Gift of Stephen and Sophie Mathonnet-VanderWell
Image Courtesy Flaten Art Museum, St. Olaf College
This exhibit highlights a selection of ceramics from the Mathonnet-VanderWell Collection at Flaten Art Museum, St. Olaf College. It is presented in conjunction with a pair of linked courses in which students register for both Art History (ARTH 266) and Studio Art (ARTS 236) classes.
The art history course, Arts of the Japanese Tea Ceremony, examines the history and aesthetics of the tea ceremony in Japan (chanoyu), focusing on the types of objects produced for use in the Japanese tea ceremony from the fifteenth century through the present. Themes include: the relationship of social status and politics to the development of chanoyu; the religious dimensions of the tea ceremony; gender roles of tea practitioners; nationalist appropriation of the tea ceremony and its relationship to the mingei movement in the twentieth century; and the international promotion of the Japanese tea ceremony post-WWII.
In the studio art course, Ceramics: Vessels for Tea, students learn techniques used by Japanese potters, and those from around the world, to make vessels associated with the production and consumption of tea. In addition to studio work, students investigate how Japanese pottery traditions, especially the Mingei “arts of the people” movement of the 1920s, have influenced contemporary ceramics practice in the United States and how cultural appropriation impacts arts practice. Students learn both hand building and wheel throwing, use local materials from Carleton’s Arboretum, and experience wood firing and traditional raku processes.