the East. Many attempts were made to imitate it in Italy and France. However it was not produced outside of the Orient until 1709 in Germany.^[47]

South Asia[link]

Pottery was in use in ancient India, including areas now forming Pakistan and northwest India, during the Mehrgarh Period II (5,500-4,800 BCE) and Merhgarh Period III (4,800-3,500 BCE), known as the ceramic Neolithic and chalcolithic. Pottery, including items known as the ed-Dur vessels, originated in regions of the Indus Valley and have been found in a number of sites in the Indus Valley Civilization.^[48][49]

Near East[link]

The earliest history of pottery production in the Near East can be divided into four periods, namely: the Hassuna period (7000-6500 BCE), the Halaf period (6500-5500 BCE), the Ubaid period (5500-4000 BCE), and the Uruk period (4000-3100 BCE).

The invention of the potter's wheel in Mesopotamia sometime between 6,000 and 4,000 BCE (Ubaid period) revolutionized pottery production. Specialized potters were then able to meet the expanding needs of the world's first cities.

Pottery making began in the Fertile Crescent from the 7th millennium BCE. The earliest forms, which were found at the Hassuna site, were hand formed from slabs, undecorated, unglazed low-fired pots made from reddish-brown clays.^[50] Within the next millennium, wares were decorated with elaborate painted designs and natural forms, incising and burnished.
By 4000 BCE, the potters wheel was developed. Newer kiln designs could fire wares to 1,050 °C (1,920 °F) to 1,200 °C (2,190 °F) which enabled new possibilities and new preparation of clays. Production was now carried out by small groups of potters for small cities, rather than individuals making wares for a family. The shapes and range of uses for ceramics and pottery expanded beyond simple vessels to store and carry to specialized cooking utensils, pot stands and rat traps.^[51]
As the region developed new organizations and political forms, pottery became more elaborate and varied. Some wares were made using moulds, allowing for increased production for the needs of the growing populations. Glazing was commonly used and pottery was more decorated.^[52]

Aegean region[link]

Civilization developed concurrently with the Fertile Crescent in the ancient Mediterranean islands around Greece from about 3200 to 1000 BCE and carried to Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome that is considered the Classical era in the Western world. The arts of these cultures eventually became a hallmark for Europe and the New World.

The Minoan pottery was characterized by elaborate painted decoration with natural themes.^[53]

The classical Greek culture began to emerge around 1000 BCE featuring a variety of well crafted pottery which now included the human form as a decorating motif. The pottery wheel was now in regular use. Although glazing was known to these potters, it was not widely used. Instead, a more porous clay slip was used for decoration. A wide range of shapes for different uses developed early and remained essentially unchanged during the Greek history.^[54]

In the Mediterranean, during the Greek Dark Ages (1,100–800 BCE), amphoras and other pottery were decorated with geometric designs such as squares, circles and lines. In the Chalcolithic period in Mesopotamia, Halafian pottery achieved a level of technical competence and sophistication, not seen until the later developments of Greek pottery with Corinthian and Attic ware.^{[citation needed]}

The Etruscan pottery carried on the Greek pottery with its own variations.

The Ancient Roman pottery started by copying Greek and Etruscan styles but soon developed a style of its own.^[55]

The distinctive Red Samian ware of the Early Roman Empire was copied by regional potters throughout the Empire.

Islamic pottery[link]

Early Islamic pottery followed the forms of the regions which the Muslims conquered. Eventually, however, there was cross-fertilization between the regions. This was most notable in the Chinese influences on Islamic pottery. Trade between China and Islam took place via the system of trading posts over the lengthy Silk Road. Islamic nations imported stoneware and later porcelain from China. China imported the minerals for Cobalt blue from the Islamic ruled Persia to decorate their blue and white porcelain, which they then exported to the Islamic world.

Likewise, Islamic art contributed to a lasting pottery form identified as Hispano-Moresque in Andalucia (Islamic Spain). Unique Islamic forms were also developed, including fritware, lusterware and specialized glazes like tin-glazing, which led to the development of the popular maiolica.^[56]

One major emphasis in ceramic development in the Muslim world was the use of tile and decorative tilework.

Europe[link]

A potter at work, 1605

The early inhabitants of Europe developed pottery at about the same time as in the Near East, circa 5500–4500 BCE. These cultures and their pottery were eventually shaped by new cultural influences and technology with the invasions of Ancient Rome and later by Islam. The Renaissance art of Europe was a melding of the art of Classical era and Islamic art.

Americas[link]

Most evidence points to an independent development of pottery in the Amerindian cultures, starting with their Archaic Era (3500–2000 BCE), and into their Formative period (2000 BCE-200 CE). These cultures did not develop the stoneware, porcelain or glazes found in the old world.

Africa[link]

Northern Africa includes Egypt, which had several distinct phases of development in pottery. During the early Mediterranean civilizations of the fertile crescent, Egypt developed a unique non-clay-based high-fired ceramic which has come to be called Egyptian faience. ^{[note 1]}

The other major phase came during the Umayyad Caliphate of Islam, Egypt was a link between early center of Islam in the Near East and Iberia which led to the impressive style of pottery.

As for Sub-Saharan Africa, in 2007, Swiss archeologists discovered pieces of the oldest pottery in Africa in Central Mali, dating back to at least 9,500 BCE. ^[57]

Oceania[link]

Polynesia, Melanesia, and Micronesia

Pottery has been found in archaeological sites across the islands of Oceania. It is attributed to an ancient archaeological culture called the Lapita. A form of pottery called Plainware is found throughout sites of Oceania. The relationship between Lapita pottery and Plainware is not altogether clear.

The Indigenous Australians were hunter-gatherer tribes and did not farm^{[dubious – discuss]} or cultivate crops, and in keeping with these cultural features, they also never developed pottery.^[58] After Europeans came to Australia and settled, they found deposits of clay which were analysed by English potters as excellent for making pottery. Less than 20 years later, Europeans came to Australia and began creating pottery. Since then, ceramic manufacturing, mass-produced pottery, and studio pottery have flourished in Australia. ^[59]

Archaeology[link]

Pottery found at Çatal Höyük - sixth millennium BC

For archaeologists, anthropologists and historians the study of pottery can help to provide an insight into past cultures. Pottery is durable, and fragments, at least, often survive long after artefacts made from less-durable materials have decayed past recognition. Combined with other evidence, the study of pottery artefacts is helpful in the development of theories on the organisation, economic condition and the cultural development of the societies that produced or acquired pottery. The study of pottery may also allow inferences to be drawn about a culture's daily life, religion, social relationships, attitudes towards neighbours, attitudes to their own world and even the way the culture understood the universe.

Chronologies based on pottery are often essential for dating non-literate cultures and are often of help in the dating of historic cultures as well. Trace-element analysis, mostly by neutron activation, allows the sources of clay to be accurately identified and the thermoluminescence test can be used to provide an estimate of the date of last firing. Examining fired pottery shards from prehistory, scientists learned that during high-temperature firing, iron materials in clay record the exact state of Earth's magnetic field at that exact moment.

Environmental issues in production[link]

Although many of the environmental effects of pottery production have existed for millennia, some of these have been amplified with modern technology and scales of production. The principal factors for consideration fall into two categories: (a) effects on workers, and (b) effects on the general environment. Within the effects on workers, chief impacts are indoor air quality, sound levels and possible over-illumination. Regarding the general environment, factors of interest are fuel consumption, off-site water pollution, air pollution and disposal of hazardous materials.

Historically, "plumbism" (lead poisoning) was a significant health concern to those glazing pottery. This was recognised at least as early as the nineteenth century, and the first legislation in the United Kingdom to limit pottery workers’ exposure was introduced in 1899.^[60] While the risk to those working in ceramics is now much reduced, it can still not be ignored. With respect to indoor air quality, workers can be exposed to fine particulate matter, carbon monoxide and certain heavy metals. The greatest health risk is the potential to develop silicosis from the long-term exposure to crystalline silica. Proper ventilation can reduce the risks, and the first legislation in the United Kingdom to govern ventilation was introduced in 1899.^[60] Another, more recent, study at Laney College, Oakland, California suggests that all these factors can be controlled in a well-designed workshop environment.^[61]

The use of energy and pollutants in the production of ceramics is a growing concern. Electric firing is arguably more environmentally friendly than combustion firing although the source of the electricity varies in environmental impact.^{[citation needed]}

Other usages[link]

The English city of Stoke-on-Trent is widely known as The Potteries because of the large number of pottery factories or, colloquially, Pot Banks. It was one of the first industrial cities of the modern era where, as early as 1785, two hundred pottery manufacturers employed 20,000 workers.^[62] For the same reason, the largest football club in the city is known as The Potters.^[63]

See also[link]

References[link]

• ASTM Standard C 242-01 Standard Terminology of Ceramic Whitewares and Related Products
• Ashmore, Wendy & Sharer, Robert J., (2000). Discovering Our Past: A Brief Introduction to Archaeology Third Edition. Mountain View, California: Mayfield Publishing Company. ISBN 978-0-07-297882-7
• Barnett, William & Hoopes, John (Eds.) (1995). The Emergence of Pottery. Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press. ISBN 1-56098-517-8
• Childe, V. G., (1951). Man Makes Himself. London: Watts & Co.
• Rice, Prudence M. (1987). Pottery Analysis – A Sourcebook. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0-226-71118-8.
• Historynet.com
• Tschegg, C., Hein, I., Ntaflos, Th., 2008. State of the art multi-analytical geoscientific approach to identify Cypriot Bichrome Wheelmade Ware reproduction in the Eastern Nile delta (Egypt). Journal of Archaeological Science 35, 1134-1147.

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Pottery

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Pottery

• How pottery is made
• Neolithic Pottery Manufacture
• Pottery manufacture in recent past
• Pottery-related objects and photographs to explore online
• Ceramic Collection at the Royal Military College of Canada Museum
• Customs and Working Practices of a Victorian Pottery
• Ancient pottery in Canada

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1. ^ The non-clay ceramic called Egyptian faience should not be confused with faience, which is a type of glaze.

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Black
— Common connotations —
Power, death, elegance, evil, darkness, mystery, Nubians, Halloween, coal, petroleum, sin, outer space, anarchism, profit, night, bad luck, crime, sophistication
— Color coordinates —
Hex triplet		#000000
RGBB	(r, g, b)	(0, 0, 0)
HSV	(h, s, v)	(–°, –%, 0%)
Source		By definition
B: Normalized to [0–255] (byte)

Black is the color of objects that do not emit or reflect light in any part of the visible spectrum; they absorb all such frequencies of light. Although black is sometimes described as an "achromatic", or hueless, color, in practice it can be considered a color, as in expressions like "black cat" or "black paint".

Etymology[link]

The word black comes from Old English blæc ("black, dark", also, "ink"), from Proto-Germanic *blakkaz ("burned"), from Proto-Indo-European *bhleg- ("to burn, gleam, shine, flash"), from base *bhel- ("to shine"), related to Old Saxon blak ("ink"), Old High German blah ("black"), Old Norse blakkr ("dark"), Dutch blaken ("to burn"), and Swedish bläck ("ink"). More distant cognates include Latin flagrare ("to blaze, glow, burn"), and Ancient Greek phlegein ("to burn, scorch"). Black supplanted the wonted Old English word sweart ("black, dark"), which survives as swart, swarth, and swarthy (compare German schwarz and Dutch zwart, "black").

Color or light in science[link]

Nighttime

Black can be defined as the visual impression experienced when no visible light reaches the eye. (This makes a contrast with whiteness, the impression of any combination of colors of light that equally stimulates all three types of color-sensitive visual receptors.)

Pigments or dyes that absorb light rather than reflect it back to the eye "look black". A black pigment can, however, result from a combination of several pigments that collectively absorb all colors. If appropriate proportions of three primary pigments are mixed, the result reflects so little light as to be called "black".

This provides two superficially opposite but actually complementary descriptions of black. Black is the lack of all colors of light, or an exhaustive combination of multiple colors of pigment. See also primary colors.

In physics, a black body is a perfect absorber of light, but, by a thermodynamic rule, it is also the best emitter. Thus, the best radiative cooling, out of sunlight, is by using black paint, though it is important that it be black (a nearly perfect absorber) in the infrared as well.

In elementary science, far Ultraviolet light is called "black light" because, while itself unseen, it causes many minerals and other substances to fluoresce.

On January 16, 2008, researchers from Troy, New York’s Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute announced the creation of the darkest material on the planet. The material, which reflects only .045 percent of light, was created from carbon nanotubes stood on end. This is 1/30 of the light reflected by the current standard for blackness, and one third the light reflected by the previous record holder for darkest substance.^[1]

Absorption of light[link]

A material is said to be black if most incoming light is absorbed equally in the material. Light (electromagnetic radiation in the visible spectrum) interacts with the atoms and molecules, which causes the energy of the light to be converted in to other forms of energy, usually heat. This means that black surfaces can act as thermal collectors, absorbing light and generating heat(see Solar thermal collector).

Absorption of light is contrasted by transmission, reflection and diffusion, where the light is only redirected, causing objects to appear transparent, reflective or white respectively.

Usage, symbolism, colloquial expressions[link]

Authority and seriousness[link]

Black can be seen as the color of authority and seriousness.

• Black Watch is the senior Highland Regiment of the British Army.
• In Japanese culture, kuro (black) is a symbol of nobility, age, and experience, as opposed to shiro (white), which symbolizes serfdom, youth, and naiveté. Thus the black belt is a mark of achievement and seniority in many martial arts, whereas in, for example, Shotokan karate, a white belt is a rank-less belt that comes before all other belts. These ranks are called dan.
• Black was the color of the Arab dynasty of Abbasid caliphs, which is the reason black is frequently used in flags of Arab countries.^{[dubious – discuss]}
• The riot control units of the Basque Autonomous Police in Spain are known as beltzak ("blacks") after their uniform.
• Traditionally, British police vehicles (panda cars) were in black and white.

Goth costuming

Clothing[link]

• Academic dress includes black robes for graduates.
• Black tuxedos are worn at formal occasions known as black tie functions.
• Black is worn by religious figures within Christianity, e.g. priests (especially of the older religious denominations), monks and nuns.
• Black is worn by Hassidic Jews.
• Black is worn by some Muslim women; see List of types of sartorial hijab for photographs of examples such as the abaya.
• Lawyers and judges often wear black robes.
• Many performers of European classical music or other serious art music dress in black for a concert or recital.
• Members of the modern goth, heavy metal and some punk subcultures dress predominantly in black (see also goth fashion).

Demography[link]

• The term "black" is often used in the West to denote the ethnicity of people whose actual skin color ranges from light to darker shades of brown such as sepia. For a discussion of usage, see the main entry at Black people and color terminology for race.

Philosophy[link]

• In arguments, things can be black-and-white, meaning that the issue at hand is dichotomized (having two clear, opposing sides with no middle ground).
• In ancient China, black was the symbol of North and Water, one of the main five colors.

Politics[link]

• The List of black flags, although not exclusively political, gives many political meanings.
• The Lützow Free Corps, composed of volunteer German students and academics fighting against Napoleon in 1813, could not afford to make special uniforms and therefore adopted black, as the only color that could be used to dye their civilian clothing without the original color showing. As these volunteers were greatly praised and glorified by later revolutionaries, their choice of the black color might have influenced its later connotations.

Black is a common symbol of anarchism, originating as a symbol in the 1880s.

• Black is used for anarchist symbolism, sometimes split in diagonal with other colors to show alignment with another political philosophy. The plain black flag is explained in various ways, sometimes as an anti-flag or a non-flag. Wearing black clothing is also sometimes an anarchist tactic during demonstrations, with a practical benefit of not attracting attention and making later identification of a subject difficult. This strategy is referred to as a black bloc.
• In Portuguese politics, black (and red) is the party color of the Left Bloc.
• The blackshirts were Italian Fascist militias.
• In Nazi Germany, the blackshirts was a nickname for the SS, as opposed to the brownshirts, the SA.
• The black triangle was used by the Nazis to designate "asocial" people (homeless and Roma, for example); later the symbol was adopted by lesbian culture.

Science[link]

• Black sky refers to the appearance of space as one emerges from the Earth's atmosphere.
• A black dwarf is the designation used in astronomy for a star that has burned out.
• The term "black hole" is applied to collapsed stars.
• Black body radiation refers to the radiation coming from a body at a given temperature where all incoming energy (light) is converted to heat.

Sexuality[link]

• In the bandana code of the gay leather subculture, wearing a black bandana means that one is into the Sexual fetish of Sadomasochism, sadists wearing the bandana in the left rear pocket, masochists on the right.^[2]

Sport[link]

• The national rugby union team of New Zealand is called the All Blacks, in reference to their black outfits, and the color is also shared by other New Zealand national teams such as the Black Caps (cricket) and the Kiwis (rugby league).
• Association football (soccer) referees traditionally wear all-black uniforms, however nowadays other uniform colors may also be worn.
• A large number of teams have uniforms designed with black colors—many feeling the color sometimes imparts a psychological advantage in its wearers. Among the more famous (or infamous) include Oakland Raiders and Pittsburgh Steelers of the NFL, the San Antonio Spurs and Miami Heat of the NBA, and Inter Milan of the Serie A of the Italian soccer leagues.
• In auto racing, a black flag signals a driver to go into the pits.
• In baseball, "the black" refers to the batter's eye, a blacked out area around the center-field bleachers, painted black to give hitters a decent background for pitched balls.

Ambiguity and secrecy[link]

• A black box is any device whose internal workings are unknown or inexplicable. In theatre, the black box is a smaller, undecorated theater whose auditorium and stage relationship can be configured in various way.
• A black project is a secretive project, like Enigma Decryption, other classified military programs or operations, Narcotics, or police sting operations.
• Some organizations are called "black" when they keep a low profile, like Sociétés Anonymes and secret societies.
• A polished black mirror is used for scrying, and is thought to help see into the paranormal world without interference or distraction.
• Black frequently symbolizes ambiguity, secrecy, and the unknown.

Beliefs, religions and superstitions[link]

A black cat

• Black is a symbol of mourning and bereavement in Western societies, especially at funerals and memorial services. In some traditional societies, within for example Greece and Italy, widows wear black for the rest of their lives. In contrast, across much of Africa and parts of Asia, white is a color of mourning and is worn during funerals.
• In English heraldry, black means darkness, doubt, ignorance, and uncertainty.^[3]
• The Black Sun is an occult symbol that is said to be related to Nazism and occultism.
• In the Maasai tribes of Kenya and Tanzania, the color black is associated with rain clouds, a symbol of life and prosperity.
• Native Americans associated black with the life-giving soil.
• The Hindu deity Krishna means "the black one".
• The medieval Christian sect known as the Cathars viewed black as a color of perfection.
• The Rastafari movement sees black as beautiful.
• In the Japanese culture, Black is associated with honor, not death with the white color being associated with death.
• Black-dog bias is a veterinarian and animal shelter phenomenon in which black dogs are passed over for adoption in favor of lighter colored animals.
• Black cats may be thought of as either good luck or bad.

Economy[link]

• To say one's accounts are "in the black" is used to mean that one is or "no longer in the red", or free of debt .
  • Being "in the red" is to be in debt—in traditional bookkeeping, negative amounts, such as costs, were printed in red ink, and positive amounts, like revenues, were printed in black ink, so that if the "bottom line" is printed in black, the firm is profiting.

Fashion[link]

• In Western fashion, black is considered stylish, sexy, elegant and powerful.
• The colloquialism "X is the new black" is a reference to the latest trend or fad that is considered a wardrobe basic for the duration of the trend, on the basis that black is always fashionable. The phrase has taken on a life of its own as a snowclone, and has been stretched and parodied as a rhetorical device and a cliché.

Symbolic dualism with white[link]

• Black magic is a destructive or evil form of magic, often connected with death, as opposed to white magic. This was already apparent during Ancient Egypt when the Cush Tribe invaded Egyptian plantations along the Nile River.
• Evil witches are stereotypically dressed in black and good fairies in white.
• In computer security, a blackhat is an attacker with evil intentions, while a whitehat bears no such ill will. (This is derived from the Western movie convention.)
• In many Hollywood Westerns, bad cowboys wear black hats while the good ones wear white.
• Melodrama villains are dressed in black and heroines in white dresses.

Historical events[link]

• A "black day" (or week or month) usually refers to a sad or tragic time. The Romans marked fasti days with white stones and nefasti days with black.
  • E.g., the Wall Street Crash 1929, the stock market crash on October 29, 1929, which is the start of the Great Depression, is nicknamed Black Tuesday, and was preceded by Black Thursday, a downturn on October 24 the previous week.
  • Black Monday, stock market crash on October 19, 1987.
  • Black Wednesday caused Britain to pull out of the European Exchange Rate Mechanism.
  • Black Friday, various tragic events.
• Black months include:
  • the Black September in Jordan, in which thousands of people were killed.
  • Black July killing of the Tamil population by the Sinhalese government in Sri Lanka.
  • Black Spring 2001 (Printemps noir), in the Berber region of Kabylia (Algeria), when the police shot and killed more than 100 people.
• The Black Death, also known as the Black Plague, was a pandemic in Europe that killed tens of millions of people.
• The Black Hole of Calcutta was the overcrowding of an impromptu prison cell in which many died.

Expressions[link]

Namesake of the idiom "black sheep"

• A black-hearted person is mean and unloving.
• A blacklist is a list of undesirable persons or entities (to be placed on the list is to be "blacklisted").
• Black comedy is a form of comedy dealing with morbid and serious topics.
• A black mark against a person relates to something bad they have done.
• A black mood is a bad one (cf Winston Churchill's clinical depression, which he called "my black dog").^[4]
• Black market is used to denote the trade of illegal goods, or alternatively the illegal trade of otherwise legal items at considerably higher prices, e.g. to evade rationing.
• Black propaganda is the use of known falsehoods, partial truths, or masquerades in propaganda to confuse an opponent.
• Blackmail is the act of threatening someone to do something that would hurt them in some way, such as by revealing sensitive information about them, in order to force the threatened party to fulfill certain demands. Ordinarily, such a threat is illegal.
• If the black eight-ball, in billiards, is sunk before all others are out of play, the player loses.
• The black sheep of the family is the ne'er-do-well.
• To blackball someone is to block their entry into a club or some such institution. In the traditional English gentlemen's club, members vote on the admission of a candidate by secretly placing a white or black ball in a hat. If upon the completion of voting, there was even one black ball amongst the white, the candidate would be denied membership, and he would never know who had "blackballed" him.
• Black tea in the Western culture is known as "crimson tea" in Chinese and culturally influenced languages, (紅 茶, Mandarin Chinese hóngchá; Japanese kōcha; Korean hongcha), perhaps a more accurate description of the color of the liquid.
• "The black" is a wildfire suppression term referring to a burned area on a wildfire capable of acting as a safety zone.
• Black coffee refers to coffee without sugar or cream.

Pigments[link]

Black pigments include carbon black, charcoal black, ebony, ivory black and onyx.

See also[link]

• List of colors
• Rich black, which is different from using black ink alone, in printing.

References[link]

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External links[link]

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• All About Black

Steptoe and Son is a British sitcom written by Ray Galton and Alan Simpson about two rag and bone men living in Oil Drum Lane, a fictional street in Shepherd's Bush, London. Four series were broadcast by the BBC from 1962 to 1965, followed by a second run from 1970 to 1974. Its theme tune, "Old Ned", was composed by Ron Grainer.^[1] The series was voted 15th in a 2004 BBC poll to find Britain's Best Sitcom.^[2] It was remade in the US as Sanford and Son, in Sweden as Albert & Herbert and in the Netherlands as Stiefbeen en zoon. In 1972 a movie adaptation of the series, Steptoe and Son, was released in cinemas, with a second Steptoe and Son Ride Again in 1973.

The series focussed on the inter-generational conflict of father and son. Albert Steptoe, a "dirty old man", is an old rag and bone man, set in his grimy and grasping ways. By contrast his 37-year-old son Harold is filled with social aspirations, not to say pretensions. The show contained elements of drama and tragedy, as Harold was continually prevented from achieving his ambitions. To this end the show was unusual at the time for casting actors rather than comedians in its lead roles, although both actors were drawn into more comedic roles as a consequence.

Background[link]

The show had its roots in a 1962 episode of Galton & Simpson's Comedy Playhouse.^[3] Galton and Simpson's association with comedian Tony Hancock, for whom they had written Hancock's Half Hour, had ended and they had agreed to a proposal from the BBC to write a series of ten comedy shows. The fourth in the series, "The Offer", was born both out of writer's block and budgetary constraints.^[4] Earlier shows in the series had cost more than expected, so the writers decided to write a two-hander set in one room. The idea of two brothers was considered but father and son worked best. Ronald Fraser was second choice for Harold, which would have produced a totally different character.

Galton and Simpson were not aiming to make a pilot for a series, having worked for seven years with Hancock. However, Tom Sloan, the BBC's Head of Comedy, told them during rehearsals that "The Offer" was a definite series pilot: he saw that the Steptoe idea had potential, as did the audience of that edition of Comedy Playhouse. Galton and Simpson were reportedly overwhelmed by this reaction, and the first of what became eight series was commissioned, the first four of which were transmitted between 1962 and 1965. The last four series were broadcast between 1970 and 1974, now in colour. At the peak of the series' popularity, it commanded viewing figures of some 28 million per episode. In addition, the early 1970s saw two feature films, two 46-minute Christmas specials. In 2005, the play Steptoe and Son in Murder at Oil Drum Lane, written by Ray Galton and John Antrobus, brought the storyline to a close.

The series was one of the first UK situation comedy programmes to employ actors rather than comedians in the principal roles. Galton and Simpson had decided that they wanted to try to write for performers who "didn't count their laughs".

The series' title music, "Old Ned", won its composer Ron Grainer his second successive Ivor Novello award.^[1] The series had no standard set of opening titles but the opening sequences would often feature the Steptoes' horse, Hercules. "Steptoe and Son" is the Steptoes' trading name, but as established in the first episode, the "Son" is not Harold but Albert. The name dates from when he and his mother—Mrs. Steptoe—worked the rounds. The first series has the pair as very rough looking and often dirty and in ragged clothes but they quickly "tidied up" for later series.

Characters[link]

The father, Albert Edward Ladysmith Steptoe (Wilfrid Brambell), was born on 26 September 1899 though he always claimed to have been born in 1901. His father was unknown but is believed to have been a local muffin man who died in 1910; the portrait Albert keeps of his father is in fact of William Gladstone. He appears to have joined the army underage at the start of the First World War, and is seen wearing the Mons Star medals to prove it. He served with the British Expeditionary Force to Archangel, White Russia, in 1919. Steptoe Senior is lazy, stubborn, narrow-minded and foul-mouthed, and has revolting personal habits. Albert is content with his place in the world, utterly unpretentious and downright cynical. He can be extremely vindictive and does everything he can to prevent Harold, his son, improving himself — especially if it means him leaving home. He is normally unshaven and wears a very old pair of false teeth, discoloured and with teeth missing. His wife died in 1936. He mentions in one episode that he was one of fourteen children.

Harold Albert Kitchener Steptoe (played by Harry H. Corbett), born 1925 (Corbett's birth date) in the 1960s series (or born 1932 in the 1970s series) and educated at Scrubs Lane Elementary School, is also obstinate, though prone to moments of enthusiasm about an idea. Harold has aspirations. He wants to move up in the world — most of all to escape from the family home and his stifling relationship with his father. This is the subject of the first episode, "The Offer".^[5] He likes to see his business as antiques rather than junk. He bitterly regrets leaving the army; his army service took him to Malaya and he achieved the rank of Corporal. He nearly always wears a workman's belt adorned with army cap badges. In the 1960s series he was a veteran of the Korean War, and this was mentioned at least once during the 1970s series. He is a dreamer and idealist. Politically, Harold is a Labour supporter who is appalled that his father is a Conservative Party supporter. He aims to improve his mind and his social circle but always fails, often thanks to Albert's deliberate put-downs or sabotage. Harold's exasperation and disgust at his father's behaviour often results in his repeating the catchphrase "You dirty old man"^[6]

• ^1 Wilfrid Brambell died on 22 March 1985
• ^2 Harry H. Corbett died on 21 March 1982

Situation[link]

The episodes often revolve around (sometimes violent) disagreements between the two men, Harold's attempts to bed women and momentary interest over things found on his round. As in many of the best examples of British comedy, much of the humour derives from the pathos of the protagonists' situation, especially Harold's continually thwarted (usually by the elder Steptoe) attempts to "better himself" and the unresolvable love/hate relationship that exists between the pair.

Albert almost always comes out on top. Albert routinely and effortlessly proves himself easily superior to his son whenever they compete, e.g. in their frequent game-playing, such as the Scrabble and badminton games in the 1972 series. Harold takes them desperately seriously and sees them as symbols of his desire to improve himself, but his efforts come to nothing every time. His father's success is partly down to superior talent but is aided by cynical gamesmanship and undermining of his son's confidence. In addition, Albert habitually has better judgement than his son, who blunders into all sorts of con tricks and blind alleys as a result of his unrealistic, straw-clutching ideas. Occasionally the tables are turned, but overall the old man is the winner, albeit in a graceless fashion.

Harold is infuriated by these persistent frustrations and defeats, even going to the extent in "Divided We Stand" (1972) of partitioning the house in two so that he does not have to share with his selfish, uncultured and negative father. Predictably, his plan ends in failure and ultimately he can see no way out. However, for all the bitterness there is an essential bond between the pair. Deep down, Albert seems to love his son and his behaviour is perhaps a selfish but misguided way of holding on to him so he does not have to face life alone. When the crunch comes, Harold sticks by his father. This protective bond is much in evidence in "The Seven Steptoerai" (1974) when they are menaced by a local gangster running a protection racket. Typically though, it is Albert who gets them ingeniously out of a very hazardous predicament.

Actors[link]

A 2002 Channel 4 television documentary, When Steptoe Met Son, told the story of how Brambell and Corbett were like chalk and cheese—similar to their on-screen characters. Corbett felt he had a promising career as a serious actor, but was trapped by his role as Harold and forced to keep returning to the series after typecasting limited his choice of work. Brambell was in reality homosexual, something that in the 1960s was still frowned upon and illegal, and thus driven underground. The documentary went on to describe an ill-fated final tour of Australia, and claimed that the actors' relationship broke down for good, a fact disputed by Corbett's family^[7] and writers Galton and Simpson.^[8][9]

Both of the main actors used voices considerably different from their own. Wilfrid Brambell—despite being Irish—spoke with a prestige Received Pronunciation English accent. Brambell was aged 49 when he accepted the role of Albert, only 13 years older than Corbett. For his portrayal, he acquired a second set of "rotten" dentures to accentuate his character's poor attitude to hygiene.

Humour[link]

This unreferenced section requires citations to ensure verifiability.

During its production in the 1960s and 1970s, Steptoe and Son marked itself out as radical compared to most UK sitcoms. This was an age when the predominant sources of laughter in British comedy were farce, coincidence, slapstick and innuendo. However Steptoe and Son brought greater social realism. Its characters were not only working class but demonstrably poor. The earthy language and slang used were in marked contrast to the refined voices heard on most television of the time: e.g., in "Back in Fashion", Harold warns Albert that when the models arrive, "if you feels like a d'Oyly Carte (rhyming slang for 'fart'), you goes outside". Social issues and debates were routinely portrayed, woven into the humour. The programme did not abandon the more traditional sources of comedy but used them in small doses. The characters, and their intense and difficult relationship, displayed deeper qualities of writing and performance than comedy fans were used to.

Episodes[link]

Steptoe and Son is rare among 1960s BBC television programmes in that every episode has survived, despite the mass wiping of BBC archive holdings between 1972 and 1978. However, all the installments from the first 1970 series and all but two from the second that were originally made in colour only survive in the form of black and white domestic videotape recordings. Myth has it that the episodes were recorded off-air by Galton and Simpson themselves, but in fact they were copies made from the master tapes for them by an engineer at the BBC using a Shibaden SV-700 half-inch reel-to-reel b/w video recorder—a forerunner of the video cassette recorder. In 2008 the first reel of a b/w telerecording of the series 5 episode "A Winter's Tale" (lasting approx 15 minutes) was returned to the BBC; this is the only telerecording of a colour Steptoe and Son episode known to still exist.

The original 2" Quad videotapes of all the episodes of the original 1962–1965 series were wiped in the late 1960s. However, these episode mostly survive on film transfers of the original videotapes as 16 mm black and white telerecordings.

The BBC has released ten DVDs of the series—each of the eight series, and two compilations entitled "The Very Best of Steptoe and Son" volumes 1 and 2. Two Christmas specials are also available on DVD, as are two feature films: Steptoe and Son, and Steptoe and Son Ride Again. A boxed set of Series 1–8 and the two Christmas specials was released on Region 2 DVD by 2entertain on 29 October 2007.

As well as 57 episodes, there was a radio adaptation of almost all of them and a Radio 2 sketch called Scotch on the Rocks, produced especially for a show titled Good Luck Scotland in 1978.

In 1977 the two actors appeared in character for a television commercial for Ajax soap powder, recorded during their tour of Australia. In 1981 their last ever appearance was in a commercial for Kenco Coffee. This led to what proved to be unfounded rumours of a new series for 1981.

In 2002 BBC Books published Steptoe and Son by Galton, Simpson and Ross^[10] which comprehensively covered the television series, the radio series, movies, Royal Variety Shows, commercials and the Sanford & Son spin-off.

Other countries[link]

• United States; Sanford and Son, a top-rated series that ran for five years (1972–1977) on the NBC network.^[11]

• Sweden; Sten-Åke Cederhök and Tomas von Brömssen starred in Albert & Herbert. The pair lived at Skolgatan 15, an address in a working-class neighbourhood of Haga, Gothenburg.^[12][13]

• The Netherlands; Stiefbeen en Zoon (re-translation; Stepbone and Son) ran for seventeen episodes. It was awarded the 1964 Golden Televizier Ring. Piet Romer (Stiefbeen Jr.) went on to become an established actor in his home country.^[14]

• Portugal; Camilo & Filho Lda., starring famous Portuguese comedian Camilo de Oliveira, with Nuno Melo as his son.^{[citation needed]}

Spin-offs[link]

[edit] Steptoe and Son in Murder at Oil Drum Lane

In October 2005, Ray Galton and John Antrobus premiered their play, Steptoe and Son in Murder at Oil Drum Lane, at the Theatre Royal, York. It then went on tour across the country. It was set in the present day and related the events leading to Harold killing his father and their eventual meeting thirty years later, Albert then appearing as a ghost. By the end, it is clearly established that this is very much a conclusion to the Steptoe saga.

It was not the first time this idea had been considered. When Wilfrid Brambell left the UK after the third series to pursue an eventually unsuccessful Broadway musical career, Galton and Simpson toyed with the concept of 'killing off' Albert in order to continue the show without having to await Brambell's return. The character would have been replaced with Harold's illegitimate son, Arthur (a part thought to be intended for actor David Hemmings). This idea was detested by Corbett, who thought it ridiculous, although the 2008 drama The Curse of Steptoe depicts Corbett as being delighted with the concept, since assuming the role of father would allow Harold's character some development and growth, which he felt was long overdue.^[15]

Films[link]

In 1972 a film version was released of the show proving highly popular, featuring Mike Reid and focusing on Harold getting married but still not being able to get away from his father. Due to popular demand another movie was released in 1973 which was also highly popular with fans.

[edit] When Steptoe Met Son

When Steptoe Met Son was a 2002 Channel 4 documentary about the personal lives of Wilfrid Brambell and Harry H. Corbett, the stars of the longrunning BBC situation comedy, Steptoe and Son. It aired on 20 August 2002.

The programme reveals how Brambell and Corbett were highly dissimilar to their on-screen characters. Corbett felt he had a promising career as a serious actor, but was trapped by his role as Harold and forced to keep returning to the series after typecasting limited his choice of work. Brambell, meanwhile, was a homosexual, something that in the 1960s was still frowned upon and, until the Sexual Offences Act 1967, illegal, and was thus driven underground. The documentary went on to describe an ill-fated final tour of Australia, during which the already strained relationship between Corbett and Brambell finally broke down for good.^[16]

[edit] The Curse of Steptoe

The Curse of Steptoe is a television play which was first broadcast on 19 March 2008 on BBC Four as part of a season of dramas about television personalities. It stars Jason Isaacs as Harry H. Corbett and Phil Davis as Wilfrid Brambell. The drama is based upon the actors' on-and-off-screen relationship during the making of the BBC sitcom Steptoe and Son, and is based on interviews with colleagues, friends and family of the actors, and the Steptoe writers, Ray Galton and Alan Simpson.^[17]

The screenplay was written by Brian Fillis, also responsible for the similarly themed 2006 drama Fear of Fanny, which is about television personality Fanny Cradock off-screen. The 66-minute film is directed by Michael Samuels and produced by Ben Bickerton.

Both programmes were considered inaccurate by writers Galton and Simpson^[18][8][9] and Corbett's family.^[7][19]

[edit] Steptoe and Son

Jack Lane and Michael Simmonds as the iconic duo

In March 2011 the Engine Shed Theatre Company performed three episodes of the iconic series live on stage at The Capitol Theatre, Horsham. Jack Lane played Albert Steptoe and Michael Simmonds played Harold. The three episodes performed by the company were: Men of letters, Robbery with violence and Seance in a wet rag and bone yard. Engine Shed went on to adapt and perform the two Christmas Specials later that year. ^[20]

Many of the original TV episodes of Steptoe and Son have now been officially adapted to the stage by the original writers Ray Galton and Alan Simpson, with David Pibworth and are available for production on www.classiccomedyscripts.co.uk

DVD releases[link]

• The first series with all six episodes was released in 2004 followed by the second series in 2005 and the third, fourth and fifth in 2006. Series 6, 7 and 8 were released in 2007 alongside the Christmas specials.

• The two Steptoe movies were released in 2006.

• The complete boxed set containing all eight series and two Christmas specials was released in October 2007. In October 2011 the boxset was re released with new packaging.

In Australia, Season 1 was released in 2004, Season 2 and Season 3 in 2006, Season 4 and Season 5 in 2007, Season 6 and Season 7 in 2008 and Season 8 in 2009.

See also[link]

• List of films based on British sitcoms

References[link]

External links[link]

• Steptoe and Son at BBC Online Comedy Guide
• Steptoe and Son at the BFI's Screenonline
• Steptoe and Son at the British Comedy Guide
• The Original Steptoe & Son Website
• Steptoe and Son - Television series at the Internet Movie Database
• Steptoe and Son - Feature film at the Internet Movie Database
• Steptoe and Son at Laughterlog.com
• Steptoe & Son Appreciation Society Website
• Steptoe and Son fansite
• Steptoe and Son page
• Steptoe Fansite