Today we have a rare Arabia ceramic board. Made in Finland in the 1960's.
Toban is a painting made of ceramic. Ceramic plates are not very familiar in Japan, but in Northern Europe there is a culture of using ceramic plates in interiors. The overwhelmingly large number of potteries were made by the Swedish pottery Jie Gantofa, and they are widely distributed in Japan. (For details, please see the past post “Jii Gantofuta: History of ceramic plates” )
(Pictured: 1960s Arabia porcelain panel with peacocks painted in eccentric brushstrokes)
At ARABIA, apart from the mass production factory, there was a workshop called the Art Department, where potters produced each piece by hand. This is a ceramic plate produced in the workshop.
(Photo: Designer Annikki Hovisari)
The signature of the designer HOVISAARI ARABIA is written on the lower left. Annikki Hovisari (1918-2004) is known for his vertically elongated ceramic panels called Ornamenti, which incorporate totem patterns and leaf designs.
(Photo: Hovisari's representative work "Ornamenti")
The feature of Hovisari porcelain plates is that there are multiple sizes of porcelain plates with the same design. A small tile-like size was also produced for the peacock porcelain plate. This porcelain plate is the largest in the Peacock series.
The ceramic plate expresses the splendor and brilliance of the peacock with glaze scattered like diamonds. A beautiful peacock is drawn with free proportions and an expression that emphasizes the torso.
In addition to the fact that each piece was made by hand, one of the characteristics of Art Department works at the time was that the color of the glaze was different for each piece. Multiple ceramic plates are produced here, and the design is basically the same, but the coloration is subtly different for each piece. Sometimes it's a dark color, and it's a thin and bright color, and it's various.
This shows that the technicians working in the atelier were given the discretionary power to color freely. While following the base design of Hovisari, the glaze could be mixed freely without deviating from the basic shape. For the same reason, the masterpiece Valencia hand-painted is drawn with a free brushstroke. No two pieces are the same, and each piece reflects the individuality of the painter.
(Photo: Valencia 's hand painting is different for each piece. The method of drawing detailed patterns and the depth of color are different for each piece.)
However, from a different point of view, it can be said that the same product could not be made because the strict standards were not established. For better or worse, Northern Europe is suitable, and there is no sense of value to make exactly the same thing.
Even with Lisa Larson's limited edition of 100 porcelain plates, there is no uniformity in how they are signed, and if you look closely, the sizes are different. Even plates of the same size from the same series often have an error of a few millimeters when placed on top of each other, and they often do not overlap neatly.
In Scandinavia , there is a value called "Lagom", which means that if something is just right for your stature, it's fine. And this feeling is reflected in our quality control. Rather than the dignified presence of "one-of-a-kind", I feel that the unique Nordic flavor of moderate appropriateness appears as "unevenness" and "fluctuation" in the work.