PORCELAIN of the 20-th Century

In 1974 at the ceramic factory JIESIA construction of an experimental subdivision for production of bone porcelain began. Later this subdivision was reformed to the industrial laboratory of bone porcelain. While technologists experimented and prepared the technology for production of porcelain mass, artists of the factory Irena Petraviciene and Aldona Visinskiene designed first references of porcelain services and other articles (saucers, small vases, boxes, candlesticks, jewelry). These articles with changed decor are produced til nowadays. Other porcelain artists such as Zivile Bardzilauskaite-Ragauskiene, Ramute Jurseniene, Valerija Liaugaudiene, Z. Vaskeviciene, as well as Grazina Stunguriene, Grazina Vanagiene and others who came to the factory later also were engaged in designing of services. In 1981 the modern shopfloor of bone porcelain was completed and serial production of porcelain started. In services and separate dishes interpretations of various styles (rococo, classicism) were obvious. Along with increase of production in volume, more modern forms - functionalism, art deco - were used in services. From this side, industrial articles of JIESIA distinguished for their transparent thin fragment, yellowish white tint and echoed general tendencies of industrial porcelain.
Decorative articles designed in seminars and symposia of porcelain arranged by JIESIA carried quite another character. In sixties-seventies individual works were made in the porcelain factories of Leningrad or Riga. Liucija Sulgaite, Juozas Adomonis, Egidijus Talmantas worked with hard (or true) porcelain. Before opening of the porcelain shopfloor, most porcelain articles were created by L. Sulgaite. In her decorative plates, dishes and compositions of sixties-seventies the author emphasized fragility of porcelain, transparency of white color, trying to revive technologies of past epochs (“rice grain”, use of lace and fabric). These experiments helped the artist to embody her projects successively during symposia in Kaunas. Other artists also created compositions from bone porcelain, the fragile material, so unwilling to surrender to artist's ideas. They were Irena Petraviciene, Lilija Olsauskiene, Aldona Visinskiene, Virginija Jasiunaite-Jursiene, Valerija Liaugaudiene, Nijole Sulcaite-Vaskeviciene, Viktorija Karatiejute, Marija Kiauleikyte, Ginte Pinkute, Erika Vaivadaite etc.
The porcelain compositions reflected the same tendencies as ceramic ones, namely disposition to conceptuality, free formation of article, accentuation of notional principles and subordinated material. As other ceramic articles, porcelain works often combined moulded form with other methods of processing, for instance throwing, casting. To reveal the idea, porcelain might be used side by side with other coarser materials, e.g. stone mass, firestone. Purely functional articles were not numerous. Porcelain enriched the scale of expression of Lithuanian ceramists and enabled to extend the notional stratum of article.
Between 1991 and 2001 the seminars named IDEA were regularly organized in the factory of ceramics JIESIA. Constant get-togethers of ceramists of the field gave incentives for further upgrowth of porcelain art in Lithuania. The seminars were participated by ceramists of senior generation and by hot graduates of higher art schools. The field of their interests is very large, but not beyond general limits of Lithuanian ceramics. Though porcelain is in particular fragile and light, nevertheless, artists manage to shape it differently each time. Refinement and elegance of porcelain was stressed in works by N. Blazeviciute, G. Pinkute, J. Kvasyte. Meanwhile such authors as T. J. Daunora, J. Adomonis and some others treat porcelain as a heavy material and sculpt and mount out of it blocks and other geometric shapes, structures dictated by engineer’s and designer’s imagination.
For many ceramists porcelain is an additional material beside clay, freestone etc. (J. Kvasyte, L. Sulgaite, D. Lauckaite-Jakimaviciene). The following artists also created many memorable works in porcelain: Aldona Visinskiene, Dalia Lauckaite-Jakimaviciene, Irena Petraviciene, Zivile Bardzilauskaite-Ragauskiene, Saulius Dirse, Ramute Jursiene. Many artists regard porcelain as an extra device to extend their expression.