"The Ceramic Narrative is an exploration of past and present ceramic iconography concerned with the depiction of narratives, or with images meant to be thought-provoking, beyond the merely decorative. In simplified terms, 'telling stories on and through ceramics'. The book is beautifully illustrated with an extensive variety of work from history to the present day, showing the work of many contemporary artists continuing this tradition with modern interpretations." "The first five chapters look at how narrative imagery has been used throughout history; examining ancient Greece, the ceramic imagery of the Maya culture, the ceramics of China, Persia and Japan, European tin-glaze traditions and the narrative imagery appearing on later European porcelains. Matthias Ostermann attempts wherever possible not only to present these works in the context of their cultural and historical backgrounds, but also to refer to some of the older myths and sources that may have inspired these pictorial ceramic narratives." "Applied arts writer David Whiting (from the UK) further presents an analysis of the development of ceramic narratives in the 20th century in Chapter Six, and the remaining six chapters present the work of 80 contemporary international ceramic artists whose works explore the narrative in a number of different ways. These include the exploration of mythologies and existing stories; personal visions, private stories and memory; the human figure, relationships and identity; political and social commentary; and finally, the ceramic object itself, seen as message and metaphor."--BOOK JACKET.